To dislike breastfeeding

[Daenerys]

My daughter is currently 6 weeks old. She has been exclusively breast fed from day 1.
Had a few issues to start with, mainly soreness on my part but we persevered and (I thought) all was fine.
She initially lost 9% of her birth weight and has only just come back up now at 6 weeks.
She has put on 1oz in the past 2 weeks. I feel absolutely dreadful because of this. I hate not knowing how much she has from me, I tried pumping but never got more than 2 oz in nearly 1.5 hours. I don't feel any bonding when I am feeding her I just feel like I'm failing to nurture her. For the past few days she even started coming off the breast and crying.
This is stressing me out so much and whenever I try discussing it with anyone especially about topping her up with formula or combined feeding all I get is "no, you can't do that, it's selfish, not good for her"
I don't know if I can keep going like this, i am constantly upset about it. Dh is also worried and that makes me feel no better.
I would like to try to keep feeding her breast milk at least once a day solely for the health benefits. Is that possible or will I dry up completely if I try anything like that.
And more to the main question, aibu to really dislike breastfeeding? It makes me feel awful and it's horrible not knowing how much she has, I feel pressured to keep going because i know so many mums struggle with things like pain, latching and so on and we have no issues with that..

Just my two penneth worth, but DS was exactly the same. I spent my pregnancy insisting I was going to EBF until he was at least six months etc etc and then DS came along and just didn't take to the boob at all.

We would spend hours together crying, him arching his back, screaming, refusing to latch on, me sobbing and pleading with him to drink something, ANYTHING. In the first five days he plummeted from 8lb8oz to 7lb7oz and, frankly, I panicked. I switched him to FF after six days and the change was almost instant, he gained over a pound in that first week and has continued to thrive ever since. More importantly he became a happy, content little soul rather than a screaming, inconsolable monster. And for what it's worth, he hasn't had a single cold, sniffle or ear infection since birth, so it can't be having a huge effect on his immune system either. Now, at six months, he's a hefty little chubster, sticking happily to the 75th centile.

Personally, the experience completely scarred me and I won't be breastfeeding again apart from a couple of days of colostrum. I'm also pretty certain it contributed heavily to me getting PND. DO NOT FEEL GUILTY ABOUT DROPPING BREASTFEEDING. Formula isn't poison, it will not harm your DD and a happy, relaxed mum will more likely lead to a happy, relaxed baby.

I mix feed my twins and have done from birth, they are now 7 month. I used to give ff top up after every feed, except first one of the day when they didn't seem to need it. It is very hard work though because you have all the hassle of preparing bottles and also the time and energy invested in bf. if I had my time again I'd perhaps just replace every other feed instead. Maybe express when missing a feed to keep supply up.

I was told that the key to keeping up supply was to feed/express during the night as well, and that the first 12 weeks are key. I also took fenugreek for a while. It's definitely worth getting some real life help from a feeding clinic or consultant as it could be a latch problem.

And since they went on solids I now bf just once a day and express once a day. I also still have bf as the secret weapon when they are I'll, teething, refusing to nap etc and still seem to have a supply during the day if not loads. So it's definitely possible but I think you would need to keep up regular feeds for at least a few more weeks.

Just take it a week at a time. It does get easier -well it did for me anyway. If you don't want to carry on at the end of each week then don't feel guilty about stopping, you've already done a fantastic job to get this far.

You are doing fantastically and don't let anyone tell you otherwise.
Also take everything HV's etc say with a pinch of salt as they have to push breast feeding, although saying that my HV was amazing.

I was also trying to EBF my DS and just didn't seem to be producing enough even though when I expressed I was able to get alot. It was just that he required alot, at one point between 6-12 weeks during growth spurts he would empty both breasts and one night had another 15oz of formula on top!
If you don't want to feed any longer and think it would be best for you, whicb ultimately would be best for the baby as you don't want to be stressed and upset. Stop, as long as your little one is being fed it does not matter whether it is breast or bottle.
At about 5-6 weeks due to mild PND and baby feeding constantly I ended up introducing bottles as the evening feeds( after 5pm feed from me) and so fed during the day and night, then about a week later introduced a bottle at the afternooon 1-2pm feed. Had not problem with supply and did this up until about 6 months when changed the mid morning feed to bottle, now phasing out evening and morning feed as returning to work (DS nearly 8 months).

Feeding is often V painful at the start and for the majority of people does get better around the 6 week mark. Also nipple confusion is rubbish in my opinion, since 2 1/2 weeks he has had breast, breast milk in and bottle and formula in bottles. Unlike friends who EBF and then tried to introduce bottles and did then have difficulty with the babies accepting it he has has not problem and will switch with ease.

