>Mom's permission to post to y'all.... Saw a 6 week old baby today who is a
>screamer.  He came into the office screaming, and he could hardly settle.
>Mom has been unable to breastfeed successfully as he screams at the breast.
>Occasionally he will calm enough to latch on & feed for a few minutes, but
>then he starts screaming Jan -

Maybe it's worth taking another look at overactive let-down/oversupply.
A few years ago I saw a momw/ a *miserable* baby.  I was confident
*I* could settle the baby in a slingand get her to sleep... but I couldn't.

She looked like a raccoon, her eyeswere so shadowed, but she was just
too uncomfortable to settle at all.

We futzed around with diet for the longest time;  I didn't think it was
oversupply because mom's breasts seemed fine, there was no evidence of
gulping or spraying, and switching to using one side per 2 hours had changed
greenish stools to yellow.  So we had fixed the small OS problem that she
had, right?

Wrong.  What finally worked was mom spending 6 hours on a side.  Baby perked
right up, became a little ray of sunshine.  And the mother commented that it
was the first time her breasts had been really comfortable.  Interesting how
much milk and discomfort could hide in breasts that seemed fine *to me*.

Last week I saw a little 3 week old, gaining well, fussy, mom had sore
nipples.  We changed the positioning to fix the nipples, and I encouraged
her to nurse whenever baby wanted, instead of maintaining a 2 hour minimum
spacing as she'd been doing.

She called a week later to say everything was terrible.  Baby fussed all day
and all night, her nipples were sore from the baby pulling and tugging and
resisting the new positioning, life was a mess (thanks to me...)  I
suggested she stick to one side per 2 hours, and had the good sense to tell
her about the 6 hour mom.

She called the next day to say things had improved *dramatically*.  She'd
gone the 2 hours, and then "her instincts told her to go longer".  For two
days now, she's gone 4 to 6 hours on a side and has had a sunshiny baby with
no further problems, nursing calmly and well.  And this mom, too, commented
on how comfortable her breasts now were.  Had I not mentioned the 6
hour mom, I'm sure this mom wouldn't have thought to try it, and we might
well, at this point, be into diet changes and despair.  Hurray for
instincts!

Diane Wiessinger, MS, IBCLC  Ithaca, NY
www.wiessinger.baka.com

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