Is there a secret to succesful breastfeeding???

[Helenemjay]

You hear so many stories of how and why breastfeeding failed or never worked out for so many people, what about the when its a great succes and baby is fed for months/years how can some people manage that and others cant?

Educating myself and reading up before the event so I knew what to expect and could therefore muddle through myself and ignore duff advice.

Has anyone had experience of baby not latching in the first months but getting the hang of it as they got bigger? Due to various problems inc DD being in SCBU for low blood sugar and being bottle fed, lack of support from midwives on ward and being in excruciating pain from CS DD didn't latch in the early days, now she manages to latch for about 2 minutes every day or so, so I know she hasn't forgotten what to do, but my supply is so low she gives up. I'm working on my supply with very frequent double expressing and domperidone from my GP and really hoping that when my supply is better she'll latch better but could do with knowing if anyone has ever had success with this and if so how old was the baby when they finally got going?

• Information ~ A breastfeeding class was vital for me. IRL I only knew of one other person who breastfed. I learnt so much that I didn't know, as did DH.

*Determination ~ I had a dogged determination to breastfeed my first baby and nothing was going to stop me. With this second baby, I found my determination wavering more. I started off doing it because it is the right thing to do rather than due to some idealistic position I held the first time round.

Perhaps it is because by the time the second baby came along, I already had the experience of breastfeeding and bottle feeding a baby and in the beginning, there were small moments when I knew it would be easier to throw in the towel, pass over the baby and let DH give dd2 a formula feed.

• Support ~ for when the determination inevitably wavers. DH has made it so much easier for me with unwavering moral support "You're doing a great thing for our baby" to physical support, such as sleeping on the side of the bed beside the baby, passing her to me when she wakes up and then winding her and putting her back down after she has fed.

Confidence ~ Being well-informed about breastfeeding gave me a heightened confidence. I never worried about whether my dd's were getting enough milk. I put all my faith into biology and marvelled over the cleverness of the human body.

Realistic idea of what it will be like - especially during the early weeks and the later months. The bad bits and the good bits.

I was shocked at how difficult it was to establish breastfeeding the second time round. My last experience of breastfeeding was feeding a 9 month old baby. I had to learn all over again how to feed a curly, sleepy/screaming newborn and it took a day or two to regain my confidence. It showed me how expectation can impact on your experience.

The 1st time round I expected it to be difficult to get the baby to latch on so accepted the trying 3 days without question. The 2nd time round I expected it to be easy from the start and it wasn't and I started to wonder if there was something wrong with me.

Lisa, my ds didn't latch on properly, full-time for the first 3 months, he is now 15 months and still breastfed, so he must have got it right.
He was three weeks early, but there were some complications which led to him being distressed with a low/non-existent heartbeat and meconium. He was delivered by ventouse and had a big old bruise, which led to him having jaundice for a good 10 weeks. He was very sleepy and used to get distressed when I tried to bf, and so did I. So I would try a few times, so as not to pressurise him, then express. He eventually latched on, badly at first, and then copped-on and has never looked back. He loves bfing and so do I.

I just picked up this quote from HM

"I felt I was crap at everything else that being a mum entailed (often still do) and this was one thing I could and would get right, dammit! "

I feel/felt the same way. Being able to feed and pacify my babies by nursing made me feel much more confident about motherhood. Hats off to DH who learnt how to bottlefeed (ebm) amuse and pacifiy his dd's without the help of boobs, since I relied on my boobs for all of those things during most of the first year.

I meant to say, I would try to latch him on a few times at each feed then if he didn't latch, I would express and he would get that milk at the next feed.
I did have to supplement with formula at the start, to make up the amount of milk that he was supposed to have, but gradually was able to cut that down then stop any supplementry feeding altogether, it took around 12 weeks to go exclusively bf. He did still have the odd formula feed when he was left with rellies for a couple of hours, and I had been too tired to express much, but I often ended up with sore boobs after a missed feed.

Have your babies in the winter so the thought of getting out of bed to make/heat a bottle in the cold is so much less appealing than bringing your baby into your warm bed to be fed by you.

We had an October baby, which wasn't really good for his jaundice, he got less and less daylight poor old thing. I don't think we got out of the house during the daytime for months, I think the next one would be Spring, decrease the possibilty that it's too sleepy to feed.
If you can arrange those kinds of things.

Oops - I realise this is an old thread resurrected by BBWBabeLisa looking for specific advice.

BBWBabeLisa - You might get more response to your question if you start a new thread asking for the specific advice you/support you require.

its got to be sheer determination, i think if you have the attitude of-i'll have a go if i can, theres more chance of it not working, whereas if you have the attitude of-it will work, i AM going to b/feed, theres more chance you'll suceed.
of course theres also support/advice/help post birth that are all major factors too

I think you were on another thread about domperidome Lisa, so I'm probably repeating myself, but just in case...
I found breast massage for a couple of minutes each side before expressing and feeding worked and breast compression during feeding and expressing also worked. You get a feel for it and I became quite adept.
I tried 'rebirthing' on the advice of my midwife, which involved getting into a warm bath with my ds, he did latch on. I was recommended a bath a day, which my lovely dp ran for me.
I also took some herbal tinctures which I was recommended by a herbalist: Goat's Rue, Vervain and Alfalfa, you can read more about them on Kellymom under the heading 'herbal supplements'.
I still have about 300 or 400 mls left of the tincture, sitting in the cupboard, if you want to try. It worked very well for me, and I had to reduce the amount I was taking, as ds couldn't take all the milk and I was experiencing blockages.

Hi Maisiemog
Thanks for all the advice! Yes, I am on another thread about domperidone.
I'd love to try the tincture you mention, at this point I'd try painting myself bright green and runing round the town nekkid if I thought it would make a difference! Where did you get it from? Is it something that'd be widely available or do you need to go to a specialist for it?

Well send me an PP or whatever that thing is on here for private messaging and I'll get your address.
I got it from Napiers the Herbalist, they have an online site, where you can order all this stuff, but for special orders, like a larger amount (works out cheaper) you have to phone.
I spoke to the herbalist about the problems I was having with my ds not latching on, and my concerns that I wasn't getting enough nipple stimulation to build my supply. I had already seen a few bits on Kellymom under the heading increasing supply: herbal supplements, so I went and asked based on this info.
The Alfalfa is actually a tonic as it is the most nutritious substance known to man, apparently, so it is is good it other ways, for your general well-being (so it's about you, as well as your baby, which makes a nice change ). Apparently it is given as hay to brood mares to help them feed their foals.
The Vervain and Goat's rue taste foul, but again are used to increase ewe's milk, and they can increase it by 50% (in sheep). But they are pretty good, and apart from the taste I found they had fewer side effect compared to Domperidome. I had a continual metallic taste in my mouth with domperidome, and I noticed ds would get a slight rash when I took it.

For me - bf on demand & being confident all was going well.