All of the above is my opinion only, but I know sometimes hearing from people that have gone through it helps more than the advice from well meaning but unsupportive HV's, family, friends etc.
As I said thought you have done amazingly and whatever you decide to do must be right for YOU. Big hugs and congrats on your amazing little person.
xx :o

OP, your experience is a very common one and this thread definitely shows it. It's one thing that pisses me off about NCT - they don't bloody tell you how hard breastfeeding can be. But please, before you make any definite decisions, talk to a RL breastfeeding councilor. I had hellish time at the start. I had very little milk in the first few days, and DS lost about 14% of his birth weight. He was topped up with formula from a little cup for the first two weeks. And then I was permanently parked on the couch with my boobs out. I was breastfeeding for literally 12 hours a day. But this was the first few weeks, and now DS is 18 months, still loves boob, but it's a doddle.

Besides for slow weight gain, is your baby ok? Does she pee/poo regularly, is she the right colour, is she happy? What does your HV say? Weight gain is not the only measure of health, really. Also, with FF, you will not necessarily know how much your DD is taking in because she will be spilling and puking up a lot of it. Finally, how much you express is not an indication of how much milk you produced for your DD. I could never express more than 2 oz, usually only 40 ml, even when DS was 5 months and clearly growing very well on my milk. Some boobs work only for the baby and never for the pump.

If you do want to top up though, at 6 weeks it should not be the end of BF. I know loads of people who fed their DCs bottles of formula before bedtime, hoping that they would sleep better. They still BF successfully. So maybe trying to give one bottle in the evening, but not cutting out any BF would be an idea.

Good luck.

I found seeing a bf counselor, either nct free drop in session or an nhs one solved my bf problems, it does get easier, hope you are ok and congratulations on your baby :)

6 weeks ss growth spurt time which probably explains her coming off the breast crying, yanbu to feel this way (and im an extended,tandem breastfeeder) you have a new baby, its exhausting and emotional and scary! your hv will be using the stupid charts which trys to make every baby the same, and they arent, if baby seems full after a feed (not during a growth spurt, has plenty of wet and dirty nappies and is putting some weight on then i wouldnt worry :) pm me if you want to talk?

YANBU, I wasnt keen at first but the only thing that kept me going was not having to get up in the night to do bottles [lazy] . Have now been doing it for 8 months and do enjoy it all now, especially as he is so efficient at he only feeds for about 5 miniutes.

While I am all for bf, I am more for "do what is best for you both". It is absolutely 100% fine to feel the way you do, and while BF is the best source of food, formula is the next best thing and does the job perfectly well.

FWIW we started mix feeding fairly early (albiet a bit lazily, some days he had one bottle, some 2, some none at all) so I did risk cocking up my supply, but I used to pump aswell from time to time which helped to keep it up. Maybe if you want to introduce mixed feeding now you could pump aswell to help with the supply? It does seem a bit daft to BF, FF and pump BUT it gave my DP a chance to feed baby while I skulked off upstairs for a lie down and I just pumped when I started feeling my boobs getting a bit full.

Also boobs are amazing things, if you do introduce mix feeding and you feel your supply dipping when you do BF (you'll know if this happens, baby might piss about when feeding, get frustrated, wont seem satisfied, strum your boobs etc etc) then you can just put him to the breast more often to get supply going again. I was a bit ill and my supply dipped dramatically so I took off upstairs with baby and a book, top off, boobs out and just let him suckle whenever he wanted. Took about a day of this to get it back.

WRT not knowing if she is getting enough, I thought this aswell so did a little experiment [nerd]. Look at a bottle, the size of the hole the milk comes out of is teeny, put a bit of water in the teat and push it through and it comes out in a teeny tiny little stream. Now get your nipple and express a bit out. It doesnt come out of just one hole, but about 6. So by my reckoning if it took DS say 20 mins to take 4 ozs, and he only bfed for 10 mins he was getting far more out of 6 holes in 10 mins than he was in 20 mins out of one hole!

Yes to getting help - and good help! Our hv team have a member they say is their bf expert but on questioning it seems she is a nursery nurse who breastfed her own 4 kids, no courses, training, time with specialised groups like La Leche. And her advice was poor.

Yes, don't think expressing is any indication of supply! I've bf my 2 for a year+ each and both started on high percentiles (75 and 91) and both tracked the 9th from about 4mo after dropping to 2nd. So though feeding wasn't actually hard for me after the first 2-3 weeks, I really struggled at times to have confidence they were getting what they needed.

In the end we had a referral to a paediatrician for ds1 who confirmed what was evident to all - a healthy happy boy, developing well, with wet nappies, fine in every respect, just following his " line of destiny" on the graph. I thought that was a lovely phrase and it carried me through the same worries with ds2, born at 9lb6 and currently wearing 6-9mo clothes at 13mo!

