agonizing breastfeeding - want to keep going but dont think i can

[sweetpea5]

Could anyone offer any help - breastfeeding is so painful - baby is 3 weeks, my nipples are cut and so painful. I have had bf counsellor and lactation counsultant to help - nboth said latch looks ok - but its clearly not as i ouldnt be in this pain. nipples are misshapen after feeding. Really want to keep bfing but cant see how - bringing baby yo breast is so sore - me screaming and crying evry time (not usually a drama queen, honestly!). expressing at the minute since this morning as just cant face bfing. Can anyone help? it shouldnt be like this.. sorry about typing - holding pump in one hand at same time.

yes she does - at least it looks really wide to me. i line up the nose to nipple, lower lip low down, my thumb and index finger and the back of her neck then when mouth is wide bring her forward ont breast. does that sound about right?

Keep at the pumping until your nipples aren't so sore. You will get there eventually and once you have established it, there is nothing better! Have you tried the cream you can get for cracked nipples?

Hi Sweetpea 5. I know what you're going through. I gave up after 3 and a half weeks. But I/we were just just just only just making some positive progress at just over 3 weeks but by that time my pain levels were sky high and intolerable. It was too late for progress for me. I cried during breast feeding, but I didn't cry during labour - I only had one pethadine for the induced birth!

In retrospect, I wish I'd taken the maximum I could with pain killers during breastfeeding, so I recommend that.

Also, after giving up, I asked everyone I'd known that's had a baby about 1st time breastfeeding, and mostly 4 weeks was when it settles down, with much painful crying on the mothers part (so I perhaps almost made it). I was really vexed at how NO ONE TELLS YOU IT CAN BE THAT PAINFUL!!! But then a couple of women at my antenatal classes had no pain at all - lucky devils. Someone else said it settled after 6 weeks, and another said she plodded on to 3 months, but then on the second baby, had a "sort of breakdown" and gave up after 10 days because she couldn't face it, again. So hopefully you might be a 4 week person, it might settle down in a couple of days. Just one more go, relief and improvements might be imminent! But remember, if you need to give up, don't beat yourself up about it, you're doing brilliantly. Good luck, you're doing well trying to get through the pain.

Not sure if you're doing this, but you want to be making sure her chin and lower lip touch the breast first and then kind of roll her top lip onto the breast so that it almost looks like her nipple won't make it inside. Take a look at the latching videos on Dr Jack Newman's site.

Hark at me giving advice, she of the still quite painful feeding at 15 weeks.

....just popping to say that the description of a baby bird is so very true.

No experience yet, I'm afraid (DC1 due end November) but my friend (6 month old LO) told me to prepare by keeping cabbage leaves in freezer and place them inside bra to help nipples recover. Her description was: "It felt like someone had set my nipples on fire, put out the fire with a cricket bat and then sandpapered then". She said the leaves really helped soothe the soreness.

I could almost cry when i think back to the first weeks of breastfeeding the pain was like nothing i could imagine. I lasted about 3 weeks and then started to use nipple sheilds - my lo didn't seem to like them the first few feeds but i then got my hv in and told her it was the sheilds or formula and she helped me use them properly. My lo is 18 weeks and we are still using them - wish i could wean him off them but he isn't having any of it - maybe give the sheilds a try again - for me it improved everything - remember if you do decide to go to bottles you have still done really well getting to 3 weeks cause they really are the hardest part of feeding, Good luck x

Comtessa - Cabbage leaves are great, however if you get any of the signs of Mastitis then get yourself to a Doctor.

Amen Fairydusty. It came down to that choice for me as well. In the end it was shields and a little formula (but I had other issues as well). Now it's neither. I wouldn't worry about weaning your LO off the shields btw if they're not affecting your feeding. I ditched them in the hope that the discomfort would stop me from falling asleep during night feeds (it scares me). It worked!

Hi,

I've been BFing for 17 days and dread every feed, almost all end with my sobbing and in agony. For the last few days I've been feeding during the day and expressing for night time feeds to give them a bit of a break. I just can't believe it's this painful... and people keep telling me a longer and longer time before it will start to get better! They told me a week in the hospital, but most recent news from midwife was "give it about a month" :-(. It's horrendous, you really do have to be determined to keep going don't you?!

No help I realise - just wanted to sympathise x

Thanks fizzledrizzle (hurriedly makes further notes in preparation)

Op is it painful all the way through the feed or mostly the first 60 secs or so?
The fact that your nipples are flattened shows that the baby is not putting enough breast into her mouth, or she is slipping down the breast during the course of the feed.
Just milimetres can make the difference from pain to no pain, it really is worth trying various positions to try and get the perfect latch.

www.kellymom.com/bf/start/basics/latch-resources.html
This is a great site with loads of helpful resources.

I am really feeling for all of you with this pain. I had really horrid latching on pain for the first week or so with both children. Absolute toe curling pain. But it was more than painful with DS and carried on after the inital let-down - I thought I should be doing it right after BF DD for 17 months!

I went to the BF councillor and she showed me how to get the baby to latch:
Bared the breast ready for feeding and put baby lying up the middle of my chest between the two breasts.
Baby then lifted himself up, across my body and onto the nipple! All by himself at 5 days old! I was astounded and wouldn't have believed it if I hadn't seen it myself.
He was then an almost standing/lying diagonal across my body but the important thing was it didn't hurt!

