BF did not work for me, despite me desperately wanting it to. I'm sorry if this is long but I need to tell the story mainly to get some of the disappointment I've felt with the advice I received off my chest (:o) but also to ask your advice on how I can hopefully make it work next time.
I feel I should have been shown how to bf my baby immediately after birth, not just asked "Do you want to feed him now" then be left to my own devices. I had no idea how to hold him, how he should latch on, or how to tell if he'd had enough. Luckily, now that I know some of the very basics when I have my next baby, this shouldn't be as much of a problem.
I didn't want someone to shove a bottle in my babies mouth 6 hours after he was born because he refused to latch and noone checked how well he fed after he was born. If I didn't let them bottle feed him then I was letting him starve, his blood sugars may drop then he will be very very ill. Way to go to scare the shit out of the new mum.
Maybe if you had shown me more than 2 breastfeeding positions you wouldn't have needed to keep shoving ds's head onto my boob for nearly an hour before he latched on, only to come off 2 minutes later screaming, then it would all start again.
I wanted someone to listen when I said that I don't think I am producing enough milk. When asked if I feel full or if my milk has come in yet and I said "I don't think so, I don't feel any different" I didnn't want to be told "Don't be so silly, of course it's come in by now." I never got engorged, never leaked, never felt uncomfortable.
I was told it was very very rare for you not to produce enough milk therefore it can't apply to you. My ds never finished drinking, I would spend 4 hours feeding him and then dh would have to give him a bottle before he would go to sleep. I understand that this may have been ds's way of trying to increase the supply but unless he was on a constant growth spurt from 1 week until 4 weeks old I don't think this is normal. It would have been nice for someone to have actually answered me when I said that instead of just saying "drink more water". If I had drunk anymore I would have thrown up.
Then I suffered from thrush which I diagnosed myself as the hv didn't know how to tell what it was, I diagnosed ds with reflux which seems to be why the positions that had been shown to me weren't working (ds had to be fed slightly sitting up but I couldn't for the life of me figure out how to do this). So I gave up when ds was 4 weeks old. I stopped producing any milk 3 days after that (further proof in my mind that I had supply issues).
So, I am very anxious that I will not be able to feed next time round and I was wondering if you kind ladies could offer any advice?