To really want to know where I went wrong with breastfeeding?

[sunglassesintherain]

I don’t know if anyone might be able to help me process and understand where I went wrong.

My baby was born at just over 40 weeks after a failed induction and emergency section. I lost consciousness after the operation and so I didn’t get skin to skin with him. OH gave him a bottle of formula milk.

He slept pretty much constantly for twelve hours and when I tried to breastfeed him he just kept losing his latch and getting increasingly frustrated. We persevered for the three days we were in hospital but when he was weighed when we went home he’d lost 12% of his birth weight. We were put on a feeding plan with formula expressed breast milk and trying to feed from the breast.

I saw an independent lactation consultant and he had a tongue tie snipped (she did say it was only a tiny one so not sure it would have made all that much difference) and had community midwives come out but no one would really help.

I expressed for him for nearly three months but I am just trying to work out where I went wrong. Was it not getting skin to skin when he was born?

[reallyreallyborednow]

I had the same issues- c-section, the m/w gave formula straight after birth.

The problem with bf is everyone has lost sight of normal, ff has been the norm for so long. Any slight issue and the “fix” is formula. I include the healthcare profession in this.

Likely you did nothing wrong - there just isn’t the help and support and once your self confidence goes then bf is a real struggle as it’s a bit of a leap of faith that baby is getting enough. Bottles are fixed and visible and reassuring.

I did successfully bf. But I was lucky to have a h/v that taught me to go on clinical picture rather than numbers on a scale- to watch my baby instead. So i didn’t actually get mine weighed once at home, and went on skin tone, wee, poo, hydration, activity etc.

Also that frequent weighing in newborns is pointless as gains are so small scale calibration or a full/empty bladder can make the difference between a gain or a loss.

As you say as well the expressing is a vicious circle, what you really need to do for bf is sit and cuddle, but expressing takes you away from that.

[underneaththeash]

All of mine had a bottle of formula from DH when they were born and it didn't affect my supply.

I absolutely detested breastfeeding though and the smell of breastmilk makes me feel really nauseous now.

Honestly, forget about it, whether your baby is breastfed or not becomes a complete non-issue by the time they get to 3, no-one talks about it.

[sunglassesintherain]

I appreciate what you’re saying underneath but it’s not about people talking about it, it’s about how I feel about it.

[Musication]

You didn't go wrong. It doesn't matter. I managed to breast feed 1 child and for various reasons not the other. One had a much more traumatic birth than the other; I barely got to hold her before I was whisked off to theatre for stitches and what have you. They are 6 & 8 now and both equally healthy, bright, well nourished and happy.
You have to mentally get over this, your DC will be fine it all fades into obscurity when they are eating solid food and then you're onto the next thing.

[Musication]

Beyond that first year I have never, ever thought about how they were fed ever again. No one talks about it. You go from that, to when they walked (also doesn't matter) when they talked (also doesn't matter) what school they go to, what reading level they're on! There is always something. You have to move on from feeding, your DC is getting food and you love him.

[sandgrown]

I only managed to feed one of my three children and even she was combination fed. With my last child I thought I was prepared but despite help from lots of sources he would not feed. The midwife told me she was amazed how long I persevered. I felt so guilty and such a failure when I gave up. Just a few years ago a lady on here mentioned her flat nipples and her struggles to feed. I could identify with all she said and realised it would have always been difficult for me. The guilt finally went away . The baby is now a strapping 19 year old !

[MisdemeanourOnTheFloor]

Same happened to me, absolutely everything you said, including the tongue tie. I tried my absolute hardest but he (now 10months old) was never satisfied. The expressing&frustration&2 hour feeds were sending me to a dark place. I ultimately put my mental health first and make the switch to formula only at 5 months. I just think my supply wasn't very strong and expressing doesn't produce as much as feeding due to bonding hormones I believe (I could get 30ml after an hour of pumping at 4months post birth). A lactation consultant pinched my nipple and cos a bit of milk came out said my supply was fine. But it wasn't!
I don't think there's anything you could have done differently. You've done the absolute best you can for your baby, and that's all that matters. Something I read during all of this, 'fed is best'. Healthy happy mum is a healthy happy baby. Feel proud of yourself for everything you've done to get to this point

[Draineddraineddrained]

Oh yeah also ignore everyone who tells you it doesn't matter and to get over it. It matters to you. It's fine that it matters to you. Feeding our children from our own bodies is a primal instinct for some of us, it hurts not to be able to. That is not stupid or irrelevant or anything like that. Your feelings of sadness are totally valid. But your guilt is misplaced and needs to be unpicked (gently, with kindness, not in a "pull your socksup" way). I'm sorry you didn't get the experience you wanted OP x

[MishMashMummy]

It sounds like a combination of lots of factors, absolutely none of which were your fault. You did brilliantly to express so long, and you should be proud.