I'm just saying that for reassurance, not trying to convince you you must continue whatever!

Hi

Its so hard. I breastfed for 8 months but at the start I seriously doubted I would make 8 days.

My milk didn't come in for 7 days, apparently can happen after a traumatic labour, and my little 91st centile milk monster was hungry so I fed him all day and all night for that first week. When my milk did come in I had a rubbish supply, to give you an idea I never once had to use a breast pad - in 8 months. I topped him up once a day for four months after his last feed of the day. and then at four months I switched that feed totally to formula.

DS always thrived and I never had any of the latch issues I just couldn't keep up, and I was attached to him constantly, it drove me mental and had the opposite effect of helping bonding, I used to dread him waking up and being hugry....again.

I didn't hate feeding him, I hated that it was all about me, and that I was so tired and he was sooo hungry ans that I wanted to give up. That top up and then that one feed where it wasn't me helped me to enjoy it again, just to get a bit of time in the evening where someone else could do it, and that I knew he was going to bed on a full tummy totally eased my anxiety and helped me.

There is no way I could've continued for that long, so look at it like that maybe, every breast feed is a gain, and if introducing a small bit of formula helps you to keep going then try it.

fwiw my little milk monster is now a whacking great 13 month old 99th centile giant! Thriving in every way.

As others gave said, do get RL help before making any decisions. Breastfeeding is really tough going at he start and YANBU for feeling the way you do.

For what it's worth, I'm 15 weeks in with my first. I found the first 8 or 9 weeks unrelentingly hard - the lack of sleep and energy it takes to breastfeed, alongside the fact that only you can do it (so our DP can't take the pressure off for a while) is all so tough. In those first couple of months I honestly fed one day at a time, thinking 'if I can get to the end of tomorrow I'll reevaluate then'. It gets so much easier though- your baby will most likely settle (mine had huge problems, having a dairy intolerance that made her scream, thrash and spew at every feed and cry for a long time after)- and I'm glad now that I stuck with it as it means there's less to worry about when out and about, as she can just feed whenever without preparing bottles and I don't have to leave my bed or night feeds.

But you should do what feels right for you and your baby and certainly don't feel guilty for FF if that's what you decide. Having a happy, loving mum is the most important thing for a baby, not what kind of milk it gets for such a minuscule length of time in its life.

If it helps, it's not for nothing that in many traditional cultures women are expected to stay in the house and not do much during the first 40 days after the birth. It's because BF is hard at the start and mother and child just need some relaxing time together to get it going. 40 days is about 6 weeks, btw.

what hippy rubbish
well fortunately no one sensible really thinks new mum should take up camp on sofa.feeding

not a catastrophe if you ff op
it really isn't
and better to ff than camp indoors forty days to establish feeding

I stopped bf because of my anxiety and not enjoying my baby. Crying when it was time to feed.

I think I would have ended up with depression if I continued.

As soon as I took the decision (before I'd even made a bottle) it was like a heavy black cloud of miserable pressure had been lifted

(just my experience) lol

Mentioning 'many traditional cultures' is a totally stupid and irrelevant thing IMO because many 'traditional cultures' do fucked up things like genital mutilation

(disclaimer: I am NOT comparing bf. to genital mutilation but just using an extreme example as to why the 'other traditional cultures do it' argument is a non-argument)

The op is clearly struggling and yet there are posters on here who are still trying to put the boot in over bf making them a superior mother IT DOESNT.

I really wanted very much to bf my eldest but he was a low birth weight baby and simpy refused to latch. We were kept in hospital for 9 days and even though we had a fantastic bf midwife he still wouldnt do it and was losing weight fast.

I was sent home with one of the hospitals pumps and told I had to feed every 3 hours. Well after 4 days of literally either feeding or expressing I cracked and sent my dh to buy formula!!

My ds has not suffered in any way due to this choice-he hasnt been to the doctors in years. Put my other dcs on ff and they are very healthy too-plus they all slpet through the night from a couple of months old

If you wish to continue bf then please do seek some more advice-your mental health is equally as important-but if you prefer to switch to ff then dont beat yourself up-you have done amazingly well to get to 6 weeks!! well done!!

Hi, I have a DS who is 15 weeks and I really wanted to combination feed as I was worried about how much he was having. I am currently EBFing.

First off don't feel guilty, you have done 6 weeks and that is excellent. A massive pat on the back to you.

Have you tried an electric pump? Much easier than the manual ones. I bought the Medela mini pump second hand on ebay as I didn't want to spend £70 + if it didn't work. You can hire them from some sure start centers for just a tenner deposit.

6 weeks is still early days, I couldn't get much more than 2 ounce at that stage, it is up to about 4 ounce now.

