How to fit in lengthy nursing sessions and express to boost supply (long)

[SWLondonmum111]

DS2 is 25 days old. He was 9 lb 7 at birth and is slowly getting back there - 95g short at 3 weeks having gained 120g in a week. I hope he will have regained birthweight by 4 weeks at that rate.

Having looked at Kellymom, I believe that he should be gaining more and for myself, think he looks a bit skinny/not as he should - I'd like him to have a little bit more flesh. I am desperate to exclusively breast feed as I love the closeness (as well as all other benefits) and fear that with a second child a regime of topping up would be unworkable and unfair to DS2 as taking huge chunks of the day. If I do have to supplement with formula (another thread perhaps) if things don't work out, I'd like to do so in a way which does not involve topping up every feed.

I have had a couple of lactation consultants look at his latch and they say that it is good (and when he sucks properly it feels really strong) although his mouth is small so the mouthfull isn't huge. I've been on a very regular (aiming for 2.5 to 3 hour) feeding since day 1 and expressing 5+ times a day on double pump since day 5 as we weren't getting enough wet nappies. Since pumping and giving him EBM, we are getting lots of wet and dirty nappies. Midwives are happy that he is alert etc etc. I've tried biological nurturing, he sleeps with me for a chunk of the night and is mostly held during the day. We've been short on skin to skin because it is so cold...

When there is a let down, he does great big suck/swallow but when nothing is coming he may just sit there with little sucks/not much happening until, apparently at random, some milk comes through at which point he will do some big suck/swallows again. Is that normal?

Having had supply issues with DS1, I'm taking domperidone and fenugreek and I've seen a endocrynologist (spelling?) and had lots of blood tests done in case there is something specific that I can look at. In the meantime, I'm trying to do what I can to build supply. But he isn't making it easy for me.. So, given advice to pump 8-10 times a day and/or feed every two hours, how do I fit this in given that feeds can take ages. Should I cut them in length even if he is unsatisfied?

To put in context, today we got up at 7, he fed "properly" and then on and off until about 10:30 and I expressed for 20 minutes in the middle of that. He then slept for about an hour and woke up and fed rather half heartedly over about an hour - 3 to 4 minutes at a time - and couldn't be woken to do more. I got home at 2 and couldn't get him to wake up properly so expresssed for 20 minutes and then fed him what I had expressed when he woke up. I then fed him again at 5 - a good feed with lots of swallowing - but it took until 6 at which point I expressed and gave him the expressed milk. We then had a gap of about an hour (when he was alert and happy) until 7:30 and he has fed on / off until 10, in the middle of which I've expressed for 20 minutes and given him some EBM. He is now asleep. My plan is to wake him at 11 for another proper feed, EBM top up and express. But on the face of it that means there is a 3 1/2 hour gap between the start of feeds which sounds like a lot if trying to build supply (although I've been feeding in bits for 2 1/2 hours of it). I'll also only have managed 4 expressing sessions by midnight so realistically only 5 - 6 in 24 hours as well as nursing. Equally at night time, I'm waking him up (in co-sleeper attachment to our bed) 3 hours after start of last feed and finding that he isn't keen so battling to wake him up, feeding (sometimes very ineffectively) pumping and then finding that he is hungry and wants to feed on and off but is getting very cross that my breasts are empty (even after feeding him the EBM). Again, when he is doing this for a while, should I be back to waking him up after 3 hours from the start of the last marathon session? While I understand the principle of frequent nursing building up supply, given that he is having to fight for new milk to be made each time if there are such small gaps, am I not better off trying to manufacture some time off so that there is something stored for him?

And he must need some sleep?? Also, ha*ving given him nearly 2 oz of EBM at 2pm, he was awake for a bit, slept well and I felt like I had something in my breasts at 5 so he had a good feed then.

Sorry that this is long and waffly- in essence, my question is how to count "feed every 2 two hours" and/or fit in 8 expressing sessions a day when feeds can be so long/spread out over hours. I can't make him eat when he is sleeping soundly. Is it worth waking him up and forcing the issue even if he only eats for 5 minutes/2 minutes? Or should I do pumping as a priority every 2 - 3 hours and let him get what he can on the breast even though they may be very empty if he wakes/wants to eat immedately after an expressing session.

Advice gratefully received. I'm feeling very emotional and worried about what to do as I have 3-4 weeks max to put all my energies into making this work (after which I'll not have childcare for DS1 so will have to ditch the elaborate pumping regime and see where I am).