[sunglassesintherain]

Thank you for saying that, because it does matter to me, it just does. I can’t say how I’ll feel about it in the future but being honest I think it will always be a source of sadness.

[FrangipaniDeLaSqueegeeMop]

You haven't done anything wrong. You simply didn't get the right support from professionals.

I used to work on postnatal wards and it bugged me so much that tongue ties weren't checked for as a standard. They were only checked once women had feeding issues. It's very easy for HCP's to check for them.

Also you should have been told not to panic about getting lots of milk in your baby at first. Babies are born with 'reserves', for want of a better term, and are used to only having minuscule amounts of colostrum for the first few days. Your DH should have been told he didn't need to give a bottle of formula.

Also you shouldn't have been allowed to leave hospital until you were feeding well - I know it's a horrible place to be but help is (or should be) on hand. It's normal to lose that amount of weight after birth especially in breastfed babies and whilst a temporary plan to help baby gain weight was the right thing to do, you weren't reassured that you were doing everything just right.

Breastfeeding support in the U.K. is fucking shocking. From HCP's attitude and lack of knowledge to the ridiculous way it's promoted - I 100% agree it should be promoted but it should be promoted in a realistic "It's fantastic and the best thing for you and your baby, but establishing feeding can come with challenges, so here's what they might be and how to face them....".

Please don't bear yourself up. You did nothing wrong. Skin to skin is not a guarantee, it's about bonding and something formula feeding families benefit from too.

Keep saying it to yourself - "I am an amazing mum and did nothing wrong."

I'm sorry you've been made to feel this way

[Horehound]

@sunglassesintherain

Mine wasn’t jaundiced at all - everyone commented on how lovely and pink he was (he still goes alarmingly red if a terrible crime is committed like putting a cardigan on when it is cold!) but I don’t think S2S helped us much either horehound, he barely wore clothes in the first three weeks!

I was so determined to breastfeed. I wish I knew what happened?

I probably should have persevered more, I think I feel a lot of guilt about that. I’ve seen that book recommended before and I do want to read it but I think I’d find it really upsetting just now.

But it is sooooo hard to persevere. Please don't beat yourself up about this.
Like you, I felt determined to BF and you know what? I bloody hate it! My son is now 21 months and still has BM especially in the night and honestly sometimes I just think "please just bloody stop" then I feel guilty about that. You never escape guilty feelings because that's what it's like now being a mum. You question everything. The thoughts and feelings you have/had are normal. It's just many people don't talk about it which is actually a disservice to all new mums because we think everything should be fantastic all of the time and it's not reality!
The main thing is your baby is happy and healthy and he's not gona remember any of this.
I said to my mum, now I'm pregnant with number 2 but I don't want to BF, she said well don't! I said but how can I have BF 1 and not 2 and she said just lie, no one's Gona remember haha. It's true. But I know I'll have the guilt too. I will BF for a bit but I'm dreading it now.
So you never know it's Gona go really because whatever we plan on our heads, tends not to be the way things go.

[Wolfiefan]

You may well not have done anything “wrong”.
I persevered for four months with my first. Did everything “right”. Got advice. Had latch checked. Skin to skin. Pumped. Drank fennel tea and took medication. (Supposed to help)
Never managed to build up a decent supply. It was awful. So upsetting and stressful.
Second time round I saved myself and my baby the suffering and used formula from about day two.
Sometimes (rarely but it DOES happen) women or babies don’t manage to bf. It isn’t about getting it right or wrong. It just doesn’t work.

[Cindersrellie]

Sounds like you did all the right things by following the feeding plan and for him to be fed with formula when you were unconscious, these things meant that he could thrive and grow. It's difficult when it doesn't go how we expect it to but you didn't do anything wrong at all, it just happened that way.

[Horehound]

As above poster says, it's been a combination of things and it just hasn't worked out. Maybe speak to your HV about it see if there's channels for support, even a talking therapy may help.

[FrangipaniDeLaSqueegeeMop]

I honestly think 99% of breastfeeding stumbles can be put down to women not being given the right support or knowledge. So many women switch to formula at six weeks for example because they feel they've run out of milk because the Barbie boobs have gone back to normal. That's just the body establishing feeding and in fact they will be producing more. But it feels like the milk has gone. And I've never seen literature that explains this. Just the benefits of breastfeeding in a crappy leaflet at your booking in appointment. I hear it's because HCP's don't want to out women off by saying too much about 'problems' which is perhaps the most fucking patronising thing I ever heard.

