Please help. I think i have ruined my chances of BFing my daughter :(

[rocketleaf]

Its a bit of a long story but basically I couldn't get my daughter to latch on after initially suckling after birth so thr MWs at the hospital had me extress colostrum to feed her with syringe. After that she was really sleepy and we couldnt get her to latch on. I had about 6 different people tell me different ways and things (for instance one said my nips are flat and use guards, another poo pooed that) but no one actually got her to suckle. In a weak moment i asked them to give her some formula by cup just so i could get some sleep as hadnt slept in about 4 days. In the end before they would discharge us they made us agree to do this complicated feed/give expressed/top up with formula routine every 3 hours, which stupidly we followed for about 3 feeds on wed night. I was really unhappy about this as i didnt want to bottle feed her let alone with formula ut they had really knocked my confidence and implied she would starve otherwise although i was still able to express colostrum.
When I saw my community MW yesterday morning she said it was bollocks and then SUre start came and they gave the same advice re positioning etc that i already l knew but doesnt seem to work with my DD and told me just to go with skin to skin and feed and combo express. All the stuff I thought I knew before going into hospital anyway.
Yesterday I decided it would be breast only, she started sucking and my milk came through so i thought we had turned a corner but then she became really rough, chomping on my nipples and really hurting and getting really distressed, coming off and on or stopping feeding. I have read loads of stuff on the internet and tried relatching and relatching again and again but still cant seem to get it right. Like she was really hungry and wanting to suck my not getting enough if any. I was still able to express some milk yesterday but we had to feed her all of that just toget her to sleep. It got to the point when she screamed everytime i took her near the breast. Last night we tried a bath together and that really helped her to calm down with me although i didnt really get her to feed agian. But it also woke her up so we had togove her all the xpressed milk and she still wouldnt sleep.

I have just got up because my breast were engorged again and my husband had brought her to bed after staying up with her to let me sleep. I have only managed to expressa 20 ml and its all ground to a halt. Breasts still engorged and nipples are wrecked. I dont know what I am gong to do when she wakes up wanting to be fed.

I never kidded myself that it would be easy but now am really worried that i have screwed up my milk supply, turned her into a ravenous beast with those few formula feeds and no idea what i am going to do when she wakes next.

I also dont think the pump i have is very good (avent) as it makes my nips bleed but maybe this is normal?

I know damn well that me being up at 4.30 stressing about this is not going to help but I can't help it. :( I really dont want to resort to formula but also am worried as she is only 5 days old that she will loose weight or be really stressed and over hungry. Sorry this is a bit incoherent too. Please help.

One thing to watch out for is that I found pumping left me prone to blocked ducts as it's no where near as efficient as a baby.

Not red or very lumpy. I am trying to keep up with the massage to unblock any ducts but be more gentle so they dont get more bruised.

a comb is supposed to be good for unblocking ducts apparently, especially in the shower. If you have time for showers what with everything else you're doing

Thanks cossie. I'll try that if I can find a comb. Am a bit worried that I'm not getting as much expressed as i was before but I know I need to relax about it. Can't seem to get much without compression which defeats efforts to double pump. :-s

In better news managed to get her on one side for about 5 mins earlier although the latch is still not great. She keeps slipping down and nipple feeding but at least she was on. Not sure how I can improve it really but hope that as she grows her gape will get wider and her neck stronger so it will help get the latch better.

Also she pooed yesterday (nice b'day pressie for TB :o) so at least that should get the HV off our backs. Only 6 days since last poo so hopefully they will get more frequent. Never thought I'd be so pleased to see a nappy full of grossness!! Ha.

ha! happy birthday to him indeed

Oh bloody hell. She is now latching on with exactly thd same problems as before the Tongue tie snip. It doesn't seem to have made any difference :-( it's nit quite as bad I guess because her mouth is a bit bigger and my nips are not as wrecked but she just doesn't seem able to get more than my nipple in her mouth. If I try and take her off and relatch she just refuses to open her mouth at all. I now feel like I've wasted a week and a half and the money and time for Anns visit. :-(

I know I am probably being impatient but really starting to feel like I am going round in circles here. Especially as pumping seems to be getting worse not better.

Oh blimey rocketleaf - that must be really demoralising.

Can you give Ann a ring and she if she can suggest anything?

Aw, rocket lovely, I've only just spotted this thread.

I have absolutely no helpful advice but just wanted to tell you that you are an absolute trooper and deserve a medal. Do not give up hope. This will get better.

Ah thanks booty

Think I will try that crikey but I am not sure what else she can tell me. There are never any guarantees that a TT snip will improve things. I can't help thinking there is something I am doing or not doing that is making things worse :-(

Pack that right in now Rocket. You are bending over backwards to get your breastmilk into your daughter, she is growing and thriving and you are being double triple Brilliant. Please to stop blaming yourself for things. You really can't do any more than you are. You are working at it so hard.
Here, have a .

