To not want to persevere with breastfeeding

[Sam020]

DD is 3 months. I've been combination feeding her from when she was 5 days (on the advice of the midwife as she lost a lot of weight and was too slow in gaining it back).

I usually breastfeed her on both breasts, then give her a bottle and 2-3 times a day I try to express milk as well. This has been working fine so far even though it is quite time consuming. She is growing well and tracking her weight centile.

However, for the past few days she has started to reject the breast. She sometimes drinks from the left one but never anymore from the right one. She cries and turns her head away. It's frustrating for both of us and kind of messes up my entire routine. I have stopped expressing thinking that she might ght feed from the breast soon so am worried about my milk supply. So I'm thinking of switching to exclusively bottle feeding. I'll try to pump for as long as I can but even now I get rarely more than 20-40 ml from both breasts so it will be mostly formula.

I think bottle feeding will have lots of advantages but I'm just wondering if I need to try harder or for a bit longer with breastfeeding. My main reason for wanting to bf at this point is so that she can get COVID antibodies from my COVID vaccination (and hopefully to other illnesses as well.) I don't trust that the antibodies will be preserved in expressed milk and I think that once I stop breastfeeding my milk supply will soon vanish anyway.

What would you do?

shouldistop
If you do continue you may find people will start asking when you're going to stop when baby gets to 6 months

Totally agree with this, also ^
I’m still feeding my 2.5 year old and my new born. People can 🖕🏼Frankly. 😂

@Fullyloaded

Have you tried asking your gp for help? I gather domperidone can be prescribed to boost supply? Also, you're eating and drinking enough yourself? Re pumping, have you tried a different pump? I'd only get 30ml or so with the models swing and hated every second of it, but got 100ml+ with the Bella baby, which is cheap as chips from amazon.

Really I didn't know that. The GP never mentioned that when we saw him for Ds's poor weight gain. Just asked me to top him up with formula. Do you if it's standard practice by the NHS?

The answer to this question is always don’t continue if you don’t want to , you can’t, or it’s causing you stress.
End of
And that’s as someone who persisted for 9 months first time round. God it was hard.

Are you eating enough fat/oats/supplements and drinking enough? It seems strange that she’s pulling away, she’s trying to tell you that something isn’t right and I wonder if you need to up your supply.

You’re right that the antibodies will be a massive help to her over winter, do keep going with bf if you can. It gets easier!! I did it for 2 yrs and after I stoppd and my child got flu it was horrible not being able to bf antibodies into her.

@Fullyloaded

Have you tried asking your gp for help? I gather domperidone can be prescribed to boost supply? Also, you're eating and drinking enough yourself? Re pumping, have you tried a different pump? I'd only get 30ml or so with the models swing and hated every second of it, but got 100ml+ with the Bella baby, which is cheap as chips from amazon.

I'm just looking at the Bella baby Breast pump. Is it the double pump you recommend? I'm tempted to buy it but it's £50 on Amazon and I'm not sure if I can justify that expenditure on the off chance it might help.

How do you operate the pump when you need both hands to hold it? And does it have a separate let down mode and express mode? Sorry, I couldn't find these answers in the reviews.

I second the comment about the tongue tie.
My son was checked after birth and they said it's all OK. However we did struggle BF for the first three months (not to an extent that I needed to give him too ups, but his latch was horrendous). Spoke to a breastfeeding consultant and she said it might be a posterior tongue tie.
We made an appointment at a private clinic as waiting times for the NHS were too long and after the tie was severed, he fed like a trooper and we managed to carry on until he stopped at 2.5 years.

However it all really depends what you want and how much time and effort you want to make to continue BF.

I'm a big breastfeeding advocate, think everyone should give it a try if they feel they can, and I also believe it's best not to quit on a bad day.

If you want to try to fix the problems you're having, give it a go, there's lots of support and things still to try.

But if you want to stop, stop! You've given your baby breast milk at the most important stage (newborn), you know they can tolerate formula, and if you don't mind making up bottles, crack on.

Do what is right for you. You've done so well. Also don't stress about antibodies etc, some of the most sickly babies I know at the moment are breastfed!

@Sam020 I'm not sure if it's standard practice but I've read of other women using it, and the NHS drug explainer says it is used for that purpose so it must be fairly common. GPS don't receive much bf training so it might be you need to do a bit of research and then ask for it specifically.

Re the Bella baby, they must have put the prices up due to popularity, was only 30 quid when I got mine. It has loads of different strength settings including let down and express modes. I most often just used one side but if using two you could clamp your arm over both bottles and use the other arm to use the controls, or rest on a surface. It's a wireless model so easier to maneuver too rather than being tethered to a socket. Alternatively, you could try a silicone pump? You pop it on the other boob while you're feeding and it catches let down and gently sucks more out - can be very effective as obviously you are getting all the milk release hormones from feeding baby, so can get more from your other boob than by expressing when not feeding. Example attached, they also sometimes stock them in aldi.

