Bottle to breast- please tell me it's possible

[Oysterbabe]

My PFB was born pre-term and spent some time in NICU where she was tube then bottle fed. She's been having exclusively expressed milk ever since as she won't breastfeed. She'll be 7 weeks this week.

I've kept trying her on the breast from time to time in the hope that she'll feed one day. I've had limited success with nipple shields but no luck without. She generally gets angry at having to work so hard, sucks a couple of times then just cries. Anyway she finished her whole bottle this morning so I started to warm up some more and thought I'd try boob again while I waited to try and distract her from kicking off. She seemed to latch on and suckle for about 10 minutes and has now fallen asleep. I can't be sure she was getting anything but I could feel her sucking quite hard and she did have some milk dribbling down her cheek when she came off.

Do you think there's still hope of getting her breastfeeding properly? Expressing is such hard work and I'd love to be able to breastfeed her. What do you think the best approach is? I think it worked this time because she wasn't too hungry so wasn't frantic and fussing.

Any help and advice very gratefully received!

[JiltedJohnsJulie]

Yes it can be possible but I'd suggest seeking out a local BFC for support. Do you know if there is one local to you or do you have the Bfing Helpline numbers?

[Oysterbabe]

I emailed the lady who did the breastfeeding session at my nct classes and she has given me a helpline number to call.

[JiltedJohnsJulie]

Brilliant. Let us know how things progress

[JiltedJohnsJulie]

Brilliant. Let us know how things progress

[Givinguph0pe]

I am in exactly the same boat. Dd was six weeks prem and she will be 8 weeks on Thursday. I've been expressing for her all this time but I know it can't go on indefinitely.

She will also occasionally latch but only very rarely and I don't know why she will on those occasions but not most other times.

Unfortunately I've pretty much given up. I've had loads of help from breastfeeding support but it didn't change anything. I've resigned myself to expressing long term even though it's the worst of all worlds. I hope you have better luck than me!
It doesn't help that dd is still so sleepy. I don't think she has the energy to bother breastfeeding most of the time.

[shrunkenhead]

I know my dd was only ever happy on the breast at middle of the night feeds (from about 5 months) when I think she wanted comfort and cuddles rather than being ravenously hungry. During the day she had v little patience with me and would thrash about wildy preferring the bottle....

[mrswishywashy]

I was able to with my daughter. First step I. Aimed for was comfort feeding it took the pressure off from feeling the need to full her up solely by nursing. So I always tried to latch her before a feed, any bottle feeding I did paced feeding. If she did latch on I did compressions, I did a lot of skin to skin and just having her beside me. I had support from a IBCLC and peer supporters. It took about six weeks we went from a having to always offer top ups mostly formula as I never expressed a lot, some days she would not even be put to breast to exclusively bfing now at four months. I didn't want to look back at the first weeks and just remember stress so for me having top ups as an option at the start really helped. I always limited the top ups to 60mls so that she didn't go too long between feeds. Sometimes she would BF 10 mins, have 60mls and then go right back to bfing.

[Runningupthathill82]

How are you getting on, Oyster?
It can happen - my DS started latching on at 10 weeks after I exclusively expressed to that point - but I honestly think it was just because he was bigger and stronger by then, rather than any change in positioning and so on.