To give up breastfeeding now.... WWYD . Please be kind :-(

[Bea1985]

Hello all,

Just looking for a bit of WWYD type advice as I am so emotionally drained and tired, I just can't make a decision.

I gave birth to my beautiful baby girl on 2nd Dec after a very long labour and fairly traumatic birth. We were kept in hospital for 2 nights and were discharged without having properly established breastfeeding. I no know that this was wrong, but as a first time mum who'd been awake for several days (excepting the odd 20 min doze) at the point of discharge I just went along with everything.

I attempted to breastfeed on demand for the first 10 days of my daughters life. To cut a long story short I am sure she was hungry for the best part of this . She also had a very shallow latch, of you can even call it a latch- has never opened her mouth wide to latch (has been checked for tongue tie etc) and basically chewed the middle of my nipples to bits with her gums for 10 days solid. As I don't think she was every getting much milk, she was very lethargic and began to "give up" i.e. Sucking half-heartedly once or twice then falling asleep. I constantly had her and myself stripped off, blew on her, tickled her feet etc and it took probably 1.5 hrs on average before she had done a few visible "swallows". It really was a 24/7 job of her agonising latching on and off, falling asleep, me worrying that she wasn't eating, biting my hand and crying in pain and being drenched in my own leaked milk without time to regularly change or shower. My nipples became extremely damaged, weeping and blistered with cracks that bled into my milk every feed, and I did try nipple shields but the damage did not heal and the wounds opened up and bled every feed despite the shields.

I had several MW and HV visits in this time, as well as a "maternity visitor" who is apparently and expert on breastfeeding. I had lots of advice, some of it conflicting, and was mainly told to "work on getting a deeper latch", shown videos of what a good latch is (I already know this! She won't open her mouth) and told to do loads of skin to skin. I started to become very depressed, cried all the time and was doing nothing with my daughter except change her, and try/fail to breastfeed (us both in tears). Due to my labour and birth (and had no sleep in hospital) I was also extremely sleep deprived by this point.

I should say I have no family in the area , just me and my husband, and he has done his best to support me but has now gone back to work.

So, after feeling like I was on the verge of a breakdown and also feeling very guilty about the constant negative nature of my interactions with my baby, I started expressing milk (with a hand pump then with an electric one) every 2-3 hours and bottle feeding it.

My baby has been drinking heartily from the bottle and is so much more bright eyed and alert than before. Expressing, sterilising and feeding round the clock is just as tiring as before but at least I get to spend some time cuddling my daughter, neither of us is in tears and I know she is getting a good feed.

I've been expressing and feeding for a week now, and whilst it's stopped my feeling quite so low as I was when trying to breastfeed (I've even been out the house!) it's very time consuming, I'm sat attached to a pump for 40 mins every 2-3 hours and am very tired.... And still feeling guilty as the time I'm attached to a pump is time I could be spending with my baby. I never have time to do anything but feed, or feed related activity.... I want to be doing nice sensory things with her, getting out for fresh air, tummy time... None of that is happening.

Today (3pm) I have an appt with a proper lactation consultant at the hospital , I've been waiting for it for c. 10 days.... But I'm not sure I want to go. I'm now thinking about expressing for as long as possible, but less times per day (say 4-5) to get some rest. I'm thinking about giving baby top ups of Hipp (probably at night) and gradually moving onto formula full time.

I know it seems silly to want to give up now, but having spoken to the lactation consultant on the phone yesterday, she seems to advocate carrying on expressing whilst offering the breast/attempting to breastfeed at each feed, then giving the bottle when either of us gets stressed. She also advised on constant skin to skin, taking baby in the bath etc. It sounds awful I know, but I don't want to do all this any more. I want to get dressed. I want to do things other than attempt to feed my baby all night and day. With the attempted breastfeeding, expressing, sterilising and bottle feeding there is no time for anything else. I just want to gradually let the breastfeeding go, but feel so terribly guilty about it. My baby is not even 3 weeks old and I produce a lot of milk.... I just can't get it inside her without losing my sanity!

So I don't know whether to go this afternoon, or just make the decision to move towards formula and go out and get a perfect prep etc.

I'm sorry that this post is long and poorly structured, typed very quickly on iPad whilst baby dozes . I'm not looking to be told that breast is best of that I need to work on my latch.... Believe me I already know these things and am hugely pro BF. The thought of formula from 3 weeks is not something I would previously entertained, but now I completely understand why people do it . BF has probably been the hardest thing I have ever tried to do :(

So... What would others do? Keep trying or make a decision re. Formula and get in with it.

