Top 10 tips to end a nursing strike

If a breastfed baby suddenly refuses to nurse it doesn't necessarily mean she's ready to wean

Teresa Pitman,

Originally published on TodaysParent.com June 11, 2011

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What’s a nursing strike? Nothing to do with picket lines or protest signs ― it’s when your baby abruptly refuses to breastfeed. Sometimes the cause remains a mystery, but often mothers can trace it back to something upsetting during a feeding. Perhaps Mom yelled because the baby bit down, perhaps a toddler spilled an ice-cold drink on the baby while she was nursing, perhaps a stuffy nose or sore throat made nursing unexpectedly painful.

Mom Darcie Light experienced two of these frustrating situations with her second baby. The first, when he was three months old, started with a cold that stuffed up his nose. “He nursed at 6 a.m. and then would not nurse again. I had to express milk to prevent engorgement. In the afternoon, we went to bed and suffered through a few hours of sleep, tears, skin-to-skin time and feeding with an eyedropper. Finally he nursed again at 3 p.m. Only nine hours without nursing, but a long, exhausting day.”

The next time, Light was enjoying a beach vacation with her family when the baby ― now ten months old ― had an allergic reaction to sunscreen. “He nursed normally at bedtime, but when he woke up in the middle of the night, he refused,” Light recalls. Daddy walked him back to sleep, but he continued to wake, unhappy, but unwilling to nurse. Light expressed her milk and froze some of it. The housekeeper who came to their hotel room commented that he looked like he was teething, and when Light gave him some of the breastmilk ice cubes she’d made during the night, he eagerly chewed and sucked on them. That seemed to resolve the problem, and by the end of the day he was nursing again.

Whatever the cause, getting the baby back to the breast can sometimes be challenging, so here are some ideas that have worked for other moms:

1. Check to see if the baby is experiencing physical problems. One mother found a small piece of paper stuck to the top of the inside of her baby’s mouth. Once she removed it, her baby went happily back to the breast. Other babies have resisted breastfeeding because of ear infections (the suckling can make it hurt more), bladder infections, which can make urination painful (babies often pee when they nurse), stuffy noses or teething problems. Also, if you think the cause is something like a new perfume that makes you smell different, try avoiding all perfumes and deodorants for a day or two.

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