Hello Ladies.
My DS is now 9.5 months and until recently, I was happily nursing him at night right before bed. He self weaned his morning nursing session months ago - he would refuse to nurse, even after sleeping 12+ hours straight. He gets a sippy cup with a straw during the day with EBM.
The past 3 nights, I have tried to nurse him at bedtime, he would lay on the nursing pillow and then latch on but then plop off and start crying. I rocked him and settled him and then tried to nurse him again. I did this three times the other night and finally, I got the hint from him that he just wanted to be laid down. Once I set him in his crib, he scooted to his favorite corner and fell asleep and I didn't hear a peep until the next morning. The next night was pretty much the same and tonight was the same as well.
He has been sick the past few days AND he's been teething on/off. He has his top and bottom two teeth in and he's getting more. The first night he didn't nurse I thought it could be due to teething pain. The second night he didn't nurse I thought maybe it was him being OT. Tonight, I thought maybe he was congested and couldn't breathe, so, I did a saline spray and I gave him some baby Tylenol for his teeth. He did latch on but plopped off and cried hard.
He also was crying in his bath (which he never does) and cried hard on the changing table after his bath. We moved his BT up by 30 minutes today thinking it possibly could be OT - but he still was upset. Maybe his cold?
Any advice out there? I'm not sure if he's not nursing because he can't breathe when he tries to or if he's self weaning. When he gets upset like this, he sucks his thumb to calm down and he self soothes in his crib when I lay him down by sucking. I would think that if he is congested, he would have a tough time thumb sucking as well.
I'm not sure what else I can try. I don't want to give up nursing him yet but I'm starting to worry since it's been 3 nights that he hasn't nursed. Any thoughts?