Discuss the tips for wooing a baby back from a "nursing strike" -- and sometimes it helps for parents to feel that they are on some common ground with a baby suddenly not nursing.  You've both taken some good steps with protecting the supply with the pump, feeding the baby, and lots of skin to skin.  She could try giving part of a bottle first, to see if the head-start on the meal gives the baby more energy and patience to finish at the breast. With a second-time mother perhaps starting with a super-abundant supply, the baby may have been "coasting" on catching the easy flow of the initial engorgement, and now an underlying feeding difficulty is emerging as her body calms down.

While there are developmental leaps around six weeks -- typically "a strike" involves an older baby capable of more opinions.  This sounds more like the baby trying to feed and having physical difficulties.  Feeding is a normal, expected survival activity -- if someone suddenly had difficulty walking, that would be a call for alarm.  This *really* warrants a close examination by the pediatrician, to rule out an ear infection or other illness that makes vigorous breastfeeding painful, or something more unusual and ominous, such as a neurological event.   Has anything changed about the baby's overall muscle tone?  I had a case where the baby had infant botulism, and the mother was glad that she was breastfeeding because she was tuned into the first symptom of the baby's sudden feeding difficulties.  

Margaret Wills, IBCLC Maryland, USA


> Date:    Sun, 28 Jul 2019 22:08:07 +0000
> From:    sally etheridge <[log in to unmask]>
> Subject: Inability to latch at 6 weeks in exclusively breastfed baby
> 
> Hi everyone,
> 
> I am visiting a mother in the morning with a 6 week old baby who was exclusively breastfeeding, and who had breastfed her first child happily. Two nights ago the baby fed at 1am, as normal, but then when she woke for a feed at 4am, she wasn't able to latch on, and has not managed it since. The mother says she just gums the breast, or at most clamps down briefly, but nothing more. Nothing else suggests any reason, though I should be able to find out more tomorrow. Meanwhile they are doing max skin to skin, and she is expressing and giving by bottle, which her baby seems to be managing fine. Cup-feeding was tried but not very successful.
> 
> I am hoping to understand more during the visit, but wondered if anyone might have any thoughts?
> 
> Sally
> 
> Sally Etheridge IBCLC

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