almost 8 mos old fighting last BF

[ele]

If anyone had a similar problem, please share what helped.

DD who is almost 8 months is fighting her last BF of the day. This BF session has never been very easy for us, but we had easier days than now.  Despite this, she was still exclusively BF and gaining weight fine.
She is on solids now, 3 times daily (I recently introduced third meal because she seems hungrier during the day). She has about 2 tbsp each meal, dinner is at 5 pm (some fruit actually) and BF by 6:30.
She usually BF 8 min one breast and 4 min another. Now she just stops after 4 min and starts Turning around, looking, fussing, she gets back in breast, sucks for a few seconds and off again, turning, moving. I am having such a hard time coaxing her back on.
last meal supposed to be babies favorite, but just so much struggle for us and I feel it has never been this bad . I am afraid to loose milk, but I am just not a pumping person.
Why this can be happening, what others did to make this BF better.

[*Ali*]

She sounds distracted. Are there other children/people in the room? Is the room dark? My DD won't feed well last thing if we are not alone with the lights out.

The other thing could be that she sees this as BT and isn't ready for bed. What is her sleep routine?

[ele]

Thank you, no she is quite tired by the bed time. she is dropping her third nap and her day is still too long for her with 2 naps only.

We are also introducing 3rd meal (lunch), so it is something like this:

6:00 wu
6:30 bf
7:00-7:30 breakfast
9:00 sleep
9:30/10:00 wu
10:30 BF, go out
12:30 lunch
13:00 sleep
14:30ish up and BF/ go out
17:00 dinner (fruit snack)
18:15-18-30 BF

Since we are introducing solids, can you also please comment how the lunchtime meals look to you. it seems odd to me that I feed her BF at 10:30 and lunch at 12:30, because I can't imagine how to ween her eventually if these two are separate. But I don't know how to structure it better, as she is hungry by 10:30 and needs something in her tummy and after that I do want her to spend some time out, with lunch being closer to noon than in the morning.
Thank you again

[ele]

Dear Ali could you please comment overall on our meal structure more broadly.
She is eating about 2tbsp breakfast  (cereal plus fruit), about 3-4 tbsp lunch (this one is new to us, we do a stew of veggies and will add lentils or egg yolk this week may be), about 1 tbsp (cut from 2 just to see if she eats BF at 6:30 better). No water yet, but I make food more watery because she had a bit of constipation.
She is very excited for all her meals, but she does stop with solids at around these amounts herself. She is also quite excited about BF meals but sometimes she fusses after 4 min. She can eat 1,5 to 2 breasts per meal after all. The last BF of the day at 4 min is her cut off, where we sit around until she agrees to eat more ( like my original post had it).
Thank you!

[*Ali*]

I think she may just be really OT by BT. Normally at this age babies would have 2 long naps adding up to around 3-4hrs. So they may be 1.5hrs each or one 2hr nap and one 1hr nap for example. Then night would be 10-12hrs. So your LO is likely struggling on two naps as she is only doing one very short nap of 30 mins some days and then one 1.5hrs nap which is finishing too early in the day leaving a long A time of 4hrs before BT on not a lot of day sleep. Do you think you would get a longer first nap if you pushed her morning nap later? And any chance or resettling her if she wakes after half an hour?

I would start offering water with every solids meal just so she can practise with a sippy cup and also to wash it down. Are you offering any finger food or still all purées? Maybe try more finger foods so she can really self regulate as well as getting used to handling different textures.

The EASY looks fine but you might find it works better with a couple tweaks so maybe worth a little trial an error. Do you think she is getting hungry in the morning and that she might sleep longer in the morning if you BF her again before her first nap? You could maybe offer it as a top up after breakfast around 8.30 or 9? Or I'd move the second BF to as soon as she wakes from her first nap (which might be closer to 11am if you can get her to nap 9.30-11 for example) and then do lunch at noon and another BF before the second nap either around 13.30 with a nap around 14.00-15.30. That would then allow you to have her solids dinner soon after she wakes from nap 2 at say 16.00 leaving longer between that and her BT BF so she will be hungrier for that last BF. Those times are just suggestions. You can of course fit it around what she actually sleeps but I find my DD does (and my two boys did) better with just a solids meal and one BF in that last A time.

What do you think?

Having said all that if she is STTN without a feed then maybe that last BF is sufficient and you don't need to work too much?

[ele]

ah, no, she doesn't STTN, she wakes up once to eat. I didn't even count it,as I feel that she needs it without a question (she wakes up always at a different time and she eats full meal). I d like to cut it, but with time I am patient (even if a bit tired).
I will try to think of these tweaks thank you. With regards to naps, I would love her to nap consistently longer, I just started putting her at 9 and she slept for 1 hr first day but then she cut her second nap. Today she was again on 30 min first nap and 2 hrs second nap. I feel that she slept always less than or just close to 3hrs during the day time. But I will try to work around your suggestions, may be feeding her before naps will extend her sleep, especially the last activity time.

[*Ali*]

One NF at this age is OK IMO. My DD also has one NF and is the same age.

I hope the tweaks help. Let us know