Why is she so unsettled???

Is your little one any more settled yet, Moonbean? Hope things are better. xx

Moonbean, she could just be having a bad day and it could pass. If not, there are a number of things it could be. Have a look at http://www.kellymom.com/bf/concerns/baby/fussy-while-nursing.html for some possibilities. Hope things settle down soon! xx

No you don't need a schedule, if she is able to communicate when she is hungry and is gaining weight well then all is good, I just mentioned it because sometimes mum's are so obsessed with sticking to a schedule they can end up not feeding their baby enough or having to top up with formula and their supply dropping as a result. Probably it is just her becoming more aware, some babies are more distractable than others, give the nursing beads a go and try feeding in a dark and boring room. SG hope you didn't think I was being down on pumping in general, it is a good way to boost your supply if it drops and also very convenient, just something you have to be careful with in some babies, mine for example got very fussy on the boob right after I started giving expressed milk and as a precaution I stopped giving it, no problem otherwise when feeding is going well. Pleased to hear your LO is settling better :)

I also found that pumping and doing some bottles of expressed milk helped my flow...I would feed one side and pump the other, then use what i had to top him up before sleep after his final feed. After a few days he seemed to feed better and it almost sounded like he was swallowing more when he was drinking, strange as this sounds! Re: sleep, we're in a process where we are trying to get him to learn to fall asleep from awake in his cot rather than in our arms....slowly getting there. Also moving him from his moses basket to cot has made a huge difference - I think he's alot more comfortable with lots of room to move and a firmer mattress. Using the top up bottle after his last feed also ensures he's tanked up and he goes down to sleep alot easier too.

Ok well this happened to me at around the same time, and I talked to a few mums who had had the same thing, Basically what happens is the first 3 months you have an oversupply of milk, and then it regulates to suit the needs of your baby, at the same time the flow seems to slow down for a lot of people and some babies seem to get annoyed by this. They also become more aware of the world around them and tend to pop of and look at things instead of waiting patiently for the next letdown. I went through the same checklist of "what's wrong?", colic?, unlikely as if you read up on it colic peaks at 6 weeks and is pretty much gone by 12 weeks, reflux?, I tested this by feeding a bottle of expressed milk while holding my baby in the exact same position as nursing, he was quite happy, if it was reflux/gas then it would also occur when bottle feeding, so that leaves flow. I had to make a tough decision, because up until then I was feeding my baby every 3 hours or so by day but clearly he would starve if he kept popping off like that, so it was either start giving formula or expressed milk by bottle, or sort it out, breastfeeding was really important to me so I went for the latter. Pretty much what I did was not leave the house for a week and breastfeed ALL THE TIME, no more bottles of expressed milk, they just aggravate the problem because they have a fast flow and you're trying to teach your baby to accept the slow flow. They get quite distractable around this age, you could try hanging a necklace of big beads around your neck for them to play with while feeding, feed in a darkened room while sleepy and most importantly chuck the schedule out the window and feed whenever your baby will latch. Swap back and forth from breast to breast even if this means switching every minute for the entire feed and if the feed only lasts 5 minutes, then feed again 30 minutes later. I had about 2 weeks of my baby being upset about it, and then we settled into a routine of frequent mini-feeding with lots of breast switching. Don't worry that this means your baby won't get to the hindmilk, foremilk/hindmilk separation only happens when feeds are spaced further apart so when a baby snacks it will get fatty milk straight away (this is backed up by scientific research despite what you read in some baby books), my baby went up a centile when I started feeding this way. You might find after a week she goes back to taking long feeds, but if not, snacking is fine and not that much of a hassle because while you do have to make sure you are in places you can feed, you are not "stuck" there for 20 minutes or so. I managed to breastfeed my son exclusively until he was nearly 7 months, and carried on with the addition of solids (and no formula or EBM) up until now, he is one year old today, so it can be done. Good luck, I would be very wary of giving bottles in the meantime. Nipple confusion isn't really about "confusion" as much as preference, if your baby isn't liking a slow flow then bottles are going to make it worse.

Infacol is good but not sure it works instantly. If it is wind you could try rubbing your little ones tummy in a clockwise direction or I used to put my baby on her front (watch for sick) to wind her. Good luck!

She could have wind or colic ...sound s like she wants to feed but it's stopping/ bothering her. Try some infacol just pop to the pharmacy they will have stuff that helps them ....is her temperature all ok? Has she had injections ? They unsettle little ones as well..if it still going on and your worried take her to see a doctor :) <em>edited by fairycakeyumm on 05/08/2011</em>

hi moonbeam, this happened to me too around the same time...we weren't sure if it was reflux or milk flowing to slow or too fast...we were also having sleep issues though which was actually the problem as he was getting overtired and not feeding properly and it was like a domino effect. We're working on sleep now which is improving, esp naps during the day and he's starting to feed better too. In the interim I did express and feed a few bottles as this was less tiring for him so it helped him to get through - also he has no issues taking the bottle or with nipple confusion so this helped for us. Could also be developmental if she is more alert and looking around? Or perhaps she has gas...i found often my DS would do this and then I'd take him off and burp him and he'd be much better.... hope you work this out soon! x