Feeling lost with an unhappy newborn

[BungleBonce]

I am here because I am utterly lost. After a traumatic arrival (failed induction two weeks early because she was transverse, emergency caesarean and cardiac arrest), our five-week-old little girl is struggling to put on weight. She was 6lb, 1oz and is still under 7lb. I am desperate to breastfeed but have been told by my GP and a lone helpful nurse to try topping up with formula.

But she refuses both bottle and breast, screams all day even when held, and feeds so slowly I am sometimes tied to the sofa for 12 hours. She wakes herself from sleep regularly with sharp cries. Neither of us can sleep. I am getting maybe 4 hours per day. I am exhausted.

My health visitor will not visit, my midwives discharged me despite my tearful protestations that all is not well, and my GP is well meaning but just sends me away with advice to get her weighed regularly.

My husband is doing the meals and housework but he is also back at work, and I have no family or friends to help out. I miss meals because I am trying to comfort her and the house is a mess. I barely get out because I am terrified of not being able to feed her should she need it. I cannot feed her outside because she is so slow. I think she takes in too much air, which gives her pain, but she cannot get it out despite all our efforts. She also holds in her No. 2s until the end of the day, which seems to give her pain. That?s the only routine she has.

She is so unhappy and no one will help. No one will tell me how to administer top ups (what formula, how much, when, what technique) and I am being made to feel like a failure as a human being for not being able to produce enough milk. I would love to exclusively breastfeed but she was getting dangerously small. Even with the top ups she is still screaming and uncomfortable and not sleeping.

We cannot afford private healthcare but the NHS does not want to know about us.

We do not want our old lives back. We do not want a routine. We just want our baby to feed, put on weight and just look content once in a while. We have never been as tired or as unhappy and we are both tearfully ashamed at our dark our thoughts toward her are.

What can I do? Can anyone help?

I do use a sling as much as possible but there are times that she simply screams and fights to be let out. Also, I am quite petite, so there is not much room for her to lie as upright as she should. She mostly ends up lying sideways. She is long but thin - still too small to go in the Baby Bjorn or the bouncer we have for her.

She is not a strong feeder and seems to take in a lot of air while she feeds, which possibly complicates things. I really feel she does not get much milk from me after about 10 minutes. She seems to get frustrated after that and drops off, crying. Then she starts headbutting me and rooting around, which continues when I wind her. I worry she is going to hurt herself she is so forceful.

She just cannot stay on bottle or breast for any length of time. We are using Avent bottles for expressed milk and top ups. Maybe we should try another type?

I really do love her and want her to be happy but nothing I do seems to comfort her.

It sounds like you have been given crap advice by your GP and never needed to top up at all. Expressing is no indication of milk quantity. Your baby is gaining weight, that's the better indication.

Is she having plenty of wet nappies? That's also a sign of getting enough milk.

I am not telling you to stop top ups but a face to face session with a bfc could be better than the helpline. Some do home visits if you can't get out.

Like Ruth said your baby is more efficient than the pump at getting milk and just the fact that it's your baby being held close and not some plastic machine stimulates your milk let down anyway.

Yes, wraps are good for small babies. Close Baby carrier or quite "foolproof" but not great post-6mths old IME.

Once you have your arms back you can eat and if you master feeding lying down you can sleep.

Mess around the house? Well, that's what cupboards are for

This site is good for feeding help ("laid back breastfeeding"). Meaning you can rest while you feed.

www.biologicalnurturing.com/

Have you tried infacol before a feed? Helped my dd who took in a lot of air due to a weak latch which took a while to get help for.

My dd hated the sling at first but I'd out her in while we moved/walked/swayed and she'd settled. She ended up being carried daily until she was about 18 mths. The movement was important for her to settle at first.

Also agree that checking for tongue tie or signs of reflux might be helpful.

How is she once she's asleep?

Actually one of the OP's has a good point about tounge tie, this can course babies to strugle to feed from a bottle as well as breast.

I think you really need to be seen by some one, you said you went to a group but didn't see you feed. You really need to be observed feeding so see if there is a problem.

Listion to all the good advice expressing is no indicator of supply I only suggested it as you hadn't meationed it in your original post. So didn't know if you'd been told to top up with formula without trying this first. (Which offten happens)

Please give someone else a ring. Your DD could just be a slow gainer and a long feeder which can be perfectly normal. But it's hard to tell without seeing you in real life.

