My 3 week old daughter gets very agitated about 10 mins into a feed. What could the cause of this?
It sounds like your baby is experiencing wind pains during the feed. Perhaps you could take her off the breast the moment she starts squirming to avoid her painfully pulling back and traumatising your nipples. You could then wind her and re-start her on the same breast to ensure she gets plenty of the higher calorie hindmilk from this breast –if you switch breasts at this stage she will get the lower calorie foremilk from both breasts and a reduced amount of hindmilk. Babies need both foremilk and hindmilk at each feed.
It might also be useful for someone with breastfeeding expertise to observe your baby feeding. This would check if your baby’s latch is correct and whether she is swallowing a lot of wind while she feeds – you might suspect this if she is a noisy feeder and if milk dribbles from around her mouth while she feeds. If someone with breastfeeding expertise observed a feed she might be able to give you some pointers for improving her latch.
Also, during the first 5-10 minutes of feeding on the first breast she may be getting mainly foremilk (babies differ in the speed with which they remove milk), which is high in lactose and this can cause an excessive build up of wind.
Some mothers whose babies have experienced this problem find it improves if they express some foremilk before putting the baby to the breast to ensure the baby gets less foremilk and more hind milk (don’t discard the foremilk you express, you can freeze this and use it as a back up supply). If you want to try this, have a look at the information on expressing on this website. At 3 weeks you may not be able to express very much (which is not an indication of your milk supply as babies are much more efficient at milk removal than you are!) but even if you get a little you will have stimulated let down. This latter may help reduce the build up of wind too, as babies are more likely to swallow wind during the first 1-2 minutes of rapid sucking when they are stimulating your let-down, during which they don’t get any milk.
Later on when you have been breastfeeding for longer you will find your let-down will happen much more quickly –mothers often feel a tingling in their breasts when let-down starts.
The usual recommendation is to feed from the first breast for as long as possible (to ensure maximum hindmilk transfer from the first breast), wind and change the baby, offer the second breast and let the baby decide if she wants any more. Your baby is not able to achieve this right now as the distress caused by her wind build up is disrupting her establishing this pattern. Changing your feeding position may also help.
Speak to your public health nurse about this problem and contact a La Leche League or Cuidiú breastfeeding counsellor in your area for advice. Attending a HSE, La Leche League or Cuidiú breastfeeding support group could also be beneficial as you will find you are not alone in experiencing this problem. Contact details for these groups are available on this website.