Please talk to a BFing consultant if you want to continue but if you dont then I repeat don't feel guilty. Many babies are ff and go to uni etc so in the long run I don't think it makes a difference.

BTW the only reason I am still ebf is cos my little one wont take a bottle. I would love to either combination feed or just ff as he is still up between every 2and a half to 3 hours and its killing me.

Honnestly, if it's tough, pack it in. I hated it - and got so worked up about it every time my DD was hungry I started to not like her, and then that made me cry, and things just got worse and worse. After about 2 weeks my DH took matters into his own hands and went to buy a load of bottles, formula, steriliser etc and the relief that someone else had made the decision for me was immense. I never looked back from there, and DD is now a beautiful 17 year old who's never had a day's illness in her life.

The midwives put so much pressure on you to breastfeed (at least they did 17 years ago) - it's very hard to resist. Ours was disapproving of the bottles/formula - but DD took to it straight away.

YANBU. I really didn't like BF at all. I did it for 6 weeks with DS1 and 4 weeks with DS2 and then stopped, because I really really didn't like it. If you want to stop, then stop

OP not enough people are honest about how hard BF can be, but if it is still really difficult at the moment I would call get a breast feeding counsellor in to check that the latch is right. If your DD is feeding properly, then you shouldn't be having any trouble by six weeks (with my DS1 it was bloody murder for a month, absolute agony, but because I was a young mum I was determined to prove I could do it and persevered. it was eventually the easiest most convenient thing in the world!)

If you can't get it sorted out so it stops being so difficult, then drop the BF - it really is not worth your sanity and your DD's need to thrive to keep at it if it's not working. Don't listen to people who criticise you, as a parent you have to have a thick-skin - this will only be the first decision of many where someone disagrees with you and sees fit to comment!

Whatever you decide to do, just try to relax and enjoy your baby, it's over so quickly!

Wow, sounds like you're having a hard time Daenerys. I had a nightmare feeding my son, it took 6 days for my milk to come in during which time he lost over 10% of his weight and had formula top-ups just so we could be discharged from hospital (they would not let us out until he'd started putting on weight). It is very worrying, esp if it's your first. Then I had an absolute nightmare feeding him, every BF problem under the sun and I found it extremely hard going - hardest thing I have ever done actually besides giving birth! Anyway I took it one day at a time and we got there eventually and once I'd got over the problems I began to enjoy feeding him.

I realised when he was a few weeks old that I didn't have enough milk at night for his last feed so at that point I started giving him a bottle of formula last thing at night. My HV advised against it and also made me feel guilty for not expressing to help cope with growth spurts (I never had time to express between two hourly feeds!!). Best advice I can give you is if you want to do it then persevere - it will get better, take it one day at a time. But don't beat yourself up if you want to give it up. A happy mum = a happy baby. And the best piece of advice by far that I was ever given, by my own mum, is - he's your baby, you know him best and you've got to do what's right for you.

Good luck with whatever you decide to do :)

In the old days mothers weighed their babies before and after a feed to see how much milk the babies took. 1fl oz equals 1oz weight. So if you really want to find out, take your baby to be weighed, feed, then weigh again straight away. Or get some really good sensitive scales for home.

That aside, well done you for persevering so long. BF is very hard for some (me included) and I agree with the general view on this thread. Don't be disappointed with yourself, you have done so well. You must do what is right for you, because that is what will be right for your baby. Good luck, and don't allow others to send you on a guilt trip. How or what you feed your baby is nobody's business but yours.

breastfeeding helplines Giving a BFC a call might really help. It doesn't sound at the moment like you are getting any decent support or information.

what breast pump are you using?

Hi and thanks for all your replies (just realised we're discussions of the day :)
I have tried several types of pumps and sometimes i get nothing after 30 minutes and sometimes i manage 2 oz in 1h30 min as i said before.

Well, what just happen might give you a bit of a better idea about what's going on here. I have fed her for 15 minutes from the left breast, she started fussing, i tried to keep her on but it didn't work. I switched her onto the right and she drank happily for another 10 minutes before she started fussing and coming off again. tried winding and putting her back on but she was having none of it.
She was still quite grizzly and unhappy so i offered a small bottle of formula this is the first time we have done this (5 oz) and she had 4 oz and is now asleep. what am i to make of this? that i don't have enough milk for her?

Haven't read the whole so you may have already sorted this but a. well done for getting this far and b. perhaps you could try domperidone to increase your milk supply? I struggled for months with poor supply and painfully slow weight gain and then got this from the doc and supply improved immeasurably and he really started to take off... Whatever you do, feeding method is NOT the be all and end all it seemed to me at the time... When I look back at the anguish it caused I could cry all over again but DS is a sturdy little soul who is happy and totally loved.