I'm so sorry this is an essay but just wondered if anyone had any similar experiences.
My baby will be 4 weeks old on Monday. I have been trying, relentlessly, to breastfeed. It's something I have always wanted to do and we just can't get it to work. My baby is doing very well. She is gaining weight exceptionally well. Despite being 9.5% down when we left hospital on day 3, she was well past her birth weight by the time she was 2 weeks old. So from that aspect things are good and it's encouraging. But I have struggled from the outset.
I've reached out for help from every avenue possible and at 3 days she had a tongue tie snipped. We have been to breastfeeding groups (though only once before they all closed for the holidays). We've seen a chiropractor who thought that she had some alignment issues after a forceps delivery and I've not been afraid to call for breastfeeding support from health visitors/midwives and make sure that I don't get to a point of despair. I don't yet dread breastfeeding but I've had some pretty low points. The tongue tie was horrible, then I had severely cracked nipples which are almost healing but physically feeding is still so painful I can't tell if the latch is good or if the pain is due to the crack? Some health visitors thought I maybe had thrush but the doctor wasn't convinced so I'm currently trying to feed through the pain.
Along with the above I feel like she latches better on one side that she does the other and won't stay on longer than maybe 5-10 minutes before fighting at my boob and taking herself off. By this point she's too sleepy to go back on/for me to put her in the other side. But not sleepy enough to settle to go to sleep. I feel like my supply is excellent - I can always hand express after a feed or pumping session no matter how long we go for but I'm still plagued by blocked ducts which I think are worse than the pain of feeding.
I just feel like I'm at a loss and I was so determined to make use of every resource yet it still just isn't the joyous experience I was hoping for. 4 weeks and my nipple still hasn't fully healed and I still feel like my baby isn't really satisfied after a feed and I live in fear for the next weigh in because maybe things have stopped working.
Does anyone have any words wisdom? Any tips? I watched endless videos and can't see where we go wrong and neither can all these health professionals. Sometimes I think a feed is going well and it's not overly painful but my nipple comes out so misshapen and I desperately don't want to damage them so much again that I can't feed as we already dropped to one side for an entire week.
SOS!
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Infant feeding
Breastfeeding just won't work
35 replies
SisterA · 29/12/2018 13:50
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