Painful breast feeding - what am I doing wrong?

[Booboostoo]

DD is 21 days old and is my first baby. In many ways bf is working well, she is putting on a lot of weight (doc said she should put on 140-160grams a week, she is putting on 200-230grams a week), she latches on easily and stays on the nipple for 10-40 minutes at a time, she feeds every 1 to 4 hours.

However, bf is painful. I am in pain during bf, as if someone is holding on to my nipples with knives, both nipples can be painful but not every time. Sometimes they don't hurt at all, sometimes they hurt at the start and then settle down, sometimes they hurt through out the session. Midwife has suggested it's normal until my nipples harden and gave me lanolin cream and then friend suggested pure alcohol - neither is helping. I was told to put up with it for 30-40 days and then things should get better.

I have read the bf advice on here and on other sites and I am beginning to think that's the wrong advice. I have tried to get her to latch on differently (take more of the nipple in) but her lower lip in particular seems to not want to take in the whole of the areola. My nipples are very elongated after bf.

Could this be tongue-tie or something else? No one checked DD for this and the midwife has not mentioned it at all (we are in Greece, but midwife trained in the UK, we are about to move back to France so will look for new midwife/lactation specialist there).

MedicalEd and KeepOnSwimming: in a perverse way I feel a bit better that other people have exacty the same problem as me and it's not just me messing things up!!! I am kind of coping at the moment with a mixture of re-latching, opening her bottom lip myself and keeping the head really tilted back. She is sucking a lot more air in with the correct latch (there is no winning is there???) so there's more regurgitation but at least its not so painful I have to give up.

FirstVix - Thank you! Light at the end of the tunnel!

Booboostoo - I'm kind of reassured that it is not just me as well - thought I was just being thick in not following the "instructions" properly - but I'm sure I'm doing the best I can!

Just a quick note about nipple cream. I was slathering it on for days and it did soothe my nipples a bit. However, then I lost my tube of cream (it turned up down the back of the sofa 4 days later) and had to do without it. My nipples healed up beautifully within 48 hours of having no cream and I had no trouble after that. See what works best for you.

OK so here is what helps:

• allowing her to cry a bit before feeding as she then open her mouth really really wide to cry and I take my opportunity to pop the nipple in correctly.
• one side works better than the other, for me if she is lying on her right side, so I do the my left breast in the cradle position and my right breast in the underarm hold (if you picture this it means she stays on her right side for both breasts). The side lying hold,although brilliant for half-asleep night time feeding, doesn't allow enough control for me and she takes over ditto with the biological nurturing position. So for me the moral of the story is to try different positions and also try different positions for the two breasts.
• I do think it's a matter of mouth size and confirmation so hopefully she will grow into an easier latch!

I found this leaflet very helpful in evaluating the latch: www.sunderland.nhs.uk/admin/mopil/pdf/20060405104105.pdf

That leaflet is very helpful! Thank you.

Today I have found the enhanced attachment or nipple flip works really well for both sides, but works better on one than another.