I finally figured out why my baby was on a nursing strike and I feel like an idiot

I posted here a few times heartbroken over my baby’s nursing strike. It was only during afternoons and evenings. She would refuse to latch, cry and sob so much I would often start to cry as well. I thought she had a time-dependent bottle preference, or maybe she could somehow smell it if my supply was low? I tried everything I could think of. I was triple feeding. It was HELL.

And then yesterday I listened to a podcast that mentioned: ‘If your baby still nurses at night, that’s not a nursing strike. Maybe your baby is just telling you they want more time between feeds during the day! Maybe they want 3,5 hours between feeds instead of 3 hours.’

Y’all… I was trying to feed my poor baby EVERY 1,5 HOURS like in the first few weeks. I thought she was hungry, my husband would say she’s hungry and when she refused to latch for 20 minutes or longer we’d give her a bottle and she’d love that, so we figured she prefered bottles. But a bottle is like a pacifier! She would often barely drink and just fall asleep instead.

I can’t BELIEVE I never connected these dots before. I feel terrible for attempting to force-feed my poor little girl when she wasn’t hungry - for weeks on end!! This has been so hard on both of us and I can’t believe I put us all through this for such a ridiculous reason.

I have since been putting 2,5 hours between feeds and everything is fine 😭 I’m so relieved and I feel so, so stupid at the same time.