To give up breastfeeding 3 week old?

[Octosaurus]

Every time I breastfeed my 3 week old he spend the next few hours crying, spitting up and wriggling in pain.

On days where I exclusively breastfeed he also has had bad diarrhoea (12 poos a day vs his normal 5/6) and a red face and body.

When he has formula (when i was sick in hospital and when my supply had been too low for his appetite) he is much more content. He drinks, he can be burped nicely, no vomiting or spitting up and no diarrhoea or red blotchy skin.

I am so upset because I wanted to breastfeed and I feel like I can do it, I have a good latch and good supply now!

The doctor said there's no way he can be allergic to breast milk end of. I am coeliac and don't eat wheat and I gave up milk in case there was a dairy allergy.

I am seriously thinking I should switch to formula but I don't want to make him miss out on the benefits of BF and I'm afraid I will be judged.

Anyone been through similar? Or got ANY advice?

@MariaVT65

I'd be skeptical about information I get from random individuals on the internet!

The benefits of breastfeeding are firmly established internationally, it's also the natural way of feeding babies and free. More likely that baby is gulping air whilst feeding because the latch isn't correct causing wind and and possibly simply isn't feeding enough. Reflux is common and easily treated in most. It tss as lea 4-6 weeks to establish breast feeding after which it far easier than bottles.

All that said a baby needs feeding most of all, combi feeding is a great compromise.

If a baby is reacting to breastmilk, unless you have a specific thing in your diet eg a product in the coeliacs friendly foods then it could be just wind. When my dd2 was being sick I was advised to cut huge amounts from my diet and add back in - it was bananas!

I'm less sceptical because mums have experience. Doctor just says impossible based on textbook!

It's not the latch because he's still in agony with expressed breast milk in a bottle. Whereas formula he's fine with.

I don't eat that much and my diet is very boring. It consists of potato, veg meat and rarely any sauces. I'm wracking my brains here.

Also my siblings and I were all formula fed and we are all healthy, very fit and "successful" (by some superficial standards at least) so I can say it hasn't done us any harm at all.

I don't believe it is cheaper because I eat way more food while BF and that is just as, if not more expensive than formula!

I was really hoping to breastfeed and bought loads of nursing clothes but this reaction is just so confusing. I wish I knew how to fix it?!

So, OP has clearly come here with the exact purpose of getting advice from strangers on the internet. And I absolutely don’t blame her. I had my first baby during the pandemic and mumsnet was so much more useful than any NHS source.

As a PP said, the benefits are based on population level, not individuals and it’s more to do with a person’s welfare, upbringing and lifestyle. Oh and genetics.

Someone has quoted the NHS saying breastfeeding reduces the risk of obesity. I personally believe a person is more likely to be obese because they eat crap and don’t exercise, not because they were formula fed 25 years ago.

I was formula fed as I was unable to latch due to birth injury. I am very healthy, not obese, no asthma/eczema etc. My brother was breastfed and there is no difference between us.

The NHS as a whole has a massive agenda to breastfeed, in a way that causes harm to people. I had issues with supply and their advice was to eat lots and pump 12 times a day. They gave absolutely zero fucks about my wellbeing. All this did was not increase my supply, but make me put on weight and plummet my mental health to the ground from exhaustion and lack of sleep.

My best friend is a midwife and she said the NHS is very good at making women feel guilty, and that many midwives are changing their attitudes once they give birth themselves and then experience problems with breastfeeding.

The NHS also doesn’t give advice in classes about formula or sterilising bottles, despite it being needed in cases where a woman physically can’t breastfeed. It also doesn’t have any information for women who wish to give up breastfeeding in a safe manner while reducing the risk of mastitis.

In a nutshell, OP has no reason to feel guilty. Breastfeeding doesn’t work for many women, for many different reasons.

Don't stress about it. x

I have lately had my third baby.

I bf my first two for over two years each.

My third, I have just given up after two months. She was born with terrible tongue tie, took WEEKS to get it sorted out, and what with the older kids (I also have a stepdaughter so it is three older kids), I couldn't manage, either physically or mentally, to sit there 24/7 with my boobs out trying to recover my supply.

So she is now ff. She is doing just fine. Actually sleeps better than the others did - might be a coincidence.

You have to do what you have to do. If it is making your baby miserable, it is ok to stop, you need no one's permission.

If you want to persevere, of course that is also ok, you need no one's permission. It does sound like a possible allergy to something you are eating so that would be worth investigating.

@MariaVT65 you’re obviously not a scientist so it’s probably best not to speculate about the relationship between breastfeeding and obesity.

The reason the NHS has a “massive agenda” to encourage breastfeeding is because it will ultimately save them money down the line because of the health benefits for children and mothers. When comparing bf and ff it’s easy to forget that in addition to the benefits for the baby, bf significantly reduces the chance of the mother getting breast cancer, ovarian cancer and type 2 diabetes among other things.

