Mardrey, I did like your very descriptive account of strange feeding
behaviour. You have obviously been pondering a *lot* about what is causing
this.  And it sounds as if your ideas for feeding quickly as soon as baby
wakes, and re-positioning are spot on.

This sounds like a baby who may be reacting to bovine proteins in the
mother's milk.  You mentioned that mother had not been using a lot of dairy
and had recently stopped, but I find it may take an elimination of dairy for
two full weeks for a difference in the baby's behaviour to be really
noticeable.  In the meantime (from observing babies behaving in a very
similar way) it looks like the baby is hungry, goes eagerly to the breast
for a while, then starts behaving irritably and arches and thrashes around.
This causes the baby to lose the nipple.  This causes the baby to become
very frustrated!  You are right that the mom should not hold the baby's
crown (babies become incensed if you do this!), but she could hold fairly
firmly around the shoulders and curl the baby at the hips (soles of feet
should not touch anything) so that the baby is less able to arch and "lose"
the nipple.  If baby loses the nipple anyway, mom can "follow" the mouth
with the breast and *very quickly* relatch - before the baby gets
frustrated.  I find that if mom with talk gently and croon to the baby and
keep her attention, then if she can keep the baby sucking long enough to
obtain another let-down the baby will drink again and so on and so on. Mom
may have to offer very frequent short breastfeeds if she cannot coax the
baby to take long breastfeeds.  Sometimes nursing while walking helps.

This kind of breastfeeding experience can be extremely frustrating for the
mother who starts to feel very rejected.  The baby behaves as if the milk is
poisonous, becoming more and more upset the more milk she obtains and yet
you can see that she is still hungry.  I find that if the mother is able to
hang in there and totally eliminate the dairy, the baby may become a little
calmer after about five days and a lot calmer (nurses longer, starts to
enjoy the breast again) after the two full weeks are up.  When I see this
kind of thing, the most prominent feature is the baby's extreme irritability
*after* feeding.

I hope others will come up with more ideas for you.  Best wishes to all.

Pamela Morrison IBCLC, Zimbabwe