To give up on breastfeeding?

[Passenger7]

DS is 3 weeks old. I had always gone into feeding with an open mind knowing several people who tried to BF but couldn’t and got very stressed over it. So I’m eating my words now I’m in this situation!

I had a difficult labour with a failed induction and a subsequent caesarean. DS was very small and needed medical intervention at birth. I didn’t have skin to skin, the section happened quite fast and the whole hour felt like a blur. He was shown to me when born then went to be checked before my DH held him etc, by the time he got to me he was dressed. Due to his size we had to syringe feed him my expressed colostrum and then formula from a cup as his sugars were low. My obs after the operation were also off so we didn’t get any time together to bond until the day after the c-section.

The outcome is DS really can’t latch, we’ve tried and tried but he just can’t. The few times he’s got a mouthful of nipple he falls asleep or he can’t suck. He’s had a tongue tie diagnosed and cut. I’ve tried nipple shields but again he doesn’t understand them. We do a lot of skin to skin which ends in tears for both of us as DS tries to latch of his own accord and he can’t. I’ve been expressing to maintain my supply but been told I need to do this 8x per day ideally and it’s very time consuming, it means DS does get some breastmilk.

Meanwhile DS is predominantly FF and thriving to be honest, he’s gained over 1lb since he was born (he only weighed 5lb 5oz at birth, full term). He sleeps well, he takes bottles fine.

We’ve had a huge amount of external support on the BF side, from midwives, feeding specialists and consultants. My positioning is good, they’re happy with his tongue tie now but no one can tell us why DS still can’t latch properly.

This has culminated in a visit with a lactation consultant today who thinks the best way forward is to increase the expressing, and only after a few weeks building supply can we think about reintroducing DS to the breast. She said there’s no guarantee he will get it as the whole journey has been so interrupted.

So I feel I’m at a point I need to decide if I continue trying or just put this aside. I feel quite down about my birth experience and I’ve struggled feeling inadequate as I can’t feed and didn’t give birth ‘properly’. I feel like giving up on feeding would be another failure, but then on the other hand it’s causing me a huge amount of stress and the pumping is incredibly time consuming on top of caring for DS. I know if I give up on BF that’s the end of the road and I keep thinking I’ll be so disappointed in myself when my milk dries up. I’ve become fixated on it but before he was born I was never really bothered one way or another. I feel like if I don’t BF DS won’t know I’m his mum.

WIBU to call time on the BFing?

Give up. Fed baby is happy baby.

You are definitely not being unreasonable to stop and you would also not be unreasonable to carry on if that’s what you wanted to do. And you could also decide that on balance, it’s the right decision for you and your baby to stop bf and be relieved in some ways and also feel sad about that. Basically there’s no right or wrong answer- you’ve been doing an incredibly hard job with the challenges you’ve faced and there’s zero shame in deciding that it’s not working for you. Likewise, if you want to keep going a bit longer and see what happens, then no one should convince you otherwise. At the end of the day it’s your baby and your body.

This is very normal at 3 weeks. I had easy birth and BF was learnt by both of us at week 5. Lots of tears but my sister who had had a baby 4 months prior ordered me to persevere. I obeyed and it was downhill post 5-6 weeks. Easy, cheap, flexible

I was in your situation 2 years ago - C section and DS could not figure out how to latch. I only managed to keep going as my family did most of DS care, while I focused on feeding him - it would have just been impossible time wise otherwise.

I might have done the odd nappy, bottle feed or bath but honestly I wouldn’t have time to pump up to 8 times a day ( which took nearly an hour each time in order to get any milk!) , plus do the necessary skin to skin with baby every few hours ( trying to get him to latch on the nipple shields!) , if I was also spending at least 30 mins bottle feeding every 2-3 hours ( my son had reflux so was supposed to held upright afterwards for a while) plus dealing with explosive nappy changes or vomit and laundry and cooking etc…when exactly would I have had any time to get any sleep or eat/drink as you are also supposed to do to make enough breastmilk 🤣

I managed it only because my family did everything else - and just told me to focus on getting him to breastfeed and everything I needed to achieve that ( the pumping, skin to skin latching practice, my own rest etc) - and I’m so grateful for it. At about 4 or 5 weeks he one day started sucking some milk through the nipple shields, I kept trying him without them too and again at 6 or 7 weeks he suddenly latched without them - I think it was a combination of persistence , trying different angles/positions and most likely him just maturing enough from newborn to “get it”.

