Remember the baby whose green stools and spitting up were eliminated when
mom switched to one breast per 2 hours, but whose incredible fussiness
remained?  Well, the solution seems to have been as simple as extending the
time to 3-4 hours per breast.

It's been 3 days now, and the baby smiles, interacts, sleeps 2-plus hour
stretches at night, and has quiet alert times during the day.  No further
need for 24-hour-a-day bouncing to try to quell the crying!

What kept me from trying this earlier was that the *only* sign of a
continued foremilk-hindmilk imbalance/over-active
let-down/oversupply/whatever you want to call it were the fussiness and
painful gas.  Stools were yellow, pasty, with only 3-4 a day.  Intake at
breast was low (maybe 20 cc every hour or less, from what I witnessed) and
relatively placid - no hurried gulping.  Mom's breasts had adapted smoothly
to the reduced stimulation - no ongoing fullness or leaking.

The moral to me:  the f-h i/o-a l-d/o/wywtci syndrome (what *do* we call it
now?) may have fussiness as its *only* symptom, even when everything else
seems fine.

The two articles that this mom found most helpful were the LC Series #13
The Effects of an Overactive Let-Down Reflex (of course), and an article
from the most recent Breastfeeding Review (don't have it in front of me)
written by a mother whose baby suffered severe reflux symptoms for 9
months.  She writes about how exhausting and isolating and disempowering a
chronically crying baby is, what empathy she now has for women who harm
their children, and how she once stood on a balcony herself, thinking, "All
I have to do is let go of him, and the noise will stop."

My fussy baby mom went home after reading that at my house feeling *much
better* and much more able to cope.  Her own feelings had been recognized
and accepted - even her not-so-noble ones.  Oh, the need for stories to
share with our moms!

Diane Wiessinger, MS, IBCLC, LLLL  Ithaca, NY