Congratulations on the birth of your 2nd son.

I'm actually shocked that you have seen so many people who should be informing you about bfing and none of them seem to have imparted a very crucial piece on information - your breasts don't need to refill and in fact waiting for them to refill can lead to your supply lowering leading to a downward spiral of less and less milk. Not your fault - it seems reasonable that you need loads of milk in your breasts to feed but you really don't.

Even 'empty' feeling breasts can have lots of milk (especially as a lot of the milk a baby has is made DURING the feed not before).

I believe you need to be removing milk from BOTH breasts at least 8 times a day but preferably more if you can with at least one removal between 12-3am. How that happens is up to you but remember a pump is not usually as effective as a baby at extracting milk.

Have you been shown how to do breast compressions? If not, have a read of www.drjacknewman.com/help/Breast-compression.aspthis. These can help a reluctant feeder get more milk with not any more effort on their behalf.

Also, have a look at the videos 'Good drinking', 'Very Good Drinking' and 'Nibbling'. Nibbling is one of the signs of an ineffective latch so you don't want to see that in your son's bfing behaviour, the other two - great!

Hope you can get some more feeding help form some of the other posters here.

Thank you for this. As I spend a vast amount of time feeding or pumping I'm sure I'm empty 8 times a day from both breasts (doing switch feeding) and at least once between 12 and 3.

I know that milk is made as it is demanded but my breasts seem to make it quite slowly when not stored (i.e. if there isn't some stored milk due to having a gap from the last feed) then it takes a while for a let down of milk to come through and sometimes he gets frustrated at this/I feel like I am torturing him by making him suck away for hours until something comes through which is enough to make up a feed for him. In the evening he sometimes screeches with frustration when my breasts are empty and he has been sucking and nothing is happening. Is he unusually lazy? It is much more satisfying all r ound when there is a chunk of milk there and he drinks it and finishes the feed in a sensible time rather than having 10 gulps every 5-10 minutes which is what happens when there hasn't been a gap. Do you see what I mean? I read this as my supply/ability to deliver more milk being slow, which again I see as the problem.

I've seen the Newman videos - thank you. He does "very good drinking" when my breasts are full or when there is a let-down of milk. When there isn't or he is sleepy he does nibbling but then nibbling turns into "very good drinking" as soon as some milk turns up (which might be 10 /15 swallows or only one or 2). Is that normal? The NCT lactation person I've seen at a breast feedign clinic says that the nibbling thing is still normal and signals to the body that it needs to produce more milk and he can't do "very good drinking" if there isn't any milk there, can he? I can't understand how it means an ineffective latch if there isn't anything there for him to swallow - or is it that if he had a great latch then he would keep doing huge sucks until something turned up and then swallow it. I saw one lactation person who was counting big sucks between swallows (at day 3) but now it seems more binary - either he is getting lots of good swallows (very good drinking) with not much gap in between or he is nibbling until something good comes along.

I'm doing breast compression - it works sometimes to trigger good drinking.

I think the 'nibbling' is a problem when that's the only kind of drinking.

This feeding pattern of only really doing good/very good drinking during a let down sounds a lot like my DS.
I was mixed feeding bottled EBM and breast feeding until week 3 or 4 as I wasn't confident he was drinking enough. Having been told the latch was fine a few times we slowly weaned off bottles and have been exclusively bf for 5 weeks and still have good weight gain and nappy output.

He does get quite screechy during the evening sometimes, but I think this is a naturally fussy time for a lot of babies so don't worry about it too much.

Just another thought. Could he be getting more efficient at drinking through the stored milk as he is a bit older now? Then comfort sucking or nibbling for as long as he's allowed?

I'll be interested to read comments from people who really know what they're talking about!

:( :(

My first reaction on reading this is to think how difficult it has been for you - and how such a lot of extraordinary and complicated interventions and messing-about you have had in just over 3 weeks :(

Wow.

This is term baby born at a well-over-average weight, with no obvious inherent problems and yet Uncle Tom Cobbley and All have had their bite at the cherry (sorry to mix metaphors!) and made what should be a relaxing, exploratory and lovely time into a period of anxiety and sheer hard labour.