I feel for you, I had similar with my emergency delivered baby. He just seemed unhappy and seemed to fight me when he was feeding and it was so upsetting when his growth was slow too. i felt at the time that the difficult birth had unsettled us both, and it took both of us a while to get over it. But we did. One thing we did because I was exhuasted, i got DH to do an evening feed for me, expressed if I had managed it, else formula. It meant I coudl get a reasonable sleep in before the next feed. Tiredness will make you feel absolutely shite.

Hi

I am new on here, but I can so relate to how you feel. My DS is 14 now but I remember the first few months being hell.

The tiredness is the killer and everything seems insurmountable when you are so sleep deprived. The constant crying is heartbreaking and you feel like you're doing it all wrong.

I remember my mother putting her coat on as we came through the door (she had babysat while we went food shopping) and she said "your son opens his mouth before he opens his eyes"... she left before we had even finished unpacking the frozen stuff! Apparently he had cried mercilessly since the moment I left.

First thing's first - it will get better.

You will look back on this in years to come (whilst your leggy teenager daughter is rummaging in the fridge for food) with a sense of fondness you can't imagine now... well that is what my DS is doing as I regurgitate my past.

I found that while DS was small I could BF with him kind of tucked under my armpit, supported along the length of my forearm, cradling his head in my hand and then I could still potter about. I think I read about it in a book or maybe the MW showed me... it is lost in the annuls of time. But it does make 'living' a bit easier. At least you can become a mobile milk factory!

The older DS got and more he could do, the happier he became. I think my DS was just frustrated as much as anything. It was about 12 weeks when it started to get easier... but it did get easier.

I would also recommend just trying to get out for some fresh air at least every other day so you don't get cabin fever. You don't have to brush your hair or put on your best frock, just get out there and breathe in some fresh air. Aside from anything else, the movement of the pushchair/pram can be good for releasing a bit of wind (hers not yours) and if nothing else the crying doesn't echo so much outdoors!

The feeding and weight will sort itself out in good time, you just need to stay sane through the tough stage.

Good luck xxx

the fussing and headbutting is most probably wind. My baby does the exact same thing and it took me ages to work out that she was windy and kept putting her back on to continue feeding, then she'd just bring up that milk. Now as soon as she starts fussing i sit her up, wind her and then put her back on. She will cry when you take her away but she might just move the wind and carry on feeding. X

My baby dropped weight and was still dropping until I introduced an evening top up after two weeks. We were back in hospital because she was so small. I don't know if there can be a clearer indicator that she wasn't getting enough. Even now she is in the bottom 0.4 percentile. Supply problems can happen. Not everyone's body is perfect. My frustration is that barely anyone will acknowledge this. I feel people are telling me I am stupid or not trying hard enough. I am trying until I am physically sick.

I am sorry if I sound short or impatient but I really have tried to follow all the advice. Our tiny flat is covered in booklets and pamphlets and books. That is why I am here. I do not know what to do but I don't think I can take talking to another breastfeeding councellor if I am just going to be told everything is fine.

More than 12 hours a day at the breast was not giving her what she needed. She does not have tongue tie. She does not like feeding lying down. We use Infacol. My husband and I both move a lot in bed and cannot comprehend co-sleeping. My husband already gives her every bottle she takes while he is home. He is almost as worn out as I am.

I dread every morning, every day alone and every evening when she is frantically trying to feed, only to turn it down after a few minutes. I know logically this will pass but I really feel I am going to break before I get there.

I know you said your family and friends are not around but where are they ? Could someone crash on your floor or stay in a travelodge to give you if nothing else some moral support and a cup of tea????

Don't struggle alone please. Ask for help. If not family try the NCT or LLL.

Who check for tounge tie? Some are very hard to spot a trained lactation consultant would be your best bet for this as support through the NHS can be quit poor. But you would have to pay for this.

Although this lovely lady is very good milkmatters.org.uk/

You sound like your also crying out for support generaly, have you tried the NCT. They have a postnatal support line and you don't have to be a member to use there servacies. There local coffe groups saved my sanity when I had a fussy, refluxy, non sleeping DD 4 years ago.

My family are in Australia. My husband's parents still work and live on the other side of the country. I have my NCT friends but they all have their own newborns to deal with. My bossy NCT instructor was loathed by every member of our group so I won't be speaking to her!

Your local instuctor is not your local branch though and many of them aren't involved much with the local branch (although they are supposed to be they don't have to be).

The NCT postnatal line is a seperat thing anyway maybe worth a try.
support lines
Breastfeeding 0300 330 0771
Postnatal 0300 330 0773

And if you have a local childrens centure they do support parents to they are fab and offer lots of help so try to find your nearest one. They can offer practical help to with parent helpers.