Unfortunately sometimes you need to calm down to make breastfeeding more successful with a teeny one and that's not easy when you're knackered and stressed!

I'd try different positions. DD wasn't good at feeding in cross-cradle, rugby ball or lying down when she was tiny. Only a very firm hold in cradle position with me sitting bolt upright got her mouth open enough. Plus it helped when I realised that the nose-to-nipple thing is only to get their heads back - might be obvious but it wasn't to me.

Hope that tonight is a good night Sprocks, thinking of you lots.

This thread is really inspiring. I have just read the whole thing while expressing 50ml for my 3 week old LO.

I am also mix feeding because BF hasn't gone as planned. My little boy was born as EMCS 3 weeks early because I had pre-eclampsia and he hadn't grown inside me for about 3 weeks before that so was only 4lb 6 at birth. This meant that he had hardly any energy and although he would latch on he would stop sucking after a few minutes and go to sleep.

Naively, I thought that all babies cried if they were hungry and because mine just slept a lot I thought that he just wasn't all that hungry and I kept reading stuff about how small their stomachs were so just thought that whatever he had managed to swallow in those few minutes must be enough for him. It turned out that he wasn't crying or sucking much because he was just so weak and actually he was really hungry. He went under 4lb within the first week and the paeds said that we had to top up with formula after each BF. I felt completely devestated, I had been starving my baby without realising it or meaning to .

We spent a long time in hospital and moved onto feeding him EBM with a pipette (which took forever and left not much time for me to sleep) combined with BF and formula top ups. Eventually when he was a week old the midwifes suggested that I use a nipple shield to help him with BF and feed him the EBM with a teat. At this point he still had black / green poos and needed a heated cot because he wasn't maintaining his body temperature so the midwifes said that the need to feed him up was much greater than avoiding any potential nipple / teat confusion.

Since then things have got a lot better. We are home, he is now taking between 400ml and 500ml a day of EBM and formula plus at least an hour of breastfeeds, is gaining weight fast and is far less sleepy that he was in hospital. I would like to increase the amount of BF and reduce the amount of formula and so this is my next aim now that we seem to have sorted his weight gain. I do feel like all of my days revolve around expressing and feeding at the moment but am taking heart from the comments from other posters on this thread that this will not last forever and BF will become easier.

Good luck, I'll be reading your progress with interest.

79monica thanks for posting your story. Sounds like you have been having a much tougher time than me with the pre-eclamsia and preemie LO. I am so glad things are turning round for you now. Keep going, it really sounds like you will get there in the end. Your wee one is so small he will just take a bit longer to get strong but sounds like you have amazing determination. Small moves!!

Thanks boo. Not such a bad night. TB did the 6.30 feed so I could go back to sleep and I managed to express enough forth 9 am feed and the next one when I got up. Seems to me it's much easier for me to pump when there's been a longer gap but I gather that's not good for milk supply? or maybe it's just mornings that are good as I've have a nice sleep.
Have been getting her on for 5-10 mins until it gets too painful but I am worried about wrecking my nips again. And I can't figure out if she is actually getting milk out. Last time she was pretty fractiou and rooting s only 1 half after a bottle of EBM. And after 10 mins on she seems so contented and is sleeping. Could this still be the exhaustion/not getting anything kicking in or is she too old/big for that now? or did she just need a little drink? It's so bloody confusing!

Anyway she did another poo today so that's a great sign abd HV is coming to weigh her later so we'll see. Then 2nd round of oesteo. Suppose I'd better get dressed!

Supply tends to be higher in teh morninings, so probably that. I know when I started expressing I could always get a lot more in the morning.

That's brill re another poo, that shows she is getting what she needs anyway, and should get them off your back a bit.

I still think it might be worth getting someone else to have a look at your latch, an NCT bod or someone?

the problem is you are second guessing everything now - she may well have just been a little thirsty just now, but for obvious reasons you are questioning that (not a critiscm, it's entirely natural and right that you are!!).

Supply is higher in the mornings, plus a pump isn't perfect at getting the milk out so the fuller you are, the easier it is. But full breasts send the signal to your brain to slow milk production, so it's better to express little amounts more often - a pain I know!

Sometimes nursing is for comfort as the big wide world outside Mum is so scary for them - they don't need to be that hungry!

Another poo is great news. Best of luck with the weigh-in.

79monica - what I did in similar circs was first up the amount I was expressing so all top-ups were EBM and we cut out formula. That way I knew my supply was adequate for DD - I didn't want to have a few days when she'd need to feed well and lots as her weight was so precarious and feeding still wasn't that good. Then I tried to bf as much as possible and took DD's lead on top-ups after breastfeeds - she gradually took less and less in top-ups. A double pump really helped me as the expressing took less than half the time for actually more milk!

