Please help

[Pippaandpolly]

DD was born on Monday just before midnight, so is less than 2 days old. She is very mucusy and struggling to breast feed-not sure if the two are related? She goes on for 2 or 3 sucks then stops, which is repeated for about an hour, then I express and syringe feed as well. Midwives are v concerned, all giving conflicting advice. Have had-all she needs is 5 mins a feed, if she's not feeding for 20 mins each time she's starving, wet and dirty nappies don't mean she's feeding well, she can't latch on because her nose is blocked, she can't latch on because my nipples aren't 'outy' enough, she's latching on but she's just lazy, etc etc etc.

Have been told I'm not 'allowed' home until she's feeding properly. Am at my wits end. I want to go home. I'm so tired and sick of different midwives manhandling me. I feel like we're making progress, but just slowly, but that's not good enough. Have been told it would be selfish to go home if that means in a couple of days we have to be readmittes because she's malnourished. Have been told it will be easier when my milk comes in, and also that it will be harder.

I want to go home and be with DH and do this at our own pace. I know an NCT breastfeeding counsellor and will happily seek advice. I feel like shit. One midwife has said my baby has 'beaten her', one 'jokes' with my baby that she 'won't get anything out of there' when we're trying to feed. Am putting her to the breast as much as she wants and at least every 3 hours as a minimum.

What do I do? I'm so, so tired and can't stop crying. Labour lasted from Saturday night till Monday night. I want to go home and take my baby and do this on our own. Am I being selfish? I don't want to make things worse but I can't stop crying and just want to get out of here.

I second calling a helpline until you can see someone in RL. I remember thinking there was nothing they could do for me, but after switching to formula for 18hours they gave me the boost I needed to keep going with bf, sent me to the jack newman website (which kind of helped me understand latching - i new the theory and principle but for the life of me could not figure out how to do it in RL) and let me have a good sob.

For us, when I could get DS latched on it was excruciating, and being also large of chest, its hard to hold baby, pin down arms, correctly position, cup the boob etc....! For days/weeks I used a scarf to hold up my boob and the saddle hold for DS.

I just spoke to a lovely lady at the NCT helpline and she gave me some tips for expressing and suggested I give myself a couple of days to keep trying without any pressure. Just tried expressing and didn't get very far but will try her on the boob in a minute and have formula on hand too. Feel like I can continue a feed at a time, though I think I know at heart that I'm going to end up bottle feeding her in the long term. Trying to comfort myself with the idea that she's at least had some colostrum, if not what she really needed, and that I have really, really tried.

Oh, don't give up yet! I cup fed formula top ups to my Lo for about two weeks - not much but enough to assure me she wasn't starving. Mine would only feed for about 5 minutes each side - I kept swapping back and fore, but she is just a snacker, like me.

Have you tried an electric pump? I had a Medela Swing and it was ace - much better and easier than the hand pumps.

We finally got the hang of BF and am still doing it at 14 months - it does get easier.

I meant that in a supportive way, not a nagging harassing way - sorry if it came out wrong! Just because you have found it a bit difficult at first does not mean you have to formula feed - loads of women and babies find it hard at first - the babies have to learn how to feed, too. I took it one feed at a time for the first six weeks - my inherent laziness meant I could not be bothered to prepare formula when it was a bit tricky!

pippa the nct bfc you saw has surprised me.. i am an nct bfc and we never touch a mothers breasts still less place nipples in mouths. what she said sounds useless too. hope you get better help now.

Definitely with Haggis in taking one feed at a time. We had a rough start and I would dread each time - which in turn made me feel worse. Give yourself both time to get the hang of it. My DS was so drowsy would fall asleep after 3 sucks - that is not how it will always be! Hope you are feeling better today.

Tiktok I know, I'm not very impressed with her to be honest-she's a bit strange anyway and after our b-feeding session in our last NCT class a couple of the women said she'd put them off so much they'd decided not to breastfeed at all

I had a really good chat with a counsellor on the phone last night though-she was brilliant and helped me see it as possible one feed at a time. We had a good go last night at each feed-about an hour each time of getting on and off the boob and I don't think she got very much but at least we tried. Going to keep going today and tomorrow go to a drop in session which is fairly local in hopes of some more help.

This thread has really helped me by the way-I'm very grateful to everyone who's posted.

Pippa I'm really upset to hear about the BFC :( That is awful :(

Here's some phone lines for you:

NCT: 0300 330 0771
LLL: 0845 120 2918
ABM: 08444 122 949

It's just possible that there may be a counsellor from LLL or ABM in your area. There may well be a LLL group not too far away and they're run by LLL leaders - BFCs, that is.

Concentrating on one feed at a time is great advice. Even mixed feeding offers extremely high protection to your LO, too.

You are really, really trying, as you've said, and sometimes that's just what's needed to get BFing going. You've had such a lot of bad advice, as well as people manhandling you and your baby which is almost always an absolute no-no and I really do feel for you.

Whatever happens you're an amazing mum, and you should be really, really proud of yourself.