Might i suggest nipple sheilds and trying a MAM ULTIvent teat, slow flow, it can be used in a Avent bottle and as it is more nipple when feeding shape it may help with wind.

You can use the baby bouncer chair as it is a similar shape to a infant car seat tho softer.

A Kari Me / Moby Wrap / Hugabub sling can be used with even premature / tiny babies and might help you both feel happier, because the sling is a wrap type (lots of vids on youtube) you could put sling on bare skin / just bra / nursing vest and wear a cardi over to get lots of skin on skin time.

Oh goodness. I agree NCT is hit and miss but maybe another 'nicer' person could help from the branch with the emotional side.

To be honest what I would do is go to A&E and tell them that you CAN NOT feed your baby properly and you think she is poorly and losing weight/not thriving. You will likely see a paediatrician whose main concern is the health of the baby (as opposed to in what manner she is fed).

You could ask to be admitted until she is able to feed properly. At the very minimum see their counsellor and ask for a feeding plan that has options for expressing or formula with how often and how much.

Hi Bunglebonce
I know exactly where you are coming from. My DD had tongue tie and feeding was hell, even after it being fixed she still wouldn't feed properly so i gave up and switched to exclusive formula feeding. I know it isn't as good for her as breast milk, but now she has a mother who doesn't dread every feed, who doesn't cry herself to sleep, and who can let her DH help with feeding. You are spot on about how breastfeeding counsellors sometimes miss out the bigger picture. If the latch is right and your supply is low, do not beat yourself up, and please do not isolate yourself. You might want to try some different bottles. We use avent, but I hear Tommee Tippee are good, and medela too. No harm experimenting. If infacol doesn't work, how's about gripe water or colief? Pls do check the age requirements on those.

Does she take ages to feed from bottle as well as breast? Does she come off screaming? Can she lie down afterwards? It might be worth jotting down exactly when she howls, does it seem pained etc, as it could be silent reflux or normal reflux....infant gaviscon could help, as well as a PROPER talk with your annoyingly ineffective GP. Ask to be referred to a paedeatrician because of the weight issue and refuse to take no for an answer.

Good luck

Oh and i think aptamil do a comfort version of their formula for babies with colic and constipation, thatmight be a mild one to start off on.

Lots of lovely advice here for you.

As you are in London you can attend the UCH Walk-in peads clinic.

If you are not getting help from GP midwife etc and you have concerns then I would go there immediately. It's located on the ground floor of the maternity wing. I have friend who didn't get right help and support from GP etc and had serious concerns about her DD who went and came away with a much needed silent reflux diagnosis and they continued to support her and her DD with outpatient apps etc.

It's worth attending if you are not getting other needed help. Even if the peadiatrician doesn't have major concerns about your DD you should get them to help you with further support. Worth a go.

As for low volumes when pumping. Are you using hand or electric? Only as as i am completely unable to get milk out with electric and only with a hand pump. With hand pump I get tons out.

I know how awful a bad birth is. My first was a total nightmare. It takes a while to get over but you will do it. I know because I am sitting here holding my week old DS and my DD isn't yet 2. Btw second birth was lovely and healing experience.

I definitely agree that you need to see a paedeatrician or perhaps another GP at your surgery would listen and come up with a more helpful plan. Others can give you excellent advice on BF and finding the right help for you to continue to BF. I can only tell you that it is possible to switch to FF (if that is something you want to do) and feel positive and happy about the decision. We switched at 5 days, using ready made cartons of aptamil to make it as easy and safe as possible. The sense of relief was incredible and my focus became ensuring that we FF well - things like making formula correctly and still demand feeding. DD is a very healthy baby and I am sure that we made the right decision for us.

I think I understand how you feel. I have been told my one of the breastfeeding expert in my area that I am one of the few women that do not produce enough milk. This was for DD1 and DS. I am currently feeding DD2 and it seems to go ok.
It is rare but it exists. I too tried everything, did supplement with a supplemental nursing system (which was hell on earth at 3 in the morning when totally sleep deprived) etc.. etc...
With DS, I was prescribed Motilium to increas my supply. It did work and I took it for 8 months and fed DS for over 2 years. Might be worth trying.
Good luck!

You've had good advice from others - can I just echo that it is utterly shit and soul destroying when they don't feed or sleep well.

My DD was also very small and a rubbish feeder - the violent headbutting etc sounds very familiar. She also didn't gain well until I added top ups of expressed milk and formula.

Has anyone suggested silent reflux? DD improved a lot with ranitadine. Don't get fobbed off with gaviscon - that just bungs them up and makes them more uncomfortable.

