Hiya everyone, but of a long post but here it goes!
I'm a first time mum to my beautiful 5 week old baby girl. When I was pregnant and she was born, I had no intentions of breastfeeding her, only bottle feeding. I suffered a 4th degree tear which required surgical repair and the hospital put me on strong antibiotics to ward off infection as a precaution. After being home for a few days, Erin (baby girl) kept searching my chest when I was holding her, and I began to feel so guilty and cried because I couldn't try to breast feed due to the antibiotics. The ones they put me on I couldn't breastfeed with, but whilst in hospital that wasn't an issue as at the time I didn't want to try breastfeed. I began expressing and throwing the milk away to try keep my milk supply/get it going so that I could try breastfeed once the antibiotics and pain meds were out my system.
By the time Erin was 12 days old, all meds etc were out my system and I began giving her the milk I was expressing. I wasn't getting a lot out, an ounce overall from both (combined). This gradually decreased to 10ml total if I was lucky after a 30 minute session with an electric pump. I have a manual one too but it hurt my nipples. I did try get her to latch several times but she just couldn't do it.
I gave up expressing Thursday 3rd, as it was taking several sessions to get 2 ounces out of me, and when Erin is having 5oz bottles it wasn't worth the stress it was causing me. Come Thursday just gone, Erin kept searching me and my boobs were sore so I thought I'd give it a try, she latched on!
My issue is, is that I have flat nipples and she keeps letting go, or when she is latched on, I'm getting very sore because she latch isn't right because she doesn't open her mouth wide enough and is used to bottle teats and flat nipples makes it difficult to begin with.
I've looked into nipple shields, has anyone had any luck with them having flat nipples? Does it help baby latch on? Im so sore and only getting worse but I really want her to have my milk!
Any help would be brilliant xx
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Breastfeeding help!
13 replies
Sophie2309 · 14/12/2020 12:43
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