I went to a bf clinic today which was semi encouraging and semi frustrating. Encouraging was that my positioning is fine-though in a way I wanted a problem I could 'fix'.

Bf counsellor said to stop with formula and just wait for DD to 'get it'. Said I could cup feed expressed milk in the meantime. I said I can only express about 5mls a go (takes about 1.5 hours and pumping doesn't work) and she said that's fine because DD will be so hungry she'll latch on asap. Essentially therefore, the advice is starve her until she eats.

Every instinct I have says this is stupid. If we hadn't given her formula thus far she would have had a couple of syringes of colostrum a day since birth, and that's it. She's a week old.

Sorry to be back asking for yet more advice. Do you think there's any sense in this? I obviously don't want to starve my baby (!) and think that the more she doesn't latch on and therefore the hungrier and more frustrated she gets the less likely she is to latch on if we give her nothing at all. I understand the cup feeding isn't ideal but surely it's better than nothing?

Do you think your big breasts might be the issue? I have big breasts and areola and it took a while for us to get sorted properly. We got loads of different advice, but really needed to experiment till it worked. Have you got a bf cushion? That helped a lot. The cradle hold and a reclined hold I think is called Australian were the easiest. I could see better with the rugby hold, but ds couldn't latch as well. One thing that really worked, which a midwife showed me and said wouldn't normally be advised but large breasts sometimes need is using 2 fingers around the areola to make everything more pointy! You can leave go after they've latched on. Also I needed to hold the breast out of the way a bit to make room for him to breathe through his nose.

Personally I would try stopping the formula, but I don't know if that's right.

What sort of pump are you using? Could you hire one of the big medela ones?

pippa - cup feeding a term baby is a difficult task and not everyone in bf support thinks giving expressed breastmilk by bottle is a terrible thing...you need to keep up with the direct bf as well as much as poss.

If your dd is ok and gaining weight then if your midwife is happy all is well then maybe you don't need the formula...but agree with you that starving is not a good idea.

It's good that observation tells you attachment is good, if that is what they meant.

Similar problems here too, large breasts, flat nipples. Everyone said latch looked fine, no problems (and I think I showed everyone who showed any interest!!) He lost 13% of his birthweight and we were admitted to hospital for more contradictory advice help.

Topped up for a while with formula via a syringe, but found after a few weeks when my milk was in properly that I was expressing more than he took, so it was definitely latch related. After a few more weeks I'd added thrush to the list of problems so look out for that if you have cracks and damage.

What helped was using the pump briefly before each feed to get everything the right shape(!) and experimenting with positioning until we found one that worked. I threw away most of the suggested positions, providing DS's ears, shoulders and hips were in line (it's hard to drink with your neck turned) and his face was 'flat on' to the nipple with the nose clear we kept trying till we found something that worked. In our case, I sat on a cushion on the floor for about four months so I could support his weight on my legs in a rugby hold variation.

After about 4 months I stopped threatening him that each feed would be his last. He's now 2.6 years and I'm still trying to work out how to stop. It's been hard and we've had lots of ups and downs, please don't believe any of the "it's natural, therefore it's easy" spiel. For some it's very hard, and before formula lots of babies died trying.

Good luck.

Tiktok attachment didn't happen (hasn't done for ages )-she was commenting on how I was holding/positioning DD while trying to get her to latch on.

Eva your last comment about babies dying in the past is constantly at the back of my mind. I know it's silly really but am so scared.

Feel like I'm in a catch 22. I feel like it would be selfish to stop trying, because breast milk is best in so many ways. But then I also feel like what's most important is DD eating-at all, regardless of method, and carrying on to assuage my own guilt when it's only making her (and I) frustrated and upset is also selfish. Whether I stop or carry on my motives seem to be wrong.

Sorry, I didn't mean to worry you, I know what it's like and there is enough to worry about! It won't happen, because babies are monitored and weighed by midwives and health visitors. If you are worried, you can see a GP or paediatrician. And if you decide formula is the way to go, it won't take you days to get hold of it.

Each breast feed that you can do will help her, even if it is only a little bit of milk. I find it very difficult to say "just stick with it", because I know that is easier said than done and you will be hearing it from lots of people. Equally, I can't say "don't bother" either.

I know exactly what you mean about the catch-22, but you can only try, not achieve the impossible, if that is what it turns out to be. If it takes some formula or lots, then it does. If you can breast feed her great. For some reason, I found it comforting to think about all the other women out their in the world breastfeeding at the same time and ended up counting myself lucky.

Eva, it's wrong to say babies died trying to breastfeed before formula came along. It's not the thread to go into details to show why your kindly-meant statement was alarmist and scary - but it just ain't true.

Pippa - your baby is a week and it is still early days. You have a huge issue with confidence and feeling relaxed and no wonder - all that conflicting advice from day 1 :( :(

Here's an idea: concentrate on expressing and bottle feeding ebm for the moment and this will assure you your baby is fed. Whoever you have found to be most helpful and knowledgable in this past week, make contact again. What do you think?