Another thing to try is cranial osteopathy - many people find it helps babies who've had traumatic births.

Just do ANYTHING to get through the next few weeks - it will get better and your DD won't remember any of it.

Do you have a children's centre near you? They can be really supportive in many ways - breastfeeding cafes, baby massage, outreach workers etc. People at mine would even look after babies so that shattered mums could grab 20 minutes sleep in one of the meeting rooms!

I could have written every single one of your posts above about ds1. I really feel for you, it was the worst time of my life. Ds1 just would.not.eat and it made my life hell. He was actually malnourished by the time we managed to get his underlying condition treated (at 4 months!)

I'll try and address some of the points in a more or less coherent manner but am bfing ds2 as I type so I apologise for any rambling.

Supply: if your baby doesn't feed then you will develop a supply problem. Your body needs stimulation in order to produce milk. I managed to relactate by pumping after every feed for at least 20 minutes on each breast (bugger all milk came out, but I did produce more - I eventually got engorged, but I'm just one of those people who doesn't seem to want to feed the pump). More milk plus pills helped enormously, I could actually feel my breasts getting full within a few days.

Topping up: I hated doing it but it was necessary. It stopped ds from downward spiralling quite so extremely. Unfortunately he soon enough developed a bottle aversion. We then moved to various aids, like the supplementary feeding system and even a softspoon thing, a cup, you name it. He wouldn't do breast or formula, which takes me to....

The cause: If she's refusing the bottle as well then the supply problem is an effect not a cause. If it's just a supply problem and you give them a bottle, they usually gulp down an enormous amount and ask for more, I was told by the paediatric gastroenterologist who eventually helped us out. So you need to find out the underlying cause.

Fairly common causes are reflux and cow's milk protein intolerance. They often come together. Ds1 had both.

With the reflux, when it's bad enough to stop them eating you usually need medication. The good news is it works really well, ds1 completely turned around in less than 2 months once he was on meds. The bad news is that you need to see about 1 million hcps usually until you find one that understands reflux at all. In the meantime you will be fobbed off with just about every possible way of being told that basically it's your fault.

For CMP intolerance you can eliminate cmp from your diet and continue to bf. It's a pain, but it does help and usually passes by the time they are 1. You need to eliminate all dairy and cow's meat, and also soya as it's apparently very similar. It can take up to 4 weeks for it all to leave your system but I saw fairly significant results (mostly in a reduction in the amount of crying) from about 48 hours after I started. Alternately if you are not willing to do this and believe it's cmp intolerance there are special formulas you can use. Not the standard hypoallergenic one, that one doesn't work.

You really need to get some support from someone in rl, but I know how hard it can be when everyone just seems to think it would all be OK if only you gave a bottle/tried harder/believed in homeopathy/had a positive attitude or whatever shit they happen to feel like spouting that particular day.

At one point I practically screamed at an hcp that not only am I not anti formula, I would give him McDonald's if he would damn well eat it. He just wouldn't!

If I wrote a list of all the crap I was told....

Keep coming here for support in the meantime, we'll do what we can to help (if only listen sympathetically) :)

So sorry for you, OP. I could have written your post 3 years ago with my DD.

Cranial osteopathy works wonders. If you are in London there are various charities that provide free services. There was one in Farringdon when we had our problems. Also, perhaps try these people

www.occ.uk.com/

Infacol for the air/to facilitate winding also worked for us.

Could you perhaps try a breast pump to get your flow going? I know you probably don't get much hands free time, but could you pump with one breast and feed with the other. NCT can help with pumps. Also, this is a fantastic aid to hands free feeding:

www.mybrestfriend.com/

Good luck x

Good luck! I had a DS that fed lots and screamed lots at first too. Every midwife, health visitor etc said our latch looked fine too. When he was about 2 weeks old we were back in hospital as he'd dropped 12% of his birthweight and fallen off the bottom of the graph. I got some bad 1970s feeding advice on restricting time on each side (don't try it!) and we started formula top ups via syringe which he mostly spat out.

Still no idea what the problem was, no tongue tie or anything. For us, things suddenly changed (also no idea why), he was still feeding all the time and screaming lots but started gaining weight (1lb a week at one stage) and shot back up the graph.

There's lots of good advice on this thread, hopefully some of it will work for you.

cranial osteopathy is amazing. so is our local children's centre, there must be a few near you?

I read a post on MN the other day about a mum who could only get baby to feed biologically (lying down on her) - www.biologicalnurturing.com/index.html

It does take a good couple of months if not longer for bfeeding to get fully established. just keep offering, trying different positions and trying to get her to suck as much as possible.