It started on day 5 with round the clock pumping - might have been better at that time to simply keep the baby close to you 24/7 and try to feed more often than 2.5-3 hourly, if necessary, but 'not enough wet nappies' is not a diagnosis of anything. It's really hard to assess nappies at 5 days - not sure how this was done. A better way is to weigh the baby and check poos. If passing urine is part of the picture (and it can be) then placing a cotton wool ball or a muslin in the nappy is better than trying to assess wet nappies.

'Battling' to wake him to feed more, or longer, just increases stress :(

Can you speak to someone in real life who you trust - ask them if they think that just doing nothing except keeping your baby close and feeding at every cue, would be ok now? That means no expressing. No battling. No timing. No medication or herbs for you (it's more to remember!). No topping up with EBM.

Your baby is gaining weight. He is healthy. He is quite big :) There is no urgency about this situation.

Ask if it would be fine to ditch all this 'elaborate' (your word and it's a good one) work and just relax, enjoy, feed and trust that the system will work if it's allowed to :)

To add: speak to someone in real who you trust and who understands bf, I should have added :)

Thank you. I am feeding him now and crying as I type... He just doesn't give enough cues to feed. He doesn't really wake much at night if not prompted (i.e woken up and nappy taken off and tickled and all those things). (I've read other posts by you about not forcing babies to feed when they aren't giving cues) I worry that that he is sleepy because he doesn't get enough food. I also worry that he has to work so hard for milk that he spends all his waking time feeding.

We had an amazing feed at 12:30 lunchtime (after a 1 hr 45 gap from last pump/feed) when i felt that I was getting loads of milk (could hear sloshing as well as just swallows). But then he was still hungry and has fed on and off since then with a 20 minute catnap and isn't getting much now (no swallows or only once in a while) as (in my inexpert conclusion) there was no time for anything to build up. Am I understanding wrong?

I'm terrified of dropping the expressing as that expressed milk seems to be the difference between weight gain and not (he had gained 30 g in 4 days over Xmas and then once I got going with pumping had at least stepped up to multiple ounces). The NCT counsellor / lactation consultant at the breast feeding clinic (who seems to know what she is talking about) is positive about things but I feel in myself that he is borderline hungry a lot and don't want to sacrifice his growth to my desire to make my body do what it apparently doesn't want to do (i.e. exclusively BF). I agree that he is a big baby and there is no urgency from that perspective but I feel very selfish pushing it too much if he is getting frustrated / spending all day trying to suck something out of me. Is the hard work to get milk normal? (i read a book called making more milk and he had all the hallmarks of a baby not getting enough in terms of not getting satisfied). If I stop pumping and keep feeding every time he squeaks, even if he is getting frustrated and I have to make him keep going is that likely to get as much out of me?? What do I do about him not waking up/ not wanting much at night?

Anyway - you are entirely right that I've involved the world and his dog in this. I've seen your other posts and really respect what you say. Any other thoughts re RL support? (the helplines - i've tried NCT and LLL - are helpful but not specific or local) There is another clinic locally with a WHO breastfeeding person so I could do that on Friday morning.

Sorry - this is long again. It makes me so happy feeding him when I feel that I am giving him sustenance and so unhappy that he isn't gaining weight / looks a bit scrawny on a diet of me.

Aw, SWLondonmum, your story gets more and more complicated - now you're saying how you read the making more milk book, and been calling the helplines and doing the round of different clinics :(

It's revealing you use the words 'terrified' and 'sacrifice' and 'selfish' and 'worry' and it's all intense and anxiety making - add it to 'battling' and 'struggling' and 'hard work' and all the other words, and I wonder if you have anyone you can talk to where you can share this and explore, properly, the option of taking your hand off the tiller (metaphors again!) and just seeing what would happen if you just let things roll along for a couple of days? The counsellor at the clinic is positive you say - and you have confidence in her. That all sounds good.

My guess, just from what you say here, is that you had a Massive Fright in the first week with the 'not enough wet nappies' and this continues to scare the bejabers out of you...whereas what you have is a gaining baby, a big baby, a baby who is basically just fine, but who makes you worried if he does sleep, and worried if he doesn't sleep, so there's no win there! I think you may also be terrified of not being able to bf (you may have said this - it's not me being Sherlock!). I see no evidence at all that this is justified.

You don't need any time for milk to build up. Honestly! It doesn't work like that.

Your baby's feeding behaviour today, as you describe it, sounds perfectly within normal limits. You don't need to be listening for sloshing. I mean, it's fine to hear sloshing but a slosh-less feed does not mean a poor feed :) .