We never looked back - he was solely breast fed by 11 or 12 weeks ( once he was properly latching I gradually cut down the formula) till we started some solids at 6 months. And he loved the breast so much, he now refuses to completely give it up even at 2 years old 🤣 and still has a feed every evening.

Long story short, YANBU to give it up if you aren’t getting the support in order to do it - I couldn’t have done it without my family basically doing so much. BUT if your partner/family can step up, I just wanted to give you hope that breastfeeding is possible - sometimes a baby just eventually but suddenly “gets it” ( I have no other explanation for how my DS did it).
Good Luck - I have been through what you have and remember how awful it felt ❤️DON’T feel guilty if you need to let the breastfeeding go, not everyone has a partner or family willing to help out that much 😢

I think this is a very personal decision if I'm honest.

You need to decide what's best for you.

I gave up Bf DS1 then decided I didn't want to as that was doing me more harm mentally and I felt no relief.

I then reduced each bottle feed very gradually as had been topping up anyway and by June (he was born mid march) he was EBF.

Now it was fucking hard and I'm not sure I'd reccomend it to everyone BUT only you know what you really want to do and what's best for you and your child... what capacity you have to continue and persevere without damaging your mental health.

Xx

Gosh sounds like you have tried everything...I would go to ff and not look back. It's really sad that you are getting the feeling that this is a failure. There are sooooo many more things to worry about in parenting this just isn't worth the headspace. Being well and happy for you LO is just as important and when they are older it won't matter how they were feed. Enjoy your baby.

You only get one go at being a first time mum, where it’s just you and your baby going through everything for the first time together.

You won’t get that time back- don’t waste it doing something which is making you miserable and frustrated.

I'm not saying you should, but If you really did want to try pumping for a while, it is doable, I used to pump and store in the fridge in small bottles, very quickly I was a day ahead, so as long as I pumped 4/5 times a day (which you can do while doing other things too) there was always a supply, but it also means when you have a supply ready to use your DH or anyone else can feed him, either while you pump or to let you get some rest too, you can combi feed anyway, and that will help you build up a little supply in the fridge.

My DD couldn't latch, but we still used to try every now and again and as long as she wasn't too tired she could do it, it never took off to full breastfeeding though so I just carried on pumping then fed formula from 6 months.

Also, FWIW, me and DH have always both got up at night together, he used to go and get whatever we needed/bottle etc while I soothed our DD and then he would go back to bed while I would feed/change and put her back down, I don't really believe the 'there's no point both being up' logic to be honest, because why should one parent and one parent only have terrible sleep, you're in this together and you're supposed to be a team, don't try to take on too much purely by yourself as it can set the tone going forward.

Please do what is best for you. My first baby had an ok birth but didn't latch. I stayed in hospital for three days post birth with many midwifes trying to help him latch and no one could explain why he didn't. We did move to formula and I felt so much guilt as to why he couldn't latch.

My next baby - he latched minutes after birth. I don't mean this to rub it in but I didn't nothing different but the first baby just could t latch. After my second I stopped beating myself up.

Some people are irrationality anti these, but I would suggest giving nipple shields a go, OP. I have very flat nipples, and successfully combi fed my DS for 6 months using them, but without the shields I would barely have lasted a week.

Also, don't think about it in all or nothing terms. If you need to use a bit of formula to keep weight up etc, it doesn't mean breast feeding is over, combi feeding is very much an option if you pump to maintain supply.

Important thing is he gets fed.
Believe me he'll know you're his Mum and he won't give a damn where the milk is coming from as long as he gets it.

I've been there, pumping and crying.

Sometimes it's not a 'decision' and it's not a 'choice'. Sometimes the formula is the best option, every situation is unique.

