Fussing with Breastfeeds

In our experience, this is usually related to milk supply or the way a mother has been shown to breastfeed, which has not resulted in achieving good positioning to ensure all milk ducts are open for the baby to drink from - and so they fuss. The baby's naked feeding reflexes may also have been stifled by having been kept wrapped at the breast to keep their hands out of the way. And sadly, far too often, there are still stories of babies being held by the shoulders or head and pushed onto the breast when they won't latch, triggering a reflex to arch back.

Directly after a baby is born there is only a small amount of milk in the breasts. To be able to drink it all, bub has to be able to find the nipple and draw it through towards the back of the mouth to suck. This allows him to naturally then compress all the fine milk ducts that lay fairly superficial to the areola like a clock face and get the most out of the feed.

He may need to be helped into a position where there is no breast tissue drag or twist compressing the milk ducts and limiting their flow. If you take a look at our About Breastfeeding page, you will see the multiple ways that babies are breastfed where this fine-tuning is overlooked. It's an easy fact to appreciate, that when the milk doesn't flow well, frustration sets in for the baby.

Adopting the Possums approach from birth gives your baby an excellent start with contented breastfeeding.

If a baby has had a frustrating early breastfeeding experience, they can tend to remember that and react with a conditioned response where they dial up, crying and fussing each time feeding is revisited. This takes patience and good feeding technique, to turn around. It can be done, but you are likely to need help from a Possums NDC practitioner.

Lastly, are you able to keep your milk supply up enough for your baby? We encourage frequent flexible feeding where each breast is stimulated around 12 times a day to help make sure there is enough milk at any time for the bub when they might want it. We commonly see babies fussing at the breast if their birth and hospitalisation has involved phototherapy for jaundice, where the mother has experienced inadequate suckling from a sleepy bub and then not been supported with enough expressing or pumping to replace the loss of breast stimulation.

We also see it when parents have introduced formula bottle top-ups, as this has a down regulating effect on a lactating woman's milk supply. Baby won't be waking as much because they are not hungry. This then directly effects the 'demand - supply' neuro-hormonal feedback loop between your brain and breast resulting in a drop in your milk supply.

You could try 'power pumping', however, putting your baby to each breast at least 12 times a day is the best approach for managing a low supply.