Fussiness at the breast reason #2: baby doesn't want more milk right now

Often we think our baby is dialling up because of a need for more milk or for sleep, but baby really wants a change of sensory motor experience

If we've heard that each feed at the breast needs to be a whole mealtime, spaced out from the previous meal, then we might feel under pressure to fill baby's tummy up.

Yet your baby wants to come to your breast as much for the sensory motor experience of your caresses and cuddles and bodily warmth, or for the soothing sensory motor experience of suckling, as for nutrition. It's not possible to distinguish between the need for nutrition and the need for sensory nourishment when your baby breastfeeds, because breastfeeding is an entire developmental ecosystem.

You can find out more about your baby's sensory motor needs here.

You might also have thought that your baby was tired, and needs to have a breastfeed to go to sleep. You might find yourself worrying, then, if your baby starts fussing at the breast when you offer. You might hear that your baby is overtired, or that your baby really is hungry but just refusing the breast. Yet neither of these ways of thinking about it is helpful or accurate, actually.

• You can find out why the concept of overtiredness is unhelpful here.

• You can find out how babies' needs for rich and changing sensory motor nourishment is often mistaken as a need for sleep here.

Knowing about what is means to offer the breast frequently and flexibly helps makes the days and nights with your baby as easy as possible

This is why offering frequent flexible breastfeeds, with no sense of pressure upon any particular feed, is so important. Often your baby wants only a brief moment's comfort and dialling down at the breast - before being ready for the next sensory motor adventure! Remember too that an older baby can be remarkably efficient at taking a rather large amount of milk from your breast in a very short period of time.

If we have it in mind that baby hasn't taken enough milk, or is fussing due to a gut condition, we might - quite by accident - end up placing baby under pressure to breastfeed, which can backfire and even result in a conditioned dialling up.

You can find out about conditioned dialling up at the breast here.

Your baby may simply be ready to finish up at the breast for now and move on. Babies often don't transfer a lot of milk in a breastfeed. What matters is that you are offering frequently and flexibly over a 24-hour period.

You can find out more about what it means to offer your breast frequently and flexibly here.

When you have a generous supply your baby might want to suck more at the breast for sensory motor stimulation but her tummy is too full

Unfortunately, in this situation parents are often told their baby has tummy pain from too much milk or strong letdowns.

• You can find out why gut pain is not usually a worry here.

• If your baby is positionally stable, he will be able to manage the lovely strong letdowns that tend to occur in the early parts of breastfeeds.

It's true that if you are a woman with a very generous milk supply, baby's tummy can quickly fill up. This is more likely to be the case when your baby is still a newborn - or if you are tandem breastfeeding an older child.

Babies suckle at the breast partly for milk, but also in large part for the rich sensory motor nourishment that suckling provides. You can find out more here. When you have a generous supply, your baby might want to suckle for the sensory motor comfort of it, but has already completely filled her tummy up with milk, feed after feed. In this case, your baby's breastfeeds are often very short, but baby is still gaining weight beautifully.

It's important not to try bring your baby back on the breast in a way that she might experience as pressure to feed, since this can result in a conditioned dialling up.

Be sure, too, that other reasons for fussiness at the breast don't apply, and that this really is a pattern of behaviour over time in association with a very generous supply. If this kind of fussiness truly is a pattern, you could

• Take steps to dial your supply down a little, without tipping your breasts into low supply! You can find out more here.

• Swiftly shift the focus when your baby starts pulling off the breast to rich and changing sensory motor nourishment, outside the house if you possibly can.

• Experiment with a pacifier. There are downsides to pacifier or dummy use, which you can find out about here, and some families decide not to use them. But you might also decide that a pacifier helps keep life more manageable for your family when you're in this situation.