Gosh - I think the best thing is to talk to someone, and think about a going-with-the-flow couple of days, at least when he gets to birthweight if you can't face it yet. But check this out with someone who has seen him and can give you the confidence it will be ok.

Lots of what you say sounds normal to me SWLondonMum - my DS used to do the drinking while the letdown happened, then the nibbling then the drinking again if another let down happened. He actually only occasionally did the 'very good drinking' and ebf him for six months and fed him until he was 15months. And it got better as time went on and became a really lovely thing.

I think TikTok is right. Just take a break from it all and enjoy your baby, feeding as and when he wants it. My DS wanted it every hour and a half during growth spurts and then would seem to kind of sleep it off - for hours at a time. Someone then said they grow when they sleep (providing its not weak hibernation type sleep to conserve energy), then they wake up, eat, fall asleep and grow some more .

You have seen lots of breastfeeding support people who are happy with how its going so that is great! He is gaining and he is being nurtured by you and getting lots of cuddles which is just the best thing to be doing.

You can always take him back to the clinic to get him weighed again to put your mind at rest. In the meantime, put your feet up and enjoy your baby .

Thank you both. I will speak to the counsellor and try a couple of days of just feeding and dumping the complications but will wait until he's been weighed on Saturday. The fear and anxiety derive from the significant weight loss, slow weight gain (particularly 30g over 4 days over Christmas and really struggling to feed often as I knew I needeed to do as he really doesn't want to wake at night) from history with DS2 when I worked (another interesting word)really hard in much the way I am "working" now to keep BF (mixed) after a similar story of slow weight gain after a 9% loss and from my observations of how frustrated he gets sometimes when nothing much is happening. I feel so strongly about wanting it to work, with all the reading I did in advance of his arrival that it does feel like an anxious thing. When what I want so much is just to feed and enjoy it, as you say.

Tiktok, from your comments, I assume that you think that it is within the realms of normal that it takes a baby 15 minutes (say) to get a let down and any milk sometimes and that baby might get fustrated by this? And that it isn't unfair to put baby through this.

Can you please explain to me why delays in feeding aren't relevant to good feeds as I don't understand. When there has been a bit of a delay, he obviously (from noise of swallows) gets more milk more easily. When he is sucking continually, it feels like he is generating new milk. So in my head, I think that if there has been a delay the milk is sitting there and easily obtainable (hence sloshing and lots of good drinking) but if there is no gap and just continuous wish to nurse, there is nothing left in the stores (they feel empty) and he is trying to generate a new milk supply. It sounds like that is wrong but I see a difference between easy gratification and him having to work his little socks off to get anything so would appreciate some positivity re the hard working times not being unfair to him.

Thanks again.

Morning!

More detail in your last post is helpful. A 9 per cent weight loss is within normal limits - was that another baby? Also the 30g weight gain over 4 days is nothing to be too worried about - even in a slow gainer. Scales and the process of weighing are simply not accurate enough to be sensitive to fluctuations over a few days like this, and yet this is the aspects you are especially worried about.

Can you explain more about what you mean about '15 minutes to get a let down'? Let down can happen without the mother knowing or feeling anything; how do you know nothing is happening? A baby can fuss at the breast for many reasons. Let down can be delayed by anxiety (it's to do with adrenalin interfering with oxytocin).

The picture I am getting is of you worrying that he ought to be feeding. Getting anxious when he doesn't get 'stuck in' immediately. Listening and trying to judge from his behaviour and noises whether the feeding he is doing is good enough, and trying to feel whether he is 'generating new milk'.

Jeepers - no wonder you are so worried :( You're desperately seeking reassurance in things which are beyond assessment, if you know what I mean. No one can feel milk being generated, any more than you can feel your bones making marrow, or hair growing :) :)

As breasts empty, they make replacement milk. When breasts are full, they slow down milk production and then stop. This is because the substance (actually a small protein) 'feedback inhibitor of lactation' is actually in the milk and communicates with the milk synthesising cells in the breast, to down-regulate milk production. If there is less FIL (because of less milk), then milk production speeds up (because the default position of the 'dial' on the lactating breast is 'make milk').

So your baby is not generating more milk - or he is, but only indirectly, by removing the milk and by removing the down-regulating FIL.