Rocket as far as feeling like her latch is not improving goes, it took a while after we had the TT snipped for my daughter's latch to really get better. There was some improvement but it wasn't instantly fixed and some feeds were still quite painful. In fact I would say it took until she was three months before feeding was entirely pain free, although the level of pain was considerably less and my nipples did heal over that time. I really had to concentrate when latching her on and practiced exaggerated latch technique for some time. I put it down to her having learned to latch on using her gums to hold on rather than her tongue because of the initial TT. There were many times when I thought that after all the pain/hard work/ expense etc I would have to give up after all and felt so depressed at the thought. But we hung on, things kept slowly improving and now, at just over four months, she can latch on herself with no help from me and there is no pain. I really never thought we would get there but we did and I'm sure you will too, although I know how hard work it is. Well done for getting this far, you're doing amazingly.

Just popped in to say hope the weigh in and osteo goes well.

Dorcas, thanks for that, its encouraging. (although slight freaked by the thought of 3 months!) We had a few goes this morning (once in the bath, still painful but soooo lovely) and one or two of them were a bit better. I know exactly what you mean about latching with gums rather than tongue, she is definitely gnashing on my nipples. and I am still getting the white line across the nipple although not so much of the lipstick shape and you can see an indent either side where she is biting with her gums. However I am learning not to let her go on when she is making the quick sucking motions with her mouth but waiting til she opens wider for longer, trying to get more in her mouth. She still slips down so the latch gets worse after a while but hopefully practice will help. I think what I am mainly worried about is that letting her latch and suck badly is just reinforcing the bad habits or is it worth letting her do it the wrong way just to have her be on and happy at the breast, then slowly try and improve. Its hard to know! Plus I am trying to balance it with my nipples not getting so battered again.

Cossie, I am hesitant to contact NCT as the lady who ran our NCT breast feeding class was pretty useless and I am pretty sure she is the only one in our area, (could be wrong tho) I am going to go back to the feeding clinic on thursday and try and see the same lady we saw last time, she couldn't really help as babyleaf wasnt latching at all then and just got annoyed/screechy at being forced on, so if at least we have made a bit of progress for next time she might be able to give more advice. Other than that I might try some of the other numbers I have been giving.

Anyway, weigh in was great, she is now 7 lb 8 oz!!! And osteo was good too, different guy this time, he said she was pretty much symmetrical now, he straightened up some of the bones in her temple, loosened up the back of the neck and also released some tension in the left side of the sacrum which he said could well have explained the slow digestion as this affects the blood flow to the bowel and colon. (he asked specifically about bowel movements before we mentioned it based on what he felt so that's quite interesting) So we are going back just to check on things in 2 weeks time. She slept through the whole thing this time too so that was a bit less stressful.

hurrah for the weight gain!

Rocket I didn't mean to freak you out about the three months, I know that must seem like a long time to you now. But I remember getting quite downhearted reading about people who'd experienced instant improvement so thought it might be helpful for you to know that even though things still aren't great you can still get there, it just may take a bit longer. Also, those three months were nowhere near as bad as the first five weeks (she was snipped at four weeks and I had a lot of damage by then). There was slow but steady improvement and the number of feeds that were painful got less and less until it stopped being painful at all. I had the exact same thing though- a white line across my nipple, and their were times I despaired of us ever getting there. I was so terrified of causing more damage to my nipples I would have horrible nightmares about them falling off!!! I don't know if she eventually 'got' how to do it or if it was the fact her mouth grew bigger which made it easier or both, but she did stop gnawing with her gums. I guess what I'm saying is give her time and do whatever you need to do to take care of yourself while you get through this tricky patch. Baths together are lovely!

Sorry, should have put a smiley after that 'freaked out' comment dorcas it wad meant in a light hearted way. It's GREAT to know that just because things haven't instantly improved it doesn't mean they won't eventually.

Yay 7lb 8 :)

Great weigh in!!!

I can understand that about NCT, but good idea to go back to the feeding clinic then. It does really sound like you are making progress. I agree, I think getting her calm on the breast is a really good idea as you really don?t want to make it a horrible place for her to be ? then you can start concentrating on the latch, but it does sound like that it starting to improve as well. :)

Dorcas can I ask where you supplimenting with a bottle still during that time? I am a bit worried that the pain abd catch problems are being exacerbated by the bottle feeding even tho we are using the calma teats. I have been reading about nipple confusion and most advice is to remove all teats except breast but the thought of going back to finger feeding just seems too much.

She is sucking now when on the breast it's just I dobt think her mouth is opening wide enough to breast feed rather than nipple feed. She has fed for about 10 mins each side this morning and has fallen asleep on me not wanting the top up but I can't believe this is enough!!