Thanks everyone X

I found breastfeeding really hard - I had help from midwives and health visitors, went to breast clinic and paid for lactation consultant. I had v sleepy baby who didn't want to feed and I too was crying during feeds and yelping at pain from sore nipples latching on. It's gotten better now with time, baby getting bigger (their mouth!) and more awake. When I was really struggling My HV said what did you want to do pre birth and I said BF and she said ok well switch if you like but think first about how you'd feel about that and realised actually I'd feel bad that way too so I took paracetamol and whacked in nipple cream with aim
Of her 6 weeks as a deadline then her 8 week check up. Now I'm fixing on 3 months. Also on here someone said don't give up on a bad day. So I stuck it out and at 10 weeks now. Before then I too said repeatedly how I wasn't doing anything with my baby other than changing and feeding but realised that actually at that age there was nothing else my baby wanted to do! Shes getting into more stuff now. Also seeing her grow so well purely on my milk makes me feel really good and confident like I'm doing something right even if I don't feel I have a clue. I didn't expect to feel like that it's a total bonus! I still have low times feeding her but on the whole I hope to stick it to 6 months if I can. Switch to formula by all means - that's entirely legitimate and the vast majority do. I'm just giving you my experience with what helped me stay bfing and that in fact it improved my mental health by making me feel good about my milk sustaining her. I loathe expressing so can see that would be really difficult if you have to stick with that but there are websites for exclusively pumping mum's if it would help to google those before making a decision.

Congrats on your baby (whatever you do it's hard and guilt ridden in early stages eh?)

If your baby is getting fed and you're happy - that's all that matters. Formula is not the devil.
DS1 I did BF for about 5 months - he cluster fed from 4pm to 2am every day for a month. I was on my knees with tiredness. When I gradually switched to formula it was fantastic and the relief I felt of actually enjoying my baby rather than being permanently attached outweighed the guilt.
DS2 i started mix feeding at 2 months and kept up both until about 5 months then switched completely to formula. He started to cluster feed too. I just didn't have the time - I couldn't pick DS1 up from school with a baby attached to my boob!
Neither have suffered, both are very healthy and all round everyone was happy.
Do what ever you want to do that gives you the balance you need to enjoy your baby - and don't feel guilty!

Everyone has written lovely long replies but I'm not going to as it would depress me to even go into it.

Basically, I had loads of milk, my kids fed well and thrived, my nipples were OK....and I STILL think back on BFing as some of the lowest times of my life. Definitely contributed to PND with the 2nd one. And she still picked up every bug going which meant I felt too guilty to give up in case of dehydration etc.

Honestly if I had a third I don't think I'd do it beyond the colostrum.

Let us know how the appointment goes OP- if you do decide to go.

On a side note:
One thing to note is you do not need to sterilise bottles/equipment etc for feeding expressed milk or expressing, breast milk is not sterile so there's no point (I was told this by several professionals & researched it myself also)

Really?!! Everyone I spoke to said different and HV even checked what sterilisation method I was using for the odd bottle of expressed milk (my DH would do one feed in the evening so I could sleep)

Oh and fully 2nd the recommendation to buy a Tommee Tippee Perfect Prep. You will literally weep with relief.

(Also so easy to use everyone in the house can use it, and all bottles are made the same way I.e. you can go out for hours and not worry someone is making up bottles a la the 1940s)

Hi all,

Wow thanks so much for the support and really helpful replies. Currently sat expressing with crying baby on lap so will be brief now and reply fully later, pergola when DH home.

An going to go to appt and be totally honest and see how I feel after.

Will post properly as soon as poss

I'll try to make my long story short.

I had a similar experience. If I were to have a second child, I would move over to formula much sooner.

Also, I feared that my nipples would not recover from the deep wounds in them and they'd never look like proper nipples again. It took a long time, but they're fine now.

I found dealing with so called experts re breastfeeding a horrible experience. They just couldn't seem to understand that I had already tried the various holds/techniques/latches/tips that they were trying to tell me about, and they didn't work for us. It made me feel so broken and guilty, and I felt they thought I was either lying or an idiot. I wish I had walked away from the "help" so much sooner.

Yes it's okay to quit now if that's what you went to do and please don't waste a drop of energy feeling guilty.

I am a cautionary tale in this area. My twins were born by Emcs and taken straight to nicu - long period of separation, no skin to skin, fed by ng tube. Started expressing immediately but from the start when my milk came in I couldn't produce enough.