[sunglassesintherain]

Thank you. I think I did have a good supply, my milk certainly came in. It was the latching. He couldn’t stay latched. I don’t know what it was but once that feeding plan came in it was pretty hopeless.

I can sympathise with that horehound, honestly do what you want to do. The problem is for me I did want to breastfeed.

[FrangipaniDeLaSqueegeeMop]

*put women off

[Todaytomorrowyesterday]

Please don’t blame your self - I know it’s hard not to overthink in these situations.

I’ve had two children (via csections)
With the first one breastfeeding it was like an uphill battle . I didn’t have a clue why not it just didn’t work - she wouldn’t/couldn’t latch.

I was gutted and did beat myself up and felt so guilty as I felt like a failure!
Until I had my second....it just clicked she immediately fed and it all worked (don’t get me wrong breastfeeding in the first couple of weeks is hard!) who knows why the second time round was fat easier - both planned csections pretty much matching births!

The second experience helped me get over the disappointment of the first. Both girls fed happy and very loved regardless of how!

[October2020]

With the 'persevering' thing... it's impossible to know which way it would go. My little one was very early so tube fed for weeks. I expressed for months, alongside trying to make her breastfeed. I refused formula so whilst she was in NICU she had donor milk, and at home I expressed for hours and hours and hours. And yes, now she breastfeeds easily and we're still feeding at 8months with no plans to stop. But the trauma that those earliest months had on my mental health cannot have been good for her and definitely has not been good for me at all. I wish somebody had told me it was okay to stop whilst I was destroying myself in the desperation to get her to breastfeed. It sounds to me like you gave it a really good go, you certainly didn't 'give up', expressing is the hardest thing and three months is AMAZING. It was okay to stop when it was the right time for you both, all things considered. You are still a good mum (and in fact, a brilliant mum for trying so hard to do what you felt was best). Give yourself grace x

[Sideofnoreturn]

I can totally understand how you feel. It sounds to me like you didn’t have the right support at the right time, which wasn’t your fault. But you did your absolute best, everything you could, and your baby is thriving. I’ve had two difficult breastfeeding experiences (for different reasons) but managed to keep going. With my first baby, even though I fed him to 13 months, I still felt guilt about some aspects (didn’t know he was tongue tied for months) and also really sad when I stopped feeding him even though he was a big toddler running around by then! The early days are emotionally fraught, your hormones are everywhere, you’re exhausted, and never mind recovering from a difficult birth. Just try to cut yourself some slack.

[FrozenCucumberPresse]

It’s unfashionable to say this, but a lot of whether bf works out or not is pure luck. There are people who did absolutely everything under the sun to be able to bf and weren’t able to, and people who went into it without much prior knowledge who were lucky enough to just latch baby, have an adequate supply and crack on.

The lack of skin to skin won’t have affected much, there’s a lot of misinformation out there about how it’s absolutely crucial to have skin to skin and baby suckling ASAP but it’s actually the detaching of the placenta that stimulates your milk production, hence why women who don’t plan to bf at all still have their milk come in.

So much of it is pure luck and it sounds like you did everything right and everything you could and were just one of the unlucky ones. I’m sorry, I know what a grief that is!

There’s an amazing group on Facebook called ‘fed is best infant feeding peer support’ I highly advise joining, even now. It’s very healing to be in a space that is very positive about all infant feeding methods and read stories from other people who weren’t able to breastfeed. Helps to normalise formula use. Even if you’re truly fed is best in your heart it can still be difficult to come to terms with not having been able to EBF your baby.

[lljkk]

he lost 12% of birthweight in 3 days?

I gather this is within normal not danger range, someone should have supported OP better.

[user1471538283]

A baby having breast milk for just 2 weeks makes a huge difference in their health IF the mother can do it! You did it! I found breast feeding hard and like you my DS had formula the minute he was born. Breastfeeding and expressing are exhausting.

I promise you it doesn't make any difference to your baby how he was fed. You are doing an amazing job!

[MarshmallowAra]

@sunglassesintherain

Yes ... tried nipple shields. I just keep wishing I’d persevered. I lost so much confidence when he lost all that weight. Expressing was absolute hell, I regret that in many ways, it took me away from him as he wanted to be held and I kept thinking ‘but I need to express.’

If you have another child and you're in this situation; try a hands free pump (or hands free collection cups with a pump) and then you can hold the baby while pumping (or even pump one side and try feeding on other side).

You should pump more while holding baby, looking at them at close quarters too.