Hi all - long time lurker first time poster here. My DS will be 6 weeks on Friday. Feeding has been a nightmare since the beginning. Wouldn't latch, 3 days on labour ward with every BF assistant trying and failing. On the last night we discovered he would latch with nipple shields. I used these for 4 weeks and he was gaining weight but I was worried about long term viability for things like growth spurts etc. I went to BF group where we managed to latch but had to go back to shields after 1.5 days due to pain. Sought lactation consultant who diagnosed posterior tongue tie, which we got snipped. Now he can latch - still painful but not as bad, but still shallow and nipples coming out with ridges. More importantly DS still not a "competent feeder". He will latch, gulp down let down, suck a little, receive any compressions I do and then start fluttering... He doesn't drop off when satisfied, so I have to judge when to take him off. As a result his weight gain slowed (no gain over 5 days last time he was measured). The HV will weigh again tomorrow and if he isn't gaining it's likely we'll have to go to exclusive pumping or supplement with formula. Suffice to say I'm pretty down on the whole thing and feel like switching to ff - I'm almost glad the HV is going to "prescribe" top ups so I can start to move towards a switch. On the other hand I think I'll be missing out - I see my Nct friends who can serenely latch their LOs in cafes with no aggro, tears, pain etc and really wish we could have that. I read on here that things get better after 6-8 weeks so my question is - is this true for cases like mine where there is clearly something not right with latch, or should I cut my losses start the switch and be able to enjoy and bond properly with my baby without having apprehension about every feed? Any experiences?
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Infant feeding
Is my experience normal? Will it get better?
9 replies
Noneedtocry · 27/07/2015 18:20
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