What happened next is a very long story but essentially one came home after 2 weeks and the other was in for 2 months. I was trying to feed the one at home but he never latched right, the one in hospital was barely allowed to try, I felt like I was on a hamster wheel and couldn't keep up. When he finally came home he got whooping cough and I ended up having to stay in with him for nearly 2 weeks in paeds HDU while he was tube fed again.

After that neither would latch and my supply had crashed to 20% of their total intake. So what did I do? I pumped more. I pumped every two hours until they were 7 months. I tracked every pump and every feed. I became obsessed with getting my supply up. I had an alarm set on my phone for every two hours and I stopped and pumped every time. My poor babies were stuck in swings while I was hooked up to a pump in tears wondering why I didn't make enough milk.

Looking back I'm sure I had a breakdown. I lost my mind for a while there. I would celebrate when I managed to eke out a few more ml in a day, and cry uncontrollably every day when I had to make more formula for them. I caused myself such a bad back injury that even now at 15 months I'm in pain and can't stand up straight. Even now I feel like I let them down, and get upset when I see people breastfeeding. Their poor latch caused vasopasm which was so incredibly painful but which fortunately has improved now.

Why did I do this to myself? I don't know but I wish I had stopped sooner. My boys are doing great on formula (dairy free though as they're allergic). Pumping is honestly the worst of both worlds - none of the convenience of breastfeeding, all of the washing up and prep of formula (and more).

Looking back I wish I had put the bloody pump down and cuddled my babies. I'll never get that time back. I thought I was doing the right thing and I tried so hard that I broke myself physically and mentally. I can tell you categorically it wasn't worth it.

Please learn from my mistakes - do what is right for you and let go of the guilt. Formula fed babies are absolutely fine. You've already given them a great start, you should move on with no guilt whatsoever.

Oh also, I joined some bfing groups on Facebook thinking that would help - it made things far worse. The amount of guilt and feeling of failure I had was blown way out of proportion by the responses I got there and the way they spoke about formula feeding. I would avoid these suggestions places if I were you!

3 weeks is brilliant, it's soooo hard when it doesn't go to plan. Happy mummy happy baby. Get the formula into baby, she'll be perfect and you'll get more sleep. Lose the guilt as you couldn't keep going as you are!

Ooh yes - highly recommend the Perfect Prep machine - it's amazing and worth every penny! Just make sure you buy the genuine filters.

I haven’t read the whole thread as short of time but wanted to say this. My DD (now almost 7) was born by c section and had a tongue tie. This was attended to but not before I had developed terrible open sores and thrush in both breasts. My GP refused to prescribe any meds for thrush and it just gradually got worse and got into DDs mouth and system.

I kept pumping but spent hours crying and feeling guilty and as if I had failed. I asked for support but what I received was pressure. I spent hours tethered to a pump and my DD had some breast milk until she was about 4m. However she also had formula combined because she refused to feed once she got thrush. I felt terrible and would not even feed her in front of others because I felt I would be judged for being the formula Mum.
Fast forward to now - she’s almost 7 and despite coming from a family riddled with eczema and asthma she has neither. Her cousins who were all exclusively BF have both, some have v serious issues with asthma.

I am not suggesting that breast isn’t best - it patently is - BUT I am saying that it is not worth wasting this precious time with your baby worrying about something that you can’t change. My DD and I could not be closer and I regret wasting so much time feeling guilty and crying over something that is now so insignificant. You have done your best please please take it from me that there will always be something for which you will be judged and you have to make the best decisions you can for you and your family and not for those who will judge you whatever. Enjoy your precious baby, you will
never have this time against flowers]

I bf my first DD for 14 months.

I actively chose to formula feed my second DD. Actually, she's having an expressed bottle a day whilst I'm still producing, but my supply is dwindling.

I recall reading lots the first time around about it all getting easier after the first few weeks. For me, it was okay for the first few weeks and it was hell from 2 months until she was weaned. Constant growth spurts, never off the boob, bottle refuser. I likely had PND, although it was never diagnosed.

The reason I'm formula feeding DD2 is because I will absolutely not put myself in that position again, especially with a toddler to look after too.

Please, please go out and buy formula and bottles. You and your baby will be fine.