The NHS is absolutely shit at supporting bf, and I’m sorry you had a bad experience, but that does not mean they are wrong about why it’s a good thing to do, if you can. Most people need proper support to breastfeed successfully, especially at the beginning, and most of the usual problems that people experience are surmountable with the proper support.

Since OP has said she wants to breastfeed, it’s worth fully exploring ways to make it work before deciding to stop. But of course I agree that she doesn’t need to feel guilty if she does decide to stop.

Yes the NHS is shit at supporting breastfeeding in a positive way, but also go too far the other way and fail to acknowledge when it’s just not going to work, and actively refuse to give women advice on bottle sterilisation or stopping breastfeeding safely. The way they approach things is quite harmful I think.

Switch to FF.

There's nothing that could make me put my baby in pain like that when there's a perfectly good and safe alternative.

I can't tell you what's causing it, but clearly something is. The benefits of BF are not worth a new baby being put through pain.

I wonder why the NHS would have an agenda?

I see it as encouragement because maybe people give up for things they see as problems that are actually normal. But as someone else said, my case seems to be very individual and I am lumped in with the general view by the GP and the lactation consultant group.

They just don't see the full picture because I don't stay with him for a couple of days where I try EBF for two days and he's really struggling and then I formula feed him for a couple of bottles and he's a whole new baby.

I just wish I could pinpoint it and could carry on but it seems hopeless as none of the usual culprits are at fault here :((((

I don't really understand. It hasn't been long enough to get the allergens out of your system to even see?

Also my siblings and I were all formula fed and we are all healthy, very fit and "successful" (by some superficial standards at least) so I can say it hasn't done us any harm at all.

^ it won't have harmed you. It just won't have given you any of the benefits of breastfeeding, none of which you can see with your eyes, they're all inside the body.
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I don't really understand. It hasn't been long enough to get the allergens out of your system to even see?

It will be a long time for the OP who has an unhappy baby who is uncomfortable with being bf.

Are you using anything on your nipples such as a barrier cream or soap/detergent. If you are try using just warm water and drying well. Sometimes it’s not always obvious what the allergen is.
My DS had a latex allergy ( as do I) it took a while to work out why some nappies caused rashes and why some foods I ate caused problems.
A lot of fruits, such as bananas, avocados, kiwi fruit and aloe Vera are from the same plant family as latex ( rubber tree) so people are often allergic to them. Bananas cause acute gastric pain and diarrhoea for me and I can’t use any skin products containing aloe vera. I didn’t realise when I was breast feeding that I had developed the allergy ( years of wearing latex gloves at work).

Why?
You're not a conspiracy theorist are you? Shares in formula milk?

Breastmilk poo is runny its completely normal, its probably not diarrhoea. Its very easy digested so the waste that comes out is quite different to formula.

If human babies didnt thrive well on our own breastmilk we'd have been fucked as a species about a million years ago.

The NHS also doesn’t give advice in classes about formula or sterilising bottles, despite it being needed in cases where a woman physically can’t breastfeed.

No, they don't given instructions on formula because literacy levels are very high in the uk. The instructions to prepare formula are on the packet, and there is no specialist technique required.

This x 1,000

Yet I've seen/heard far too many people stop sterilising bottles 'as soon as they start putting things in their mouth because I don't see the point anymore' which is clearly a misunderstanding of why it is recommended to sterilise bottles until 12 months.

Sounds like CMPA honestly; it takes quite a while for traces to be completely out of your breast milk and you have to watch for hidden dairy pretty closely - it’s in a lot of sauces, flavorings etc. One of mine was severely CMPA and I did successfully bf for two years - was a lot of work initially but worth it imo.

In the long run breastfeeding is cheaper than formula. And there is benefits.

I stopped sterilising at 6 months. Breastfeeding you can stop then.

Coming from a mother, who breastfed for 12 months (NHS guidelines at the time), FED IS BEST.

Do not put yourself or your baby through any more upset. You do whatever is best for your baby and you. Babies welfare and your emotional and mental health come before anything and anyone else’s opinion.

Breastfeeding is wonderful if it works, if it doesn’t, do not feel any guilt. These fuckers that make mums feel guilty boil my piss.

I thought it was obvious I was talking about formula since 12 months is the recommendation when formula feeding.

But regular formula is powdered cow's milk so CMPA doesn't make sense?

I wonder, if you want to continue breastfeeding whether you try a supplemental nursing system so he is getting formula and breast - this maintains your supply so you have a bit more time to work out what disagrees with him?

Anecdotally I've heard things like onions and garlic can disagree with babies.

breastfeeding-problems.com/supplemental-nursing-system/

Yes I just realised this. It can't be dairy allergy because he has formula find and that's made from cows milk!

Garlic onions Brussel sprouts. These have my breastfed baby and upset tummy, especially the sprouts.