After a few days of this I gradually got him to latch on at the normal angle without it hurting.

I am sure there are videos on line of "baby self latching" - please try this it helped so much and I am still feeding DS at 14months.

Oh and I am pretty sure DS has a small tongue-tie - despite me asking about 3 midwives and a doctor who all treated me like I was a paranoid mother and said of course he doesn't [grr] But now when he sticks his tongue out it goes in at the centre like a heart shape. So maybe that didn't help. But you can check for that too.

i sympathise - i was also in so much pain the first few weeks. kept being told the latch was fine etc. i tried a slightly different latching technique - see www.pumpstation.com/pumpstation/dept.asp?s_id=0&dept_id=3228 - which helped a wee bit. however what worked for me was stopping using lansinoh - i think i must be allergic. though it probably also helped that his mouth got bigger as he grew.

it took me until 8 weeks to achieve pain-free feeding, and now at 11 weeks it's great. stick with it, keep taking painkillers - you can alternate ibuprofen and paracetamol - and keep pestering the hcps around you for help. good luck.

Sorry, late to reply to you. I pumped from the bad side as I was feeding from the good side and did all of my feeds from the good side, occasionally giving a bottle of expressed milk when I was too tired to feed. This meant that I had a slight over-supply issue when I stopped pumping, but I was so paranoid about supply dropping due to pumping that this didn't bother me.

I second the rugby hold advice - I only feed this way on my bad side. I think that DD was rubbing on the abscess wound each time she fed, making it a lot worse. A variety of positions might help - lying down still hurts for me, but the fact that I'm lying down takes the edge off the pain!

Loads of replies - thank you all x

KN - it is horrendous isnt it? you sound just like me with the sobbing and agony. yes, have to be determined. i have it in my head that i will at least make it to 1 month. i hope i can. i am sorry it is so hard for you too and i really hope it gets better for us both.

Sorry about everyone else who had a tough time too. Nobody says it can be so hard...

bonzo - i tried the self latching thing but breasts seem to be to squidgy or something - she just got lost in them

Still expressing -i had one bottle in advance ready but she drank it at her last feed and i have only got 40mls now after nearly an houur of pumpimng for her next feed. Dh is walking her round in the sling to give me a hance to pump some more. going to bbe a long night but worth it if nipples heal and we can try again.

ghanks for all your support x

SOrry to hear you are having a hard time. It took 6 weeks for it to become easy and pain free with DS1 but with DS2 it was easy pretty much from day one so there's hope for the future(!!).

I too had a horrendous time first time round, had cracked bleeding nipples, a chunk out of one and nothing seemingly wrong despite constant checking by health visitor, midwives, peer supporters etc.

Nipple shields were my godsend. I know you say you have already tried them but please be aware that they come in about two shapes, one of which is likely to fit you better. I found that the quite round pointy ones (e.g. boots own, tommee tippee) were useless for me personally and I needed ones that were a different shape. The ones I used were by Avent but I find it hard to describe the shape.

Lansinoh never worked for me unfortunately, but I know some people swear by it.

Good luck

Sorry, I meant to add that as your baby grows then obviously her mouth gets bigger too and in my experience your nipples just fit better somehow, it should all become easier for you.

That period of about 3/4 weeks of agony and dreading every feed which seemed to last forever at the time, was soon over and 6 weeks was the magic time for me and my friends who experienced various issues.

Wish these threads had been around 15 years ago. Recall exactly the same and the pressure to continue was enormous. If you really feel you can't, then our baby has already had the really important colostrum. The most important thing you can give your baby is love and if you are in pain and suffering you will end up not enjoying this very very special time. I'm not sure that the benefits of bf aren't outweighed by being relaxed and happy if the bottles, etc., are properly sterlised. Don't let yourself end up in a mess of regret and failure. Your baby won't remember you giving up breastfeeding. Your baby will remember trips to the seaside, prizes at school and you being there to share them. This is such a small part of motherhood and it really isn't at the end of 18 years or so the most important. With love - if it turns the corner that's great, if not move on and enjoy your beautiful baby.

you obviously want to keep going, so keep going!
i used to bite a flannel in the early days to muffle my blood curdling screams.

with my first, i learned to feed laying down, and wherever we went, if i had to feed her, i had to lay down!

maybe you could try it?
she seemed to latch herself almost.

laying down on my side, propped up on one arm.
bring her tummy as close as possible, then she would be able tip her head right back.
when she is latching, the nipple should be aiming for the roof of her mouth/back of her throat.

you will look back on this and laugh.
keep up the good work!

Nothing to add but it will improve, the times I nearly gave up with this baby and he is my 4th that i've bf. 17 weeks later we're still going strong.

and google exaggerated attatchment.

My DD used to leave my nipples red raw, with bits coming off and white and pointy on one side (like a highlighter pen).
It was not latch as this was checked - she just sucked that way.
Feeding lying down was the only way to do it and really saved me from the pain! As someone to show you how to do it properly as it's really difficult to get it right initially.
Hang on in there. You're doing so well!

sweetpea - I haven't read all the posts but try and find a breastfeeding counsellor. One of my close friends had real problems bf her first dd - but she got advice and it really helped.

Do try different bf positions - it is all trial and error and I'm sure you will get there.

Also, don't beat yourself up if you switch to formula. Sometimes it just doesn't work out.