You don't need to be worried about nothing 'in the stores'. You cannot feel whether you have a lot/not much milk in the breasts - again, you are trying to assess the unassessable :) There is a difference in milk volume between the breast that's full and swollen and one that feels soft and not-so-full, but it's not a significant difference or a measurable one. The softer breast has milk deeper in the milk-containing 'pockets' which is creamier (has not yet been 'dislodged') so the milk the baby gets from a softer breast (perhaps the result of 'cluster feeds' with only small gaps between them) is higher in calories. Milk from the fuller breast has proportionately more water in it - greater volume of milk = greater proportion of water.

This is not intended to make you worried about whether the milk has enough/too much water in by the way :) :) Breastfeeding, and babies, sort this out without any 'engineering', or indeed worry.

I am not sure what you mean about your baby having to work hard. Breastfeeding is what babies do. It's not 'work' for them.

Babies can show frustration for many reasons. Maybe some of the time, your baby is not really wanting to feed. Maybe some of the time he's happy ticking along, just enjoying a relaxed cuddle with a bit of sucking on and off. But when he does that, you are trying to get him to feed more intensely - you probably swap sides, or take him off and then try to reposition him, or do the tickling and jiggling, or leave him for 10 mins and try again, with maybe a sesh on the pump (worrying you are 'pinching' the milk) and then trying a bottle of EBM, and then the breast again... and honestly, I wonder if that's the hard work, for both of you.

Your plan to get him weighed and use that opp. to talk to someone about chillin' with all the 'elaboration' is a good one.

Hope this helps :)

bumping this to get an update from the OP :)

'Let down can happen without the mother knowing or feeling anything; how do you know nothing is happening?'

My DS had a very loud swallow so I could always hear when he was drinking. there would be milk at other times but it was a swallow every so often rather than drinking drinking... (not wishing to hijack OP btw).

my baby slept for 6 or 7 hour periods even in the day in the first weeks. i always worried that she was so sleepy because she wasn't feeding enough, all the literature says feed every 4 hrs etc.

she is now 6 months, ebf, and decides for herself when she wants to eat or sleep!. you will know if they are ill. a 'routine' is such a load of rubbish for a newborn baby i can't believe anyone thinks it will work. i would never wake her up for a feed - a baby is an animal like all of us, if they need feeding they will wake up independantly - and hungry! let your baby eat and sleep as s/he wishes. nature doesn't fit a routine!

Op I am no expert I can only tell you that I have experienced slow weight gainers in each of my four babies and I know how anxious you are. Dc4 is now 8 weeks he was alb at birth lost 15% of his birth weight and took 4 weeks to get up to birthweight he is currently gaining on average half a pound a week.

I do think you are over thinking it, you have had so much good information but it's now making your head spin. I seem to find breastfeeding hard but all I reeally need to do is feed, try and get the latch as deep as possible and forget set feed times. Every time he squeaks offer him a boob, forget cues feed times and feed length. Looking back at the weight gain of all my dc they followed a similar pattern including ds1 who I was told to give ebm to, he took the same time to regain birthweight and followed a similar line to the others, I k ow it would be scary to drop all the expressed feeds but at the moment you are training him to be supplemented.

Ruby, some mothers do recognise a let down in the way you describe, but if those signs are not obvious, it doesn't mean a let down hasn't happened :)

smokey - your baby was fine! Permitting a baby to sleep for hours is not appropriate when a baby is not gaining weight as expected, though, and sleepy babies may need encouragement to feed in case they are sleeping to conserve energy, at the expense of their needs to feed.

clueless, it's true some babies are just naturally slow gainers.

OP, hope you'll come back and report!

Sorry - had technical issues. Will read posts and reply.

Thanks all and sorry for delay in responding to helpful posts. What I mean by gaps between let downs is that if I have had a gap from him last feeding, there are lots of audible swallows and the suck pause rhythm and this goes on for a while and at the end he appears satisfied/is not looking for more ten minutes later. When I have been feeding on and off for hours (as he is never getting satisfied) there might be a few initial swallows but then he sucks/flutters for ages until the next swallow. If the feed goes on for a long time, there may than be what appears to be another flow and a few swallows in a batch. I see this as a letdown ?

