My little DD2 is week old now. She developed jaundice after birth and although breastfeeding started off ok (well, with some faffing with latching and positioning at the beginning of each feed which I thought was just us trying to get used to things, I ended up with sore cracked nipples while trying to get used to being suckled on almost constantly). However, once she got jaundiced she was very sleepy and reluctant to feed at all - and I ended up massively engorged as she had been a complete boob monster before.
I ordered a hospital grade double pump and tried to hand express in the meantime. We ended up giving her two formula feeds as it was important to keep her well hydrated.
I've got plenty of milk - I am currently exclusively pumping (basically timing them when she eats and once at night, missing one night feed as too tired) and getting ridiculous amounts, generally twice as much as she needs, we're currently about 8 feeds ahead of her needs so have started freezing some too.
I would like to get her back on the boob as the pumping is such a pain but don't know how to go about it. Midwife has assessed my feeding position lying down and said the position is all fine, noted that baby didn't want her head or neck touched in order to get her on the breast (which is quite essential with her wobbly newborn head popping about).
Attempts to feed her from the breast currently go as follows:
- often screaming as soon as she has been put to the feeding position
- sometimes entertains the thought of attempting to feed with nipple shield but only sucks on the teat end as does not open mouth wide open enough (last night suckled on for 30mins and seemed to be latched on okayish but was then inconsolable afterwards and went to take on a good 60mls from the bottle afterwards)
- tends to refuse the nipple entirely
Does anyone have any words of advice or encouragement? Am I stuck with pumping or is there a way we could get this to work? I have a 4-year old DD as well so being stuck on double pump for 20mins every 3 hours or so is limiting our outings, especially it being half term now. I had similar issues feeding DD1 and ended up pumping, topping up and combination feeding and finally giving in to FF by week five as it was beginning to affect my mental health. I am nowhere near as emotional or stressed this time around and really would like this to work.
I am being referred to a one-to-one session with a lactation consultant and hopefully get an appointment next week, in the meantime keeping up the pumping to keep the milk flowing (and to stop me from being massively in pain from full breasts). I suspect she is completely nipple confused because of bottle, nipple shield, dummy and the poor rejected nipple...
Good luck.