Expert: ruth kraft - 1/20/2011

Question
QUESTION: Hi Ruth,
My little one initially feeds every 3 hours until 5 days ago.

4-5 days ago - She cluster feed between 6 am and 12 noon then sleeps throughout the day until about 5 pm then cluster feed again between 6 pm to midnight. Then she sleeps through until 6 am the next day. This happens for 2 days.
Could this be due to her growth spurt?

Then starting from 2 days ago (until today) she has been very very cranky and hard to settle (both day and night but especially at night until early morning).

She also refuse to latch on my right breast (she would scream and cry), but ok on my left one (however she only nurses for 3-4 mins then unsettled and cry again for a feed after 1 hour).

This is making me feel very restless.

Your expert advice on the following issues would be greatly appreciated:
1. How do I get her back to her normal regular feed?
2. This co-incides with us staying over at my parents place. Could this be the culprit?
3. At the moment, I keep pumping whenever she does not finish breastfeeding and give the EBM to her in the next feed. Should I keep doing this? (my only concern is that she will be attached to bottles and will cause further problem in breastfeeding once the current issue is solved)
4. The cluster feeding, is this common and could this be due to her growth spurt?

Thank you so much for your help.

ANSWER: This sounds VERY much like a growth spurt. it will last about a week or so and then become much easier to nurse.

The best way to get her back to normal is feed her as much as she wants right now. Sounds tiring but it is a growth spurt, meant to increase your milk. If you don't feed enough now, it will get worse.

It is not likely your parents, although it could impact the fussiness, it is more likely the growth spurt.

At this point, I don't think she will get too Dependant on the bottle . it would be really much better for both of you if you just kept nursing instead of pumping. Baby is more efficient than the bottle.

Cluster feeding is normal but gets worse with growth spurts. Cluster feeds tend to happen in the evening hours and early morning hours.

---------- FOLLOW-UP ----------

QUESTION: Hi Ruth,
Thank you very much for your prompt reply.
I will try to keep nursing her instead of pumping.

Do you have any further advice in regards to her screaming and refusing the right breast? I have tried to express a little bit before offering to her. However, I didn't seem to work.

Thank you

Answer
hmmmmm there could be a few reasons why this is happening. It could be the flow is too fast or too slow for her. Most babies pick one breast as their favorite. My suggestion would be if it just started, just keep offering and see if she doesn't work through it. If it doesn't get better in the next few days, find a local breastfeeding teacher or lactation educator and have them do an eval in person so see what the triggers are for her.

Good luck!