You do what is best for you and the baby. I gave up after 10 days because no amount of help or coercion was ever going to make him latch on properly. I lost count of the number of people who tried to help / squished my boobs. He loved his bottle and formula from the very moment I put it in his mouth. I stupidly felt guilty for a very long time but he is a healthy, happy 8 year old now with no issues caused by the fact we just couldn't get it together breast feeding! There is also no lack of attachment with us. I frequently have a gangly boy draped all over me.

I asked for support but what I received was pressure

This one sentence has made my experiences with the professionals make so much sense. That's exactly what I had, but I didn't realise til just now. Maybe my guilt clouded my vision.

Thank you @picoloangel

Please don't feel bad
So many of the benefits of bf are over exaggerated but the benefit of a happy, rested mum who loves being with her child can not be.
Formula is great
You are doing a great job xxx

Your job as a mum is to look after your baby, and yourself to the best of your ability.

If you are not getting nearly enough sleep , then that's not good for either of you.

Switch to formula, your baby will be nice and full and happy, and you will get more rest.

The great thing about formula feeding is that your DH can be really hands on and involved, sterilising bottles, making the feed up etc instead of almost watching on helplessly.

I like the phrase ' Fed is Best ' !

Stop torturing yourself! Switch to ff. I would have given up long ago. You poor thing, you need to rest and giving up expressing might give you a short rest at least.

You have done brilliantly to get this far especially with the expressing as well!

Best of luck at the appointment

I had a very similar experience to you and found those first weeks so detrimental to my mental well-being I don’t think I can face having any more children. The minute I decided to switch to FF, things got better. Now DS is 75th centile for weight, off the charts tall, and ahead on all his milestones. It was the best decision and I only regret I didn’t do it as soon as I knew things weren’t right rather than beat myself up for 4 weeks first.

I was in a very similar situation to you, though yours sounds worse you poor thing. I have flat nipples and my DS wouldnt feed without nipple shields, but the older he got the more he would tear them off and then be screaming for food. I dreaded each time I had to feed him and felt like I was missing out on just being with him without it all being about food. At 3 weeks I switched to formula and though I initially felt guilty (my my 'lovely' nct group made me feel worse) ultimately it was the best decision. I no longer dreaded feeding him and was able to play more and just enjoy the baby days. My advice would be to switch, but whatever you decide will be the best decision for the both of you. Best of luck.

I've just read back through the thread and am shocked by how many of us had a similar experience. My DD is now 11yo and I have yet to meet anyone in RL who has been through this. It is truly so isolating.

I thought I was prepared for all sorts of difficulties regarding BF. I had read in the pregnancy books about sore nipples, problems latching, having to express etc - but I was absolutely blindsided by the reality. I also found there was very little support. The lactation group were lovely but none had really experienced any problems themselves. The midwives were kind and well-meaning but most didn't know what a good latch was. I encountered one MW who got DD to latch brilliantly and would have gladly paid her to come and live in my house! The HVs were truly terrible - one told me DD would be brain-damaged if I didn't stop the combined feeding and switch to exclusively formula She offered me no other 'advice' or support, no kind words at all, and watched me walk away in floods of tears. A few years later I met a brilliant breastfeeding support person who worked at the same clinic. I'd had no knowledge of her existence and she was horrified that none of the HVs had advised me to consult her.

Honestly, if I could have that time again I would have switched to FF in a heartbeat. I would also have made an official complaint about the health visitor!

Sorry I have not had a chance to read all the replies.

Congratulations on your baby. The first three months are so difficult and it sounds like you are doing an amazing job.

I would suggest you go to gather session and get your baby checked for tongue tie and lip tie. If you decided formula feeding is best your baby then that is all good. Remember feed is best. You need to be a happy Mummy to be a good Mummy. If you are not ready to decide to move to formula today then you can decide tomorrow or later. My NTC course leader suggested to be that I picked a date 2 weeks in the future to make such a decision.

I found giving up breast feeding at 6 weeks such a difficult decision and while my life was much better afterwards I psychologically struggled with that decision.

Honestly, that sounds horrific. Give her formula and DON'T FEEL GUILTY! You are doing so well.

I really struggled for the first few weeks. Baby had a tongue tie and wouldn't open her mouth. Homestart volunteers helped, nct breastfeeding lady helped, but it was just a case of keeping going. At about four weeks we cracked it, and it was the best thing - so much easier than formula.
One thing I would recommend is the silicone breast pump, I think it's called a Hakka, or the own brand version. They're less than £20 on amazon. I had two in the end, and attached them with an old bra I cut holes in. Hands free pumping and after 30 mins both would be full, with no effort.