Baby refuses to nurse and it’s breaking my heart. Everyone’s idea of a solution is for me to give up breastfeeding.

My beautiful 8-week-old baby has been refusing to nurse for two weeks now. At first she would still do it if she was sleepy and I had very full breasts. Now she starts to scream if I even bring her close to my nipple. She won’t even try to latch.

She has a great latch, we’ve only ever used slow flow nipples on bottles. No tongue tie, no lip tie. My LC said to just keep latching her often, but I feel like that’s only making it worse. The only thing that could be impeding her is the fact that I sometimes have a fast flow and the milk streams down her face, but that seems not to bother her. Sometimes she’ll nurse for a while and then suddenly stop and start crying and refuses to latch back on.

After so much trouble to even get the milk going, mastitis, weaning off nipple shields, two colds that plummeted my supply and searing nipple pain that was finally getting better, I feel so unbelievably sad. Every time she starts to cry because she’s near my nipple and I have to quickly prepare a bottle and pump agree giving it to her, I want to burst into tears. I feel rejected by my baby and unreasonably betrayed by everyone who said breastfeeding would be so easy and practical and it would be a lovely bonding experience and it’s so nice to always have that one magical thing to calm your baby down!

To make matters worse, everyone to whom I unload this is just telling me that I could quit. Wouldn’t that be easier? This thing you really want to do and that was so nice for the one week you actually got to do it unimpeded - instead of trying to get back to that place, why not give up altogether? Wouldn’t that make you feel better?

I don’t want to stop. But every feed has become an incredibly draining emotional battle of trying not to feel rejected. Sometimes at night she’ll still nurse and it’s the cutest thing in the world. I’m not ready to give up, but I’m not sure I’m still doing this for my baby. Maybe I’m being selfish and I should just throw in the towel. The nursing + pumping + bottle feeding is costing so much time and causing so much washing up. I have all the drawbacks of breastfeeding with none of the benefits.

I’m afraid to stop because I’m sure I would regret it. I keep thinking, if I just stick with it and make sure my supply doesn’t go further, maybe a turning tide is around the corner. But I don’t know how much longer I can take this.