Nursing Troubles??? - Monroe,GA

Babies most often have a growth spurt around 6 weeks of age. You little one is probably nursing frequently to satisfy her hunger and to keep your milk supply up with her demand. Babies are gifted with something I don't have-- they do not eat if they are not really hungry! So rest assured she will not get too full. There are some variations that can cause tummy troubles, overactive let-down and oversupply. They usually cause green colored poops. Most likely your baby is just being a normal baby and making her mom worry!

Keep an eye out for signs of reflux. Around 4-5wks old my youngest started getting really irritable, kept wanting to nurse then pulling himself off, he was very difficult to console, arching (which I wasn't sure until the nurse practioner at the pedi office mentioned it cause he arched when he was crying which was alot anyway). Turns out he had silent reflux and when he wanted to nurse more he was just trying to cool his esophagus from the burning pain of reflux. We put him on zantac and saw an improvement after about 2 wks. So, it could be gas, could be growth spurt, could be reflux, could be a number of things. We thought our son was having a dairy reaction at first, but that wasn't it. Good luck!

Babies won't get too full, they know when to stop nursing. That's one of the good things about breast feeding. She probably is having tummy troubles or going through a growth spurt. Six week old babies sometimes cluster feed and get frustrated. If it's tummy troubles my kids always felt better if I laid them tummy down across my lap or massage. You also may want to keep track of what your eating, may be a correlation. My middle son had some intolerances and it took me some time to figure them out.

Just a thought - are you sure she's actually getting milk when she's latched? My little one could not get milk on her own so I had to pump and feed her. Around 4-5 weeks she started to get really fussy as well - we switched to Avent bottles and would "pump" her legs like a bicycle to loosen any gas which really helped. Hopefully she's getting enough to eat, it's so hard to know! Keep it up, I'm sure you are doing everything she needs and shouldn't beat yourself up!

Like the other ladies said 6 weeks is a normal growth spurt time so everything is probably perfectly fine.

I HIGHLY reccomend a LLL meeting -- it's always so nice to meet other moms! (AND you can call the local leader if you're worried, even if you haven't gone to a meeting) you can find the group near you at http://www.llli.org/webus.html