There is no doubt that breast milk is the best food a newborn can receive for at least the first six months of life; However, breastfeeding is often not easy and we often experience ups and downs. Some of the especially difficult moments that can end in weaning due to ignorance are outbreaks or growth crises . And that is why I usually comment on it in the consultation in some of the first visits of the newborn.
What is a growth crisis?
Growth crises are periods in which babies need us to increase our milk production and for this they tend to breastfeed more often. The production of breast milk is regulated, among others, based on demand: the more the baby suckles, the greater the stimulus and the more milk we will produce. In general, the seizures last a few days (less than a week) and afterwards everything returns to normal.
What are the most common growth crises?
Although each baby is different, it is common for seizures to appear at 3 and 6 weeks and at 3 and 6 months; a year and 2 years are also frequent crises. Each one of them has some particular aspect; below we comment on the most significant crises.
- Crisis of 17-20 days of life :
It is usually the first growth crisis. The usual thing is that our baby had already established the intakes and more or less claimed them every 2-4 hours. However, you are now beginning to order much more frequently, even every hour or every half hour; the mother has the feeling that she is breastfeeding 24 hours a day and that her baby is not satisfied, and doubts arise as to whether we have enough milk.
- Six Week Crisis :
Again babies need to increase the amount of milk and the way to do this is by breastfeeding more frequently. In addition, some cry, pull the nipple and arch their back. This crisis coincides with a change in the flavor of the milk, which is more salty; some babies don’t like change and protest.
- Three-month crisis :
This is usually one of the most difficult and one that involves the most weaning. By this time the breast no longer swells so much and the mother feels softer; This is because the milk is no longer “stored” in the breast ready to be reclaimed at any time but is largely produced during feeding.
Babies often need to be sucking for a couple of minutes before the milk starts to come out (which takes the ejection reflex to trigger); This can make them angry and they are often jerking, crying, and constantly hooking and unhooking. On the other hand, after so many weeks of training they are experts at expressing milk and they only need a few minutes to empty the breast completely; in addition to the fact that everything around them seems more interesting than the chest (their vision has improved and their senses are developing).
In addition, babies slow down their growth a bit and begin to gain less weight (which is completely normal). All this leads mothers who have run out of milk or that their milk is no longer enough to think, and they begin to supplement the feedings with a bottle (wrongly) or they look for different ways to increase their production (and we know the most effective one: that baby suck more often ).
How do we act then when faced with a lactation crisis?
The main thing we have already achieved by reading this article: knowing that they exist . We must be aware that there will be times throughout breastfeeding when our babies will need to increase the amount of milk and will suckle more often; know that weight gain decreases a little around the third month and that the breasts will not always be full of milk but that as time passes they will stop being warehouses to start making milk “on the fly”.
Another of my tips is to maintain the principles of breastfeeding: it is given on demand . So we will have no doubts: whenever the baby asks we will offer. And also in the opposite direction: we must not force a baby to suckle, we only offer.
Growth crises last a few days (2-3, usually less than a week), so you just have to be patient and trust that everything will return to normal soon. For all crises, but especially for the three-month-old, it can help to breastfeed in a quiet place, half in the dark and without noise.
Finally, remind you that if you have doubts about your milk production, and before making decisions about supplementing or weaning, consult a breastfeeding expert who can help you and confirm or deny your suspicions.
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