Baby growth and lack of poos at 4 weeks - very worried

[Bardot12]

Sorry for the long message but I feel so alone and don’t have anyone to talk to as everyone keeps telling me not to worry but I am so worried. I’m a FTM. My son is 4 weeks old. He was born around 3.83kg and was a GD baby by c section at 39 weeks. He has been very slow to regain birth weight (at 4 weeks only just now) and has jaundice but not at levels requiring treatment. My milk supply came in late also and no one at the hospital suggested combi feeding and sent me on my way. I wanted to EBF but have ended up combining and also now expressing because of latch issues.

Over the past week he has been severely distressed, constipated I think as no poo and basically our latch has got worse to the point he cries and thrashes around and my nipple can basically pop out. This is despite us trying loads. It is so distressing and has meant I’ve barely enjoyed our first month as all I can think about is feeding. The bond I wanted with breast feeding just isn’t there and it’s breaking my heart.

I’m pumping and giving him formula and he’s getting whatever he can from the breast but I’m worried he’s not getting enough calories from my breast milk alone even expressed. He looks so much thinner and is sleepy a lot. I’m on the verge of breaking down because I feel like I’ve failed him and I am constantly told to try BF more by a lot of people around me. He’s dropped from 76th to 25th percentile and can’t help but feel I’m not giving him what he needs.

He has a lot of wet nappies - very heavy - did a runny dark green poo after a 5 day hiatus and then no poos again in 24 hours now. He also appears to have reflux as frequent spit outs and loud belching.

I’m looking for anyone who has experienced anything similar and some positive stories about formula and expressing and weight gain. Is it possible my breast milk is not giving him the calories? I don’t think I can breast feed any longer if we don’t solve the latch issue.

thank you xx

Anyone with any advice?

First of all- it sounds like you're an amazing mum trying to get help for your little one and he is so lucky to have you.

Have you had a Tongue Tie assessment? My boy had similar issues and it turned out he had tongue tie- even though midwives had told us he didn't.
They’re not actually trained to asses babies for this- get some expert advice from a lactation consultant.
Once we had that released his latch was totally different. It was incredible.

There is nothing wrong with combi feeding- I struggled to believe that when I was going through it, I felt so guilty about it, but my son doesn't love me any less- he is a good weight and a happy baby. It changed nothing.

We also had 14 days without a poo from him- quite a regular thing actually! I was at my wits end- the GP prescribed him lactolose and even that wasn't helping. Eventually it came, and he's been regular since. :)

I'd highly recommend seeing a cranial osteopath if you can afford to- that really helped us. They released his tension and he just became a different baby.

Firstly a baby who has experienced GD is likely to be big and there's such a thing as catching up or down where basically they then go on to drift to their natural curve.

In your case though, given the lack of poo and the poor latch, I'd look at the symptoms of Tongue Tie and see if they sound familiar.

Are you getting any RL help too? It's probably worth ringing one of the BFing Helplines now and asking for some urgent help, have you got the numbers @Bardot12?

Can you get to a local BFing Support Group too this week?