Breastfeeding & Cheese Graters

[YuzuSake]

I heard a comment in a show that breastfeeding felt like running a cheese grater over your nipples. I have never breastfed and this comment has stuck in my brain as it really made me wince. Is it accurate? Or sometimes it can be and sometimes it isn’t? I figured if anyone had a good idea of this it would be MN!

I have super sensitive nipples and that would be exactly how I would have described the pain. I tried to bf with both my dc and had to stop due to the pain and discomfort, it never got any easier and would leave me feeling like I would throw up. I will forever regret not being able to continue.

Nope it feels lovely. Maybe at first it's painful as baby is learning to latch but no it should not be painful if it's painful you're doing it wrong

For you. I persevered with bf, but it took weeks for it to not be painful. And yes, my DS was latched on correctly.

It was for me as my son had tongue tie

With both of mine I found it was painful at first....even the second time around after having bf my son for over a year. Midwife said no tongue tie, latch was definitely good because I knew what I was doing by the second one.

For whatever reason, whether it was hormones, sensitive nipples, nipple to tiny baby mouth ratio or just the enthusiastic dyson suck of a hungry newborn, it hurt quite a bit for weeks but then like magic no pain and it was a great experience.

The first time round I nearly gave up and can remember crying when bf consultant kept parroting the lines "Yes, that's a perfect latch" followed by "If you have a good latch, it won't hurt", I felt quite murderous towards her. Then I went out and got nipple shields which helped loads despite the same bf consultant insisting that I would ruin my bf with them. The second time around I knew it would get better so I just got on with it.

BF didn’t hurt for me

I breast fed in total for 7 years and did not experience that. I had some discomfort in the early days.

Didn't hurt for me - you have to get the latch right for it not to hurt

It was like that with my babies due to latch issues and tongue tie. We got over that (thankfully!!) I am glad I was able to stick with it as it ended up being great.

Women have been wearing clothes for thousands of years, since humans first started wearing skins. It isn't about the nipples being rubbed or toughened up. I would love to see your source for bras making breastfeeding like rubbing a cheese grater over your nipples

Ha ha ha. I once tried going without a bra when wearing a linen top, for one day. I have never felt uncomfort like it. Until breastfeeding.

It was like this for the first few weeks for me, absolute agony and yes that is the sort of sensation. No one could tell me why it was as his latch looked good. I persevered and it got better after a few weeks. At 6 months it doesn’t hurt at all.

Yes it was painful but more stingy than grater-y.

I didn't last very long.

Child v healthy a decade on so right decision for me.

I’m a bit uncoordinated and couldn’t get ds in the right position to latch - the latch was way too shallow and I got very sore, and had mastitis before he was 2 weeks old. I then tried feeding lying down on my bed: this meant I wasn’t faffing around trying to hold ds and I could get a decent latch. It stopped hurting then.

OTOH mastitis is horrid. V painful. But once you get past initial nipple soreness bf doesn’t hurt.

I think that it is more helpful to explain to prospective mothers that breastfeeding might hurt for a while, but to persevere with it, than to pretend that it never hurts for anyone.

My experience is yes it can be. My first DC had a tongue-tie and feeding them was very painful for the first few weeks. Each feed felt like a cheese-grater was grating over my nipples for the first few minutes.
However, by a few weeks in it was a lot less painful. DC2 was much easier to feed and very rarely painful.

For me it was, it was agonising and my nipples bled profusely. It was horrific and I tried to stick it out for a couple of weeks, but I just couldn't take it.

Yes, it felt like this for around a week until my baby learnt how to latch properly. From then onwards it was painless, except for a brief period when she would rest her teeth down. Now that was painful!

@MyTaupeHare clearly wasn't latched on properly or it wouldn't have hurt.
Unless you had mastitis or something.

Yes with a tongue tied baby but no once the tie has been cut.

Nope. Latch was fine. Nipples weren't. We got there in the end.

I have very sensitive nipples. Maybe you don't?

Nope it shouldn’t feel like that!! DD1 only ever felt fine. DD2 stung! I questioned if I could carry on and then we realised she had 100% tongue tie and after that was snipped all the pain disappeared.

I will say that they really guilt tripped me over getting it snipped and said if it wasn’t affecting her feeding I shouldn’t do it. She was getting milk but it was so painful I might well have stopped breastfeeding so I made an executive decision that it was affecting her feeding in that way!

BF has never hurt for me. Mentally cluster feeding was tough, but never physically.

Bullshit. I’ve done it 3 times and by the third it was old hat. I knew well how to latch a baby and had both midwives on the ward and PHN check latch with no issues. It was excruciating for first two weeks or so and then it settled. I didn’t change latch or position as no need was just sensitive nipples and comments like that imply that the pain is your own fault as your doing something wrong 🙄

So what you mean is it wasn’t painful for you but doesn’t negate the fact that even with a perfect latch etc some women find it painful initially