Breast Refusal

It can be very distressing when your baby refuses to latch on your breast. There are many reasons why this happens, but ultimately it’s a bit of a guessing game because babies can’t talk and tell us why! Here are a few situations that may cause your baby to refuse to latch:

• moms return to work and babies are getting pumped milk in a bottle (they gradually or suddenly may prefer the bottle)

• thrush in baby’s mouth (yeast infection) or other oral discomfort/pain

• decreased milk supply or flow rate at the breast

• mastitis (can temporarily change the taste of breast milk…but is still safe for your baby to drink)

• nursing strike (for reasons not well understood)

When your baby is refusing the breast, it is important to avoid insisting or forcing your baby to latch (that will cause stress for both you and your baby and make your baby’s breast aversion worse). Try offering when your baby is on “auto-pilot” or sleepy…they tend to revert to infant feeding reflexes in a sleepy state and might latch on without “thinking” about it. Spend relaxing, calm times with baby skin on skin, with your breast available but without any direction on your part to feed. Take a bath with your baby, snuggle skin to skin, let your baby decide if they want to try latching. Pump as often as you need to in order to keep up your full milk supply in the meantime, and rest assured that even if your baby is not latching, they are still getting the excellent nutrition from your milk. Read more here for further ideas.

Feel free to contact us anytime, even if you just need an empathetic ear.