As a new mum, you closely observe your little one watching him or her latch on to your breasts. At times, your little one calls it a “nursing strike”. “Nursing strike” is defined as a time when your baby suddenly doesn’t want to breastfeed. This usually arises when your little one is 3 months old and is aware of his or her world. It is your baby who refuses your breasts but feels fussy and irritated. Your baby is actually distracted. This refusal to latch on to your breasts for any period of time shows a nursing strike.
Sometimes this is mistaken for weaning. However, it is rare for your baby before 2 years to wean.
Read this article to find out more about the nursing strike and understand the ways to bring your baby back to breastfeeding.
What are the Reasons Behind the Nursing Strike?
When your little one enters the phase of the nursing strike, there are both physical and emotional reasons behind it. And the physical and emotional reasons are:
- Congestion or earache in your baby
- An ulcer in your little one’s mouth or a sore throat
- An infection in the hand, mouth and foot of your little one
- Teething in your little one
- The irritation from low milk supply
- Certain hormonal or diet changes in your baby
- The change in the taste of milk of your baby
- Your little one’s feeling surprised by a loud noise or you might yell out of a bite
- Change in the personal products that may make you smell slightly different
You may not be able to avoid many of the above - mentioned reasons, however it is important for you to understand, whether your child is undergoing any problem to not positively affect breastfeeding.
How To Deal With Your Baby’s Nursing Strike?
“Nursing strike” in your baby can be a real challenge for you as a new mum. In fact, while dealing with nursing strike in your little one you need to ensure two things:
Keeping Your Breast Milk Supply Up
When your little one is having less milk than is required, all that you can do is pump your milk or hand express it. As soon as your baby begins breastfeeding again, express your milk to let your body know it is still required.
Keeping Your Baby Fed
When it comes to feeding a baby during a nursing strike, consider pumping and bottle feeding or cup feeding. Moreover, if your baby isn't taking a bottle or cup, ensure that he or she is eating enough calories to stay hydrated and is well fed until he or she returns to your breast.
Not just this much. There are several other ways to keep your baby encouraged to nurse. The ways are:
- While breastfeeding offer skin-to-skin to your baby
- Keep changing your breastfeeding positions
- Breastfeed your little one in a dark room to keep your little one’s distraction at bay
- Keep your stress-free
- Spend some quality – time together while you’re nursing him or her
A nursing strike lasts in your little one for not more than two days or two weeks. Your little one will go back to your breasts only after a few days. However, if your baby is not going to your breasts even after the mentioned period of time, and is losing weight, not peeing or pooping consult your child’s specialist immediately.
When you feed your baby directly from your breast milk then this is known as Breastfeeding.
During the early stages of life breast milk satisfies an infant’s thirst as it contains 88% of water.
The World health organization issued a report Infant and Young Child Feeding in which they mentioned howbreastfeeding is important for the first 6 months of a baby’s life.
Studies show that children with extended breastfeeding have a more IQ level than the children who were never breastfed.
But many families believe that breastfeeding for up to 4 years is not healthy.
Breastfeeding Benefits for the mother:Some women gain too much weight and calories during pregnancy so breastfeeding helps in burning extra calories so that you can lose pregnancy weight faster.