I wouldnt be worrying about any of this were it not for the slow weight gain. He was weighed today and has only gained 40g in 4 days. The hv is not worried as he is alert, producing wet and dirty nappies but wants to keep under review. The bf counsellor at the clinic commented that while she is not concerned, my supply is clearly not strong. She also thought that expressing a few times per day gives guaranteed stimulation, whereas his nibbling while waiting for another flow of milk might not be enough to stimulate. The big gap apart from any physiological causes is probably that he still does not wake at night and I am sleeping throughalarms so he only had one feed in the middle of the night, albeit that he finished at twelve thirty and then ate at four and again at eight.

I see the dangers of teaching him to expect a supplement of ebm so spread them put/spend marathon sessions sitting there letting him take as much as he can. And mostly he is patient. But I fear that he must be continuously hungry given very slow weight gain and his never seeming satisfied. Am contemplating one daily ff but suspect it is a slippery slope. But I am not sure I can watch him slip so far down on weight even if other indicators are that he is healthy. Sorry not to be more decided....

Hi, again :)

He's still gaining - good news!

Can I ask another question? You say he is 'never seeming satisfied' - clearly he is some of the time and he does sleep well at night. This doesn't sound like the 'sleeping well' of the fragile baby who can't summon up the energy to ask for feeds, either, and who alternates long sleeps with whimpery, miserable sessions. I think if he was like this, someone would have raised an alarm.

You know, everything you say points to a naturally slow gainer, unharmed by the admittedly slow but steady progress back to birthweight.

The description of his feeding sounds bang-on normal to me. Sometimes babies do this fluttery thing and keep up the nibbling stuff and as long as they are not desperately unhappy doing this (is he? he might be fussy some of the time, but babies are fussy some of the time) it's something we can allow babies to do, 'cos they seem to enjoy that contact.

You've got support from people who seem to know what they're talking about. He's healthy and gaining. I don't see the need for any idea that he 'must be continuously hungry' - why? It doesn't sound to me as if this comes from his appearence or his behaviour (he's 'mostly patient' for which read perfectly happy!) and his weight, while slow as we all agree, is not a cause for real concern among these knowledgable people (except to keep it under review, which is sensible).

He's not 'slipping down in weight' - he's gaining :)

Over to you!

Thank you for your thoughts. I guess I am just focussed on average breastfed babies weight gain figures being much higher. I find it hard to relax when his weight gain is so much slower. It is reassuring to have stories like the post above about babies being slow to gain but then taking off.

Re my concerns about him, I agree that the outward signs are fine, he does sleep and have alert times but basically I think he isn't ever properly satisfied as he is feeding all the time whereas others have "feeds" which end with cluster feeding at times of day. This may be why he sleeps so much at night.

In any event, I get the strong message from hv to wake him at night so have to get more disciplined at that. Will try to relax for a couple of days and keep an eye on output. In the meantime, I will keep up expressing when I can but can't do more (and will soon have to do less) so will see where I get. As the minuscule weight gain has depended on 100 ml of ebm a day I suspect that it is critical to not adding ff supplement. however logically I am producing it so could deliver it directly provided ds2 doesn't get too exhausted by non stop feeding.

Hope things get better for you, OP.

Forgive me for pointing up a contradiction which will make you even more confused, maybe, and then you might think it's not worth the anxiety - but you are worrying i) he is 'feeding all the time' and ii) he is sleeping too much at night.

Maybe he feed a lot in the day because he's sleeping a lot at night :)

Hi OP. Just wanted to add:

I have never ever felt a letdown, never sprayed milk or leaked milk and only rarely hear my baby swallowing milk. But somehow DD(ebf) has survived to 5 months...

In the early days, all my DC "nibbled" for periods of time without actually appearing to feed. I think it's comfort but have also been told that it stimulates milk production so have let them get on with it.

My DD also slept very well at night in the first few months of her life - only waking up once or twice for feeds like your DS. She made up for it when she hit 4 months though...

I don't understand why you are expressing so much. Wouldn't it be better just to feed your DS more at the breast? Expressing is pants; time consuming and demoralising and I don't know about you but I could never get much out with a pump.

I think you are worrying too much and are clearly suffering from information overload. I see TikTok has helped you loads and so I just wanted to offer my support (as a non expert!!) because I suffered a lot of anxiety when I was trying to bf DS1 (stemming probably from being told in the hospital when he was a day old that he was starving).

Would it be possible for your DS1 to go to his grandparents for a few days while you go to bed with your DS2 and just pop him on your breast and let him feed/nap as he wants without any faffing about.