Struggling with breast feeding after only 2 1/2 wks...

[MrsCravendale]

MW advised us to express for LO so DH can feed him from time to time so I can get some sleep. I am really struggling as LO was up every hour from birth basically from 12am - 7am meaning I had no sleep what with burping, feeding and settling him. By the time he was back in his crib, he would sleep for 10 mins and wake for another feed. MW said he was having a growth spurt so just to feed on demand and it should settle down.

He has settled a bit and is going more like 2 hrs at night before he wakes for a feed and he can take a lot more now without throwing it all back up so seems more satisfied therefore sleeps a bit longer.

The problem is that he seems to be struggling with latching onto my breast now and gets terrible wind, spits up milk whilst actually taking it direct from the breast.

Last night he threw up his full feed after I fed him and I got so upset that I am seriously thinking of expressing so he is still fed breast milk but from the bottle as he takes it really well and is not sick after. He seems to gulp air when he is on the breast, chokes and coughs now.

Maybe we introduced bottles too early as he is just 2 1/2 weeks old but MW encouraged us to express so we just assumed it was the right thing to do...

Any advice??? I am losing it...

[3andnomore]

It is often said not to introduce bottles to early. But I know there are different views on that.
Personally, I would probably ditch the bottles for now and establish breastfeeding well, before trying again.
And, maybe co-sleeping/bedsharing is an option for you....it helped me no ends in those first weeks and month!

[ib]

Is your let-down very forceful? Sounds like it might be. Hopefully someone who knows better than me will be along shortly.

Have you seen a bfc in rl to have your latch checked?

[MrsCravendale]

Yeah - bfc checked he was latching on and my milk supply and weighed him so I know he is over his birth weight - they were happy with him and thought we were doing well with the breast feeding. My OH goes back to work tomorrow so will try ditching the bottles for now and just go for the breast feeding again to see if he gets back on to it.

[NotABanana]

Do you want to carry on breast feeding? If so, my advice would be to ditch the bottles. There are plenty of things that Dad can do to give you a break and it sounds like expressing on top is just too much. My children were all BF and were fed 2 hourly for quite a long time though I am sure I could have got a bit longer between feeds if I had had more confidence.

[Islamum]

As long as lo is gaining weight don't worry to much about puke, my lo is constantly sick but always tracks above 75 percentile. I'd limit bottles because you don't want to be constantly having to express and sterilise etc.