What is false breast refusal?
Around the age of 3-4 months, one of the first leaps in a child’s development occurs. He begins to understand that besides his mother and besides him, there is a beautiful, diverse, amazing world around him.
If the mother is in constant tension, this will be transmitted to the newborn, which means you need to remain calm
This is the first stage in the separation of the baby’s personality from the mother. The child begins to actively explore the world, he is interested in everything around him, begins to receive a lot of information and is keenly interested in everything that surrounds him.
Therefore, when you try to attach the baby to you, he does not take it, turns his head around, or takes it and throws it. At the same time, it is clear that the baby wants to eat, and accordingly he cries. These are the main signs of false breast refusal.
Many people believe that this means that the baby no longer wants to eat breast milk, and switch to formula.
This is a very common situation. This was the case in the times of your mothers and grandmothers, when the baby stops breastfeeding at the age of 3-4 months, stops eating milk - mothers begin to switch their children to formula and semolina porridge.
During weaning, the baby:
- cries;
- behaves restlessly at the breast;
- turns away;
- generally refuses to eat breast milk.
This situation greatly spoils the nerves of mothers who dreamed of feeding their newborns until a certain age - up to 1 year or up to 1.5 years.
Many simply do not know that there is such a thing as false breast-refusal, and begin to attribute bad qualities to their milk if the day before they ate something spicy or garlicky.
The main thing is to pull yourself together. Try expressing about 20 ml of milk into a bottle and offer it to your little one. The baby should eat everything without any problems and fall asleep safely .
From the practice of a consultant. Weaning at 6 months
The problem that my mother Ira called me out on was breast refusal. At night my son sucks, but during the day he never sucks, not even during dreams.
Breast refusal is when the baby does not take the breast, even if he is hungry. Refusal can happen at any age, and varies in degree (loyal - when the child sometimes still takes the breast, and categorical - does not take it under any circumstances).
The reasons for this phenomenon are different, there are also many ways to overcome it, you just need to choose the right ones. Mom can cope on her own, but often it is quite difficult - you need an outside perspective on the situation and support, practical and psychological. After all, when your little child refuses to eat, it is very frightening.
Over the phone, Ira’s mother said that about a month ago, her son began asking for the breast less and less often and became distracted while sucking. I started having problems with daytime sleep - I started sleeping only outside. If they tried to settle down at home with the breast, he refused to suckle, fell asleep for 15 minutes, then, dissatisfied and not getting enough sleep, became capricious in the evening, still spitting out the breast.
Mom began to have less milk - she began to express and tried to give it to her son from a spoon and from a syringe, which the boy did not like, but Irina managed to pour in small portions everything that she could express. About a week ago we started complementary feeding - vegetables from a jar, which Alexey also didn’t really like, but he didn’t express much protest. Refuses to drink complementary foods with milk.
Among the complicating circumstances were: moving to a new place (they will be there for another month), a massage course at six months and teething (there are already two lower ones and the upper ones are coming in), with which he bit his mother’s chest, sometimes even until blood was drawn, and she screamed .
Ira didn’t supplement formula feeding on principle, she knew about bottles, she knew that you couldn’t force breastfeeding into a child, and she bought a breast pump to express herself. Just great. I was a little worried, because it turned out that the baby ate only at night mostly (about five times, according to the mother), and during the day very little milk got into him. And this has been going on for quite some time, about two weeks.
Baby Lesha turned out to be a strong, active butt with big cheeks and butt. The butt was seen changing a diaper, which was just being changed when I arrived. Clearly not a thin client, he quickly crawled on the bed, tried to eat my folder throughout the consultation, made eyes and flirted. Well, he was clearly not in danger of dehydration now, and that was good. He doubled his birth weight at just four months old, has learned to move around smartly, and is about to sit up. At the beginning of feeding, he and his mother had problems, they even fed in pads, but they overcame everything: the baby loved to eat, was ready to suck constantly. And then suddenly such an unexpected stop.
Well, actually not that unexpected. A lot of things came together - moving, massage, teeth. During the holidays, they went to visit a lot... During the first ten days of January, Lyoshik even lost weight. But when Irina started pumping and fighting to feed him, he gained them back. At night I ate often, but not for very long. Mom used to put him in his crib, but now they sleep together, and dad doesn’t mind either. This is cool.
We talked about the connection between refusal and all the circumstances. In general, I try not to call a refusal a refusal, and I ask the mother not to say that in front of the baby. Let it be “anxiety in the chest.” She asked me to offer the breast to the baby to see how he did not suck. Well, yes - it doesn’t suck. He is also distracted by an unfamiliar aunt, although the aunt hid. He takes the breast, immediately lets go, bites. Irina changed her position at the chest several times, she says, sometimes she helps, she suggested moving, but it didn’t work. Then I suggested that my mother express some milk in order, firstly, to see how she does it, and secondly, to figure out what they would use to supplement their feeding: it was completely clear that a syringe and a spoon would not fit - the man is already a big man.
Ira’s pumping didn’t go very well, she placed her fingers too far and they moved on the skin. We rearranged our fingers, it became more fun, and after drinking a mug of hot tea it felt completely good. In a few minutes, an entire bottle cap was poured. They offered it to Alyosha - he grabbed the container with both hands and dashingly swallowed all the milk. Both of them and their mother clearly liked it more than before.
