Gah! My 6 month-old just wants to play instead of nurse!

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Recently on Facebook, an acquaintance, with children roughly the same ages as mine, posted about how her 6-7 month-old was getting trickier and trickier to breastfeed. Baby girl just wanted to watch her older sister and to look at everything around her.

I felt her pain! It was like she was talking about my little man! And maybe you’re experiencing the same thing right now with your baby?

It can definitely be frustrating! You know your baby is hungry but they’re not focusing on eating! They’ll eat a bit then pop off and want to be involved in everything else around them. You try to get them to eat some more but they’ll have nothing to do with it…and then be starving and grumpy just 30 mins later. The day feels like it’s full of snack feeds and thwarted attempts at nursing.

Despite this frustration, this age is so fun! Babies are really ramping up their social game and are smiling, cooing, reaching for people, and laughing. They’re much more aware of the people and activities around them and will react to this social stimuli vocally (with laughter or cries) and physically (with happy kicks, etc). Games like peek-a-boo are finally starting to get fun reactions. And your child is reaching for your face to explore your features as well as examining all the other objects within reach. Your baby is probably also rolling and sitting up-further expanding their ability to explore their world.

All of these new milestones and this new social awareness play directly into why your little one is suddenly having a hard time paying attention to nursing (and incidentally also why they might have a sleep regression around this same time). They would much rather continue exploring their wonderful world or smiling at you than sitting still long enough for an entire meal (or to sleep).

As an example, this month my second son has become even more of a little charmer than he already was. He smiles at everyone, kicks his legs wildly when anyone walks in the room, tightens his body with excitement when he sees his favorite people…It’s so fun to see and we all melt over his huge, two tooth, bright smile. He’s even laughing more-especially at the antics of his brother. We love all of this…BUT…it does make nursing a LOT harder now-a-days!

Mr. Social Butterfly would rather smile at me than eat. He would rather pop off the breast to look around at what racket his brother is making. And he will now protest loudly if the object he’s currently exploring is removed-even if it’s for the purpose of eating. Unless he’s really hungry, everything else gets top tier-attention.

So, what’s a mama to do? How do we get baby to eat their fill during this stage?

The Facebook post of my friend said her pediatrician had recommended sitting in front of a blank wall in a quiet room to feed her daughter so that there were no fun distractions.

That’s all well and good…but rarely is that advice helpful in real-life! It doesn’t work as well when toddler sister also needs mama cuddles. Or when school age brother needs help with homework and needs that help NOW. Or when older siblings slam the door coming in from ball practice. Or when the phone rings. Or when a million other real-life things happen.

Here are a few things that I and other mamas have found helpful:

• Make yourself more interesting that whatever else is going on around you. Make silly faces and sounds. Talk to or sing to baby. Try anything to get and keep their eye contact and focus while they’re nursing.
• Have a teething necklace on while breast feeding. This gives them something to explore with their hands and eyes while eating and they can take little nursing breaks to explore it with their mouths instead of big nursing breaks to explore things further away. Here are a few examples if you’re not sure what I’m referring to:
  • A two pack with traditional bead look as found here
  • And I think this one looks cool!
    There are lots of other options so look around for one you think you’ll enjoy wearing and baby will enjoy holding!
• Try a dream feed or two every once in a while (the key here is every once in a while! Don’t make this a habit!)
• Bring the external distractions closer to baby- for example, have older siblings sit close to you while feeding so baby can watch them while continuing to eat.
• If baby has too many snack feeds instead of full-feedings, try to gradually hold baby off (starting with 10-15 mins) even though they are fussy. Try to get them to a point where they’re REALLY hungry-hungry enough to fully focus on feeding. (Clarifying Note: I’m not talking about withholding or skipping a meal. Rather, this suggestion is for children who want to constantly graze-or snack- instead of eating a full meal. It’s for the kids who want to eat little bits every 30-60 mins instead of a full meal every three or so hours).

If all else fails, you can just ride the tide and know that this too shall pass. You can even post about it on Facebook and will quickly see just how many friends out there sympathize with you! And, in the meantime, even while grumbling about hit-and-miss nursing, you can bask in the smiles and babbles and bright eyes of your curious and social six-month old.

Hello! I’m Briana!

As an Amazon Affiliate, I may receive a commission, at no additional cost to you, if you use one of the provided Amazon links. All opinions shared are my own. You can review my full privacy policy here. Thank you for supporting Parenting on a Rollercoaster through your purchases.