Domperidone isn't licensed for use in the U.K. for low supply and carries the risk of serious cardiac side effects. https://www.gov.uk/drug-safety-update/domperidone-risks-of-cardiac-side-effects?fbclid=IwAR0gZsqjTvs1r0g5UcK6QpAA_N2OIIvVc8aYroRaKq-9ZrFKq1vqK8LXNP4

I was offered it off-label when struggling with low supply and was horrified at the implication that BFing was more important than the potential serious health implications for me.

Stop whenever suits you. In case they are useful regardless of your decision, a couple of thoughts from reading your posts:

1. Pulling away on only one boob is sometimes due to an ear or throat infection, the sucking gives some pain. Might be worth checking.
2. I didn't often get much from a pump, but DS grew fine after the typical early weight dip that they breastfed baby gets; babies can get a lot more than machines and some midwives don't seem to be clear that weight gain has a slightly different trajectory for breastfed babies.
3. You might pump more by getting a different pump, looking at the baby while you pump, and eating things to increase supply (oats, beer etc; particularly make sure you're drinking enough water).

Hi, I’m a midwife and have breastfed 4 children including a set of twins. 3 months is a really common time to start experiencing problems like this when combination feeding.

When breastfeeding starts the supply is driven by hormones; your milk production is generally more than your baby needs hence why you suffer engorgement and leaking etc. Around 3 months this over supply stops, hormone levels drop off a little bit and your breasts produce only what your baby needs; the issue is that if combination feeding then your body has learned to make less than your baby needs. Babies get used to the steady flow from a bottle and don’t want to work for milk from the breast and can get frustrated by the ebb and flow of breastmilk. There is also a growth spurt around 3 months so babies can get fussy and hungrier for a while. This combination of issues happening at the same time is why lots of women stop breastfeeding around this point.

There are a few things you can try that have already been mentioned above, if you want to keep feeding then you can keep doing what you’re doing with a combination of breastfeeding, especially at night and in the morning when your supply will be at its highest. The rest of the time if your baby is fussy on the breast and you are struggling you could give either formula or expressed milk depending on what you want to do. Bear in mind that you don’t have to stop completely unless you want to, you can keep the breastfeeds that work for you and drop the ones that don’t. When your baby is eating more solids around 7-8 months breastfeeding will likely get easier again.

If you want to stop then stop and don’t feel guilty. If you want to keep going then best of luck!

Just to add that your baby may prefer one breast as the supply is greater on that side, makes sense if it’s the side you’ve always favored. You can build up your supply on that side slowly if you want to. Try the rugby ball hold on the least favored side, try putting baby on towards the end of the feed when they’re less hungry and they may not fuss as much. Or nay be teething, ear pain as already suggested

You lasted longer than I did both times. Well done!! You’ve done amazingly!

I got that guilt, but I have happy healthy 10 & 3 year old, and it’s not affected them.

Be kind to yourself. You’ve done brilliantly! ❤️

As long as baby is fed, that’s all that matters. Promise! X

You are doing a great job with your baby. Preserving the sanity and wellbeing of the mum is of primary importance--do what you need to! And I say that as someone who EBF for a ridiculously long time.

If you feel up to it, check with LLL to get professional advice if you want to try continuing to BF. But I don't think you should do it because of guilt/pressure.

You e done great with 3 months. I didn’t even manage 3 days. DS1 screamed every time the midwife tried to get him latched on . DS2 would have fed but I’d had a section and the support was too infrequent- too few staff in the ward and so both were bottle fed. I expressed and got one bottle of mine down them a day for a couple of weeks and the midwives helped me get the colostrum down them so I managed that at least !

Whatever you do, you're doing an amazing job. Three months is fantastic, you're trying your hardest to give your baby the best possible start in life, and you should be proud of that.

Breastfeeding for as long as YOU want to.
Your baby really doesn't give a shit if the milk is in a bottle or a book. Just as long as there's milk.
I stopped breastfeeding so much earlier than I intended to. But I was physically and emotionally done.

I've never regretted it once.

I would just say again that I really think you should get some professional advice. If you're not sure who to go to, ask your GP and health visitor. It sounds like an awful lot of work doing feeding, pumping and formula.
Loads of ideas on this thread from everyone, but I imagine that could be overwhelming!
Worth bearing in mind that the baby will always get more from your breast than a pump would. Pumps are just not as efficient as babies so don't let that convince you you have low supply.

Honestly, bottles are fine, fed is indeed best. Don't worry, you've done more breastfeeding than I managed with 2 babies! (They are now 16 and 8 and strong, fit and fine).

Honestly OP, I was racked with guilt (and pain) after 3 months trying to properly establish breastfeeding. I was full of blisters, my baby was vomiting my blood, no amount of pumping will bring my supply up to be enough to bottle feed and I started resenting big time the moment I heard him wake up. It was hell, but I felt I was going to be betraying my son and possibly poisoning him with formula.

Then my HV said “Cat… you have tried very hard, there is far more to motherhood than breastfeeding”

She was right. My son is fine, has grown to be very tall, is slim, sporty, sociable and has a very respectable IQ regardless of being mostly formula fed.

Breastfeeding is shit. Well done for 3 months. If you’re done, move on. I’m only persevering because I’m too lazy to sterilise bottles.