Breastfeeding fussiness

[SLW91]

My baby was born with a tongue tie and despite my best efforts wasn't putting on enough weight. So the midwife suggested to give him an expressed breast milk top up with a bottle. Now this was great at first, he was having lovely big feeds and then a small bottle top up. However after a growth spurt around week 6 he started getting really frustrated whilst breast feeding (crying, batting my boob) but the midwife but it down to him not getting enough milk from me.

This week he is 8 weeks old and hes had his tongue tie snipped and although his latch is a lot better, he's still getting frustrated after 7-10 minutes (even with breast compressions), he's clearly hungry and used to just getting his easy bottle top up. I've been advised to let him go cold turkey (we've been at it 2 days now) and to not offer a bottle, however this has lead to him having short, unpleasant feeds as he is clearly very hungry but doesn't want to breastfeed once he's drank the initial watery foremilk. I'm worried he's started to develop a negative association with breastfeeding, a few times he's even cried before I've undone my nursing bra! Or should I persevere with the cold turkey-ing or keep using the bottle top up until he gets used to his new tongue?

How is his weight now OP?

Health visitor weighed him 2 wwwks ago and he was 11lb 14oz. This was before his TT division.

Health visitor can suggest an ‘in theory’ approach, but isn’t there all the time. You do what you feel comfortable with. If he’s happy with a bottle of your milk, he’s getting breast milk and he’s settled. If he’s happy, you are.

Your baby is too little to have negative association. They go on instinct and smell and won't notice you're undoing your bra. When my baby does this fussiness after a very short time on the boob it's because I have a fast let down and baby needs a good burping break before carrying on.

My best advice is never change anything drastic on the advice of a HV without speaking to someone like the free NCT breastfeeding helpline or La Leche League because they have seen it all and will help you resolve the issues.

I actually cup fed expressed milk for 8 weeks before finally getting tongue tie divided and then it took another few weeks for baby and I to figure out how to breastfeed together. It's great now.

I also recommend you follow Kathryn Stagg and Lyndsey Hookway on Instagram. So many people end up thinking they're doing something wrong when really they and their babies are learning.

Best of luck.

We are in same situation I’m still doing the top ups, I reduced them but his weight gain slowed again. I’d be wanting weight done more regularly. When doing topups I’d put him on after too so he associated being full with breast. I think we really need to work more on latch it’s hard going though! La Leche league are good for advice. I certainly think reducing top ups slowly over time would be better it took us 5.5 weeks to regain birth weight do t want to undo it now!