Experience of treating tongue tie after 14 weeks

[AllBoxedUp]

Hello. My DD is 14 weeks and has a posterior tongue tie. It was picked up at birth but I was advised to just wait and see if it affected her weight as she seemed to be feeding quite well. Since then her weight has drifted from above the 75th centile at birth to below the 25th centile. She's quite lean but has been a very happy baby who seems to be developing normally.

I've just been to a feeding clinic and someone watched her feed for the first time and I was told it looks like she is munching more than using her tongue effectively. They suggested I could look into getting her tie divided privately but it may not work completely as it could regrow and that it might get worse before it gets better. They suggested pumping twice a day and giving her the pumped milk and possibly skimming off the fat from the pumped milk to make sure she gets that.

I'm unsure what to do and was wondering if anyone could share what it is like to get the tongue divided at this stage. I have an older DS so expressing a lot is going to be difficult. I did post on here last week and got some advice about switching sides more which I have been doing. I just almost want someone to tell me what to do. In an ideal world I would like to continue to ebf but I'm questioning if that is the best thing for her. Maybe I should start mix feeding but up until now she's not really taken a bottle. Any advice would be great! Thanks.

[Tortycat]

Not sure if it's exactly the same, but ds1 was diagnosed with mild tongue tie 2 weeks ago at 3.5 weeks. Bf wasn't painful but he wasn't gaining weight on ebf (fell from 50th to 9th centil and not regained birthweight by 4 weeks). We had it clipped privately and I had to start topping up with formula. The procedure itself was fine but don't think it's made any difference to feeding - still a shallow latch, slides off etc. From what I can make out the whole area of tongue tie is a bit grey with lots of debate amongst hcps. Sorry don't have a happier tale to share.

[Greenstone]

DD's posterior TT was clipped at 14 weeks. Weight gain had been a little on the slow side, but she wasn't huge at birth to begin with and neither am I, so after the initial hairy few weeks nobody really fussed about it.

There was no major change after the TT division - it was probably a bit less sore and maybe she became more efficient. Hard to say if that would have happened anyway. I saw a LC when she was 8 weeks who suggested expressing, etc., and I did this a few times, but honestly it was a faff and I stuck with EBF. Went on to feed until 14 months.

She's 2.6 now, slim and totally normal and has been in ridiculous rude health from birth really. If it's handy for you to get the clip done, I'd say go for it soon because there aren't any side effects and she's still young enough at 14 weeks to not find it painful. And after that just keep feeding if you want to.

[AllBoxedUp]

Thanks for the replies and sorry for the slow response. I'm the end I found someone who had a slot yesterday and went for it. It wasn't as bad as I thought it would be - I was worried she would be miserable after but she has been okay.

The lady did explain it was not a guarantee of success and I guess some of the replies here have been helpful too in holding back my dreams of her piling on weight and amazing the health visitor! We are going to need to work on getting the latch right and I have been doing what works up until now and that is not optimum.

What was interesting is she said I have a tongue tie and so does DS who is 4 and was ebf and stuck to the 75th centile. I also think he fed in the same way as DD - maybe he was just stronger and better at getting milk or it could be that he fed every 2 hours round the clock, while she only feeds once between 9pm and 6am. She is also stretching to 3 hours during the day even if I offer it earlier.

I wish it was easier to get it sorted. While the lady was very professional it did have a bit of a back street feel to the whole thing. I know there are reasons it's not done routinely but surely more midwives could be trained to do it. Anyway, I'm glad we had it done as I'm giving her the best chance to feed well I hope.

[Highlove]

My DD had her PTT cut at 11 weeks. I think when they're that bit older it takes a while to notice a difference and it perhaps doesn't have the big impact it does with very little babies. I'd say it took DD six-ish weeks to really re-learn what she was doing, though I was pain free very much quicker than that. Weight gain is now much more consistent than pre-snip though she's still a fairly lean little thing. Overall I'm glad we had it done and it has improved things but it certainly wasn't the immediate magic bullet I'd hoped for.