Remove the stress and the expectations and the pressure, and especially any talk or thought of failure. Your baby has a mum who loves him and is desperate to do right by him; he'll thrive no matter how he is fed. Whatever avenue you take now is not a failure, it's just the next step.

Take away all of the loaded statements and emotion. It's just food; whether it's formula or breast milk is neither here nor there to your baby as long as he's getting something! The question is, what would you like to do? Is there something you would like to try that you don't think has been explored yet? Or are you ready to switch to formula and it's the emotions holding you back?

Do what works for you.

OP when my DD was born, I lost a lot of blood and that affected my supply, meaning she lost loads of weight in the first few days whilst I was exhausted and recovering from transfusions. Coupled with a shallow latch, I had to spend so much time feeding then pumping them feeding them pumping to get her weight back up. I then had to go on to use nipple shields. I had mastitis THREE times. But I persevered, I was so stubborn and I refused to put her on bottles. It was all fine and in the end she fed until she was 3 and didn’t touch formula.

But do you know what - in hindsight my life would have been a hell of a lot easier if I’d just thrown in the towel. She’s now 11 and I can’t believe I felt it mattered SO much about what kind of milk she had. There’s about 40 trillion more important decisions you’ll make about your baby as they grow, and honestly - I really wish I’d just packed in BF and enjoyed time with my baby rather than making my life harder and enduring hell. I feel it keenly that I’ll never get that time back with her where I can just hold her all I like and I now feel like I spent SO much time fretting over something that wasn’t even that important in the grand scheme of things.

Im not sure if that’s good advice or not but there are people who exist who persevered with BF and regret it.

I really struggled accepting stopping, i felt so much pressure that i had to do it. I was inconsolable when i stopped thinking I was awful 😅

My LO was premature, she couldn't feed at all, i was so stressed trying to pump and relentlessly trying to feed her, i lost so much weight, never slept a wink, couldn't eat with the stress, my supply then started stopping which exacerbated the cycle, kept trying another month, then my LO turned out to be allergic. Went to speak to doctor about allergy formula and was encouraged to cut out food groups (baring in mind i couldn't eat much and had lost 3 stone by this point) omg it almost killed me and ruined the whole start of motherhood and bonding.

Wish id just dismissed other peoples demands and just formula fed from the first issues 😅

Basically do what you feel is best, what will make your firsts with your baby as enjoyable as possible. What aids you in bonding together and try and do what will be least stressful.

I'm annoyed that i feel I ruined the initial newborn period trying to fit this image set by other peoples standards. 😑

This is just a personal decision. I’m very positive towards breastfeeding and I’ve seen people who have, through determination, defied the odds and continued in breastfeeding in your situation. On the other hand, your on the back foot now, through no fault of your own, and it will take a huge mental and physical effort to get to the point where you are feeding easily.

I think being at a point where you are pumping and trying to establish feeding is the worst, it’s so tough. Nobody will judge you either way. Nobody can even access your situation because every situation is different.

Whatever you decide, this is just one of so many parenting decisions you’ll be making. Don’t put too much e
weight on it. Make the decision that feels best to you.

I would take the advice from people here who say their baby ‘eventually got it’ with a pinch of salt.

Sometimes it never works and you may never get a full supply on just pumping. I didn’t even nearly get there.

If you’re looking for ‘permission’ to stop, please just stop and don’t look back :)

BTW What nipple shields are you using ?@Passenger7 I used MAM large ones as I also used MAM bottles - I think the similarity to his bottle eventually helped DS figure out what to do. Then once he’d had a couple of weeks getting milk out my breast via the shield, he must have suddenly discovered that he could get milk even easier/more quickly without it 🤷‍♀️

I found using the pump really hard (and this was using the same electric one as the hospital) - I barely got 30mls in an hour. It was only once he was sucking from the breast properly that I seemed to make enough ( although I did take fenugreek for a while, I’m not sure whether it made any difference) - DS was way more efficient than the pump! The only benefit of a refluxy baby 🤮 was I regularly got to see how more DS got from me, than I ever got via the pump.