Then we talked about the general organization of everyday life and about returning the child's breasts, that is, the breast: lots and lots of tactile contact and games, joint baths and sleep, abolition of complementary feeding for a while, offering the breast around dreams and much more. It turned out that they have a good ergonomic backpack, but they have never tried to ride in it yet. They immediately began to train, fastened the client - he took it well, did not twist, hung and thoughtfully chewed the straps.
After recording and repeating the recommendations, the conversation gradually moved towards complementary feeding. It was time for Alexei to sleep, and he was pretty tired. We said goodbye. And then we communicated with Irina by phone and mail. Leshka got a very sensitive, gentle and attentive mother. Or did she get it?
The boy slowly began to breastfeed. First for one of the daytime naps, then more often. In one of her letters, Irina wrote: “We are doing better, everything works out almost every time. For some reason there was less milk on day 3 that week, but everything was restored. We’re already eating an apple, a banana, and giving microdoses of buns - he sees it from dad and asks for it. It’s getting more and more difficult with mashed potatoes, he rips out the spoon, everything flies to the floor, his hands are dirty, well, everything around...”
It’s okay, Leshka will learn, he’s persistent. Now it is no longer necessary to consult on refusal, but on complementary feeding, which is also very useful - mothers of first children worry about how and what to give, weigh grams and count spoons. On the one hand, we reassure that food is just food, and on the other hand, it is important to tell and show that food interest is the main thing in any complementary feeding. Then later you won’t need to dance with tambourines so that the baby will eat at least something.
Unfortunately, it often happens that mothers take the refusal of breastfeeding of such grown-up babies for granted: “He himself refused, which means he has grown up, and he no longer needs breastfeeding.” Yes, it happens sometimes, very rarely, but it happens. But this is the exception rather than the rule. Most often, behind refusals there is some kind of discomfort or stress that the child has experienced or is currently experiencing. And it is better to understand and correct this now and with the help of the breast, than to deal with the consequences at an older age, without even knowing how long ago and where it all started.
Pay special attention, especially if the child is not yet one and a half years old: the baby suddenly begins to turn away from the breast, bite, put it in his mouth and throw it away crying. Don’t take this as a sign that he has suddenly grown up, doesn’t need breastfeeding and it’s time to feed him cutlets. Most likely, there is a reason or several for this behavior. Let's figure it out together.
Action plan for 3 days
The baby wants to sleep and eat. Don't exhaust yourself or him by trying to breastfeed when he cries and is capricious. Gather all your will into a fist.
First, rock the screaming and crying baby. Try swinging together on a fitball for a long time. And try giving breast milk to your half-asleep daughter or son at this time.
In a half-asleep state, when the baby is not distracted by anything and the nervous system is not overexcited, the baby takes the breast and eats calmly. The baby eats actively, with a good appetite, and subsequently falls asleep.
During this period, stop using bottles and pacifiers..
Feeding in a half-asleep state after crying will continue for 2-3 days, and then the baby will begin to suck breast milk normally.
At the first sign of refusal, it is necessary to establish psychological and emotional contact with the baby
After 2 weeks, return to using the pacifier on walks. After some time, when you are leaving somewhere, return to the bottle.
Such manipulations will help the child not to refuse the breast in the future, and false refusal will not happen again.
Show resilience and perseverance, continue to feed the baby, despite the fact that these 2-3 days can be quite difficult, both psychologically and physically.
Refusal of both breasts in the first weeks
If refusal begins between the second and fifth days, the cause may be engorgement of the breast or a delay in milk supply, which causes stress in the baby.
If refusal begins within the first month and the child received breast substitutes (bottle and pacifier), then they may have been a precipitating factor for breast refusal.
Some babies will refuse to breastfeed if their mouth and nose were roughly cleaned immediately after birth or if they were placed roughly at the breast. In some cases, mothers are so motivated to breastfeed that they make many attempts to put their babies to the breast, despite the fact that they are upset. There are babies who latch well to the breast after such an experience, but some may have negative associations, which is the reason for refusing to breastfeed. In the latter case, it is necessary to take time to create the impression that the chest is a pleasant place.
Babies often refuse the breast if they are not put to the breast when they want it; if there is no feeling that the breast is deep in the mouth; if the mother has a very slow or very fast milk flow; if the mother has a hard nipple (for those babies who were bottle-fed and given a pacifier).
In some cases, all that is needed to resolve a refusal problem is to improve your latching technique. At times when the baby is not very hungry, it is necessary to take a comfortable position, for example, a reclining position, and put the baby on top, thereby triggering his innate behavior and allowing the baby to take the breast himself.
If the baby does not take the breast deeply, then his tongue does not receive sufficient stimulation to initiate active sucking and this leads to anxiety in the baby. In this case, the mother needs to take a more active role and help the baby latch deeply using breast shaping and asymmetrical latching.
If the baby was bottle-fed and he began to worry about the softness of his mother’s breasts, then it is necessary to use breast shaping and support.
In some cases, squeezing out a drop of milk or using silicone pads can help.
