Please help

[JitterBug2]

my baby is 2 weeks old. We had a bit of a traumatic start with an unplanned forceps delivery followed by 4 days in hospital. We were then readmitted 3 days later for 3days with her spending most of that time in the special care baby unit. She's been ebf since birth, except for one day when she had top up formula cup fed to boost her weight so we could leave hospital.

I am really struggling with bfing, especially through the night. I'm supposed to be feeding her every 3 hours but she won't latch on properly. I'm able to get maybe half a feed into her then she stops her latch and won't carry on. She's still hungry - rooting etc and makes hungry noises and won't sleep. It's really getting to me particularly now my OH has had to go back to work. I'm at my wits end to know what to do - a dummy, formula, expressing? The bring through the night is lasting hours 2or 3 at minimum. Please help.

Hi JitterBug2 are you still there?

I had similar problems to you and i'll tell you what I did but I don't know if it'll help.

It will take me few mins to type it but i'll reply again in a minute!

Firstly you are not the first person to struggle with breast feeding, it is hard worka nd soem babies struggle. I remember so well how I felt trying to feed my son, especially in the middle of the night. My son really struggled to latch too and I found breatsfeeding a nightmare. However I did manage to keep going for 8 weeks by doing a few things.

Can you express and how much do you get when you express?

My son found latching difficult and would have the be lying along my side with his head under my breast. He could never latch when I held him across my body. I would have to pump my breast until the milk was actually coming out or he would not latch as he would suck unless the milk was there. On days when he couldn't seem to latch at all I would feed him expressed milk off and spoon and then when he was 2 weeks I introduced a bottle and gave him expressed milk.

My milk production was very low so I would sometimes substitute a breast milk feed for formula and then pump my breast as the milk would flow more easily if I had missed a feed. By doing this I was able to build up a frozen milk supply and then if he couldn't I could give him expressed milk and then pump my breast after the expressed feed. I hope that makes sense.

In the end it seemed that I was just spending all my time expressing and DS's latch did not improve so I slowly switched him on to formula and he was fine and a lot happier.

Your baby will be ok if you need to move onto formula but I know you probably want to breast feed, I know I did. Even if they are only getting a bit of breast milk that will do them wonders.

Personally wouldn't recommend a dummy but lots of mummys will.

Having difficulty breastfeeding my 8 week old dd at the beginning with latch/TT. I found after getting the TT sorted improved things straight away but also watching clips online e.g you tube, dr jack newman i think helped so much with tips to get latch. Also advice from mums on here.

Hi, jitterbug ...every 3 hours is not very often for a baby who has had weight issues. And scheduling feeds like this means you are all out of kilter with feeding cues, and waking her up (or trying to) when she is asleep and does not want to wake. Hence the struggle.

2 week old babies tend to feed best when feeding responds to cues - these will be best noticed is she is close to you day and night, on your body. You can then make the breast available instantly - and it will not matter much if some of these 'feeds' are token ones because she will feed much, much more often than 3 hourly. Read up about biological nurturing positions and skin to skin and see if this is something you can do to make the whole thing easier.

A call to any of the bf helplines would be good, too :)

Presumably you're on an at least every 3 hours routine for feeds because of weight concerns? We had that until DD started gaining as she didn't wake for feeds at first (was tube fed when asleep in scbu).

Expressing for top-ups can help as a temporary measure to address weight gain issues, but you need to work out why you are still having issues.

When you say a 2 hour feed, is your LO sucking the whole time or most of the tim e? If so thats an inefficient feed, suggesting you don't have a good deep latch, either just because or because of TT or something.

jitterbug2 I really hope some of this information has helped. I live in Buckinghamshire and there are several breast feeding cafes and groups near me, maybe you have some near you. It also migth be worth giving the health visitor a call. If you're anywhere near Bucks i'd happily pass on some details for you.

Hope you're ok

I would second getting to a breast feeding cafe or a LLL meeting or another bf support meeting. With all their best intentions some HVs know very little about bf and may give you poor advice. Also, if you do express please be aware that babies are much more efficient at extracting milk than a pump! Not getting much milk from expressing does not necessarily mean that you don't have much milk there! :) Are you co-sleeping ? Even a bedside cot can make things easier because you can lie right beside them and they can get access to milk quickly and sometimes without even disturbing you! :)

Thanks everyone for the advice. Sorry it's taken me so long to respond.

The 3 hour feeding was the advice from both midwives and doctors at the hospital. It worked reasonably well while she was in special care, as they phoned me every time she needed feeding, while was always within 3 hours - whenever she woke up. However once we were at home, she was sleeping longer and waking her was taking ages and it was really difficult to get her to feed. Another midwife has told me that you should never wake a sleeping baby and that she'll let us know when she's hungry. This is working so much better for us - the night feeds are still roughly every 3 hours, sometimes longer, but they're on her terms and she seems much happier, although they are still taking a really long time.

I think part of the problem previously was that she wasn't latching on properly and I was really struggling was positions etc due to having had so much advice from different midwives & Drs after spending 2 weeks in hospital and feeling completely overwhelmed by it all. I've seen another midwife (the one who said not to wake her) who has really helped with the hold & the latch seems to be working (most of the time).

We're using a dummy occasionally now - just to calm her down. She's developed a slightly odd habit of chewing on her fingers, which I slightly concerned will become permanent and end her wrecking her teeth, so the dummy seems preferable - although it's not ideal.

I've started to express now - managed 20ml, 50ml, 20ml & 65ml in subsequent sessions - not sure if that is normal or on the low side. We started out using a cup to feed her but the midwife said that a bottle is better and she seems quite happy taking it that way. My plan is to express every day and do the 9pm feed by breast, then go to bed & let my husband do the midnight feed so I can get around 6 hours sleep before doing a 3am feed... Not sure that this will work but it's worth a try.

Although it's a lot better than it was, things are not perfect - feeds are still taking a really long time, which is ok in the day but really hard at night. Although I'm finding it easier, it's still really tough but I gather that's normal - I just wish that it was more acknowledged that breast feeding is really difficult. My NCT class led me to believe that it comes naturally to everyone.

I'm determined to keep at it until she's at 6 weeks & then reassess. I'd like to keep going for as long as possible but if it's still tough, I may have to stop or perhaps introduce a formula feed on occasion or daily.

My daughter started off like this she seemed like she was hungry pretty much anytime that she wasnt actually feeding, she used to sleep for maybe 20 mins then wake up wanting more then sleep then wake in a neverending cycle. Each feed was taking an hour or more.
The ONLY thing that helped me stay calm and sane (and set her weight which had been very slow to get up skyrocketing) was to get a duvet, sit on the couch with no top on and watch tv with her as much as possible, my older children thought it was fantastic as we spent so much time snuggled up together. On the advice of a breastfeeding advisor I got rid of the pillows etc I had been using to position her and just snuggled up comfortably cradling her then let her find her own position for feeding which ended up being much like the one that had a big cross through it on my leaflet! but it immediatly stopped any soreness I had. She fed fed fed fed fed for about a week the very gradually (she was 3 -4 weeks by the time I did this) she began to sleep longer periods and settle in her pram a bit or in a sling.She is still a snacker (at 8.5 months) but is doing really well now weight wise etc.We still have duvet days yesterday for example she got her first tooth and was so miserable she just wanted to feed (for comfort more than hunger i think) and so we spent the day catching up on some tv on 4od and iplayer :).

I know alot of people do express one or more feeds I have never really done this as I found on the few occasions that i did it really interfered with the next feed I gave her also i struggled with the pump and never got more than 10-20ml. Last time i tried was at 4 months old when i got a whole 15ml.