How to get help with an older baby
The term “older baby” in lactation can mean different things to different people. For some it means 3 months, when the feeding reflexes start integrating and baby starts to get distracted. For others it’s 6 months, when solids are brought in, movement is the focus and feeding is on the go. In terms of this discussion, we will go with babies over 3 months and go through the different stages and issues.
Many IBCLC’s only know how to support babies 0-3 months. During that time period, babies are sleepy, strongly led by feeding reflexes and easier to teach. With a 3 week of you can take them off the breast to adjust position and relatch easily. At 3 months if you try that most of the time you just get an angry and hungry baby. The little babies are easier to work with form most IBCLC’s.
However, I LOVE the older babies! Each stage has its own challenges and new tools. There are things that make each stage easier, and things that make it harder. You have to know that what worked at 3 months is unlikely to work at 6 months. You must watch and learn from not only all the oder babies, but specifically the baby in front of you.
In 3-6 months the baby is now more alert and awake, starting to be distracted by everything. This really peaks at the 4-5 month mark. Now at 3-6 months baby’s vision is much farther and clearer, they can see all the things in the room that were blurry blobs at 2 months, and it’s exciting! Baby is also trying to roll over, work to sit up and hold their body up against gravity. This is also a common time for parents to return to work, try to sleep train and parental supply to regulate. It’s a time of huge change and growth, with many challenges. If we were to try an oral exercises that worked on a 1 month old, say tug of war, at 4 months it’s not going to work. A 4 month old is going to push out your fingers, bite you, or just look at you like you are crazy. And if you don’t know that’s normal, you are going to think something is wrong. But what works at 1 month, doesn’t work at 4 months.
Then when we get to 6-9 months we get a moving target! Baby is sitting up, working on crawling, might even start cruising during this time period. They are super excited and interested in everything. Instead of just staring at ceiling fans and light fixtures at 4 months, now they want to crawl over and touch the couch, put the little thing you forgot on the floor into their mouth and basically get into everything. Solids are new and exciting, still trying lots of new foods, still taking lots of human milk or formula. Food becomes a wonderful tool! Babies at this age love food, and that makes it a powerful tool. Not only that but when a 7 month old moves, they show you SO much about their body. How they sit, crawl (or attempt to), roll, bring food to their mouth, swallow, literally everything a baby does is showing you their areas of ease and difficulty. That’s part of what I love about this age, they really try to make it easy for us!
When we get 9 months and beyond, things are different. You have a faster moving target, a baby more interested in the world then what I’m doing or saying. But when I start working with a parent of a 9 month or 12 month old, they are dedicated and so knowledgeable about their baby and what works and doesn’t. Parents of babies 9 months and beyond have had thousands of feedings, watching their baby, noticing what works and what doesn’t work. I never second guess a parent, they know their body and their babies, and they know when something isn’t working. This age we use lots of play and mimicry to encourage baby to do what we need, all while making it fun and silly.
Babies that are struggling early don’t magically get better. They find different ways of coping, compensations change and flow in and out as baby’s body and ability adapts. Unfortunately it doesn’t just “get easier” and a certain age. All providers have different specialities, and that’s why it’s important to make sure the provider you are seeing is knowledgeable about your issues. Otherwise it’s a waste of time, money and patience!
Lastly I want to add that older babies are easier virtually! I have been in private practice since 2019 and babies over 3-4 months generally don’t want to “perform” or do what I need to see in the office. Most often I have the parent record short videos, sometimes only 15-30 seconds, and send it to me. Since older babies get easily distracted during visits, it’s easier to use videos to see what’s needed. And that means virtual care is easier, and then you can work with the best provider for you and your issues from your home.
If you have questions about how I can help with older babies and feeding issues, please reach out, I would love to hear your thoughts and questions.