I think that would be you Tiktok! But in real life my midwife is lovely and I've found her to be the most sensible and helpful, in that she doesn't touch me (!) and also doesn't make me feel guilty. She's coming again tomorrow so I'll talk to her again then.

Tiktok can I ask your opinion on expressing and how much is enough? I'm continuing to have zero luck with the pump (it's electric) and can do it by hand but only in tiny quantities. If she's only getting 5ml of expressed milk every few hours would you continue to top up or stop? She's been having between 40 and 60ml of formula at each feed depending on how hungry she is so I feel like if we stop that she'll be so hungry.

Good idea to speak to the midwife.

Sorry, 5 mls of ebm every few hours is not enough for your baby, and not enough to get a milk production going. You will need to improve your hand expressing technique or get a different pump - it is a useless pump that does not work at all and I would suspect something is wrong with it. Ask the midwife to check and call the manufacturers, too. Sometimes bits go wrong with pumps.

You do need to continue using formula from what you say.

Hope things get better.

pippa a lot of NCT branches hire out extremely effective hospital grade electric pumps - may be worth seeing if your branch has one?

That's what I suspected re the amount of expressed milk. The pump I've got is a Medela Swing and the ones in hospital were Medela too and didn't work at all on me. Maybe something about Medela products just doesn't work with my breasts?! My concern is that it's not the pump but me. Maybe difficulty hand expressing+breast pumps not working+baby not able to latch/not getting any milk on the few occasions she does latch on=something wrong with my milk/breasts? Or maybe at this stage I'm just looking for reasons to give up, I don't know.

Had this with one of my twins in the end I lied and said he was feeding fine, was so much easier when home, he was little and only ever managed a few minutes before he was exhausted, he would feed every 1.5 hours at first, and as the mucus cleared fee for longer, never over about 7 mins though.
Hope things impove for you, and your in your own bed soon x

Pippa

Reading this was like reading my experience around 9 weeks ago! My son really struggled to latch on and it was because his chin was slightly recessed and therefore wouldnt latch on well enough to get a full feed or would get so frustrated he would just scream the place down. For the first three weeks I persevered but he was never satisfied and I felt like a complete and utter failure. I bought a Medela Swing electric pump but found it didnt work any better than the manual one. So I started supplementing with forumla as no matter what people said I wasn't going to just starve him until he breastfed.

I went to my local breastfeeding support group and they loaned me an Ameda industrial style double pump and the results were great. It still wasn't masses at first but it was a lot better. Until he latched on properly (not for a good few weeks later) I would express everytime he didn't finish a proper feed (it was almost as though he got a little foremilk which is watery and easy to get then would get lazy or couldnt get to the hindmilk which he really needed as he wasnt putting on enough weight). When I didn't have expressed I had to give him a formula top up after almost every feed.

Don't get me wrong it was hard work and a totally soul destroying when you want to provide for your little one but they can't/won't take it but take it from someone who has been there only a few weeks ago that it will get better. There is nothing wrong with supplementing with formula until your little one latches on - after all your little one needs fed! The only issue I'm having now is that my ds still likes taking expressed from a bottle when he is feeling lazy or fussy or is really really hungry but I get around this by trying to preempt his hunger - give him a little from the bottle and then switch to the breast or sometimes just give him what he wants and try again with the next feed.

It's hard at first establishing your milk supply esp with top up formula feeds but with a decent double pump (works better when you pump both sides at the same time) it can be done. My milk supply didn't really get fully established until around 4-6 weeks.

Well I hope I haven't rambled on too much I just wanted to share that I went through a very similar situation with my ds and now he is almost breastfed at every feed (he is only given expressed in a bottle when he is really fussy - or in an emergency with no expressed he gets a couple of oz of formula before a breastfeed).

Hang on in there if you really want to continue it does get easier :)

Sorry you are having such a nightmare. We topped up with formula in the early days too as I got very little expressing, and I took domperidone (available over the counter as Motilium or if you have a friendly GP they might prescribe it) plus 600mg of fenugreek per day. This helped to sort out my supply.
Any responsible healthcare professional would surely say that feeding your baby is the most important thing. Completely agree that giving formula is the right thing to do so that your little one isn't hungry. Please don't beat yourself up, you are doing your best in your own set of circumstances, which is all anyone can do.

I'm worried that you were told by a breastfeeding counsellor to stop the formula - did she know your baby was only getting 5 mls ebm every few hours? Breastfeeding counsellors should not be telling mothers to do things/not do things....the way we work is to share information and enable mothers to decide what to do, and in cases where there is real concern about the baby's intake, the HCP should always be involved.

:(

I'm loath to add more 'advice' to the mountains you've already had, Pippa, but I could have written your posts 3 times, as I had the same problems as you with all 3 of mine!

Some things which helped me:

Expressing:
*I used an Avent hand pump.
*Wet the part that goes over the breast so you get a really good seal.
*Hold the breast up from underneath and lean forward a bit so the breast 'falls' into the cup of the pump as you express.
*Cover the pump with a cloth and watch TV as you express so that you 'forget' about it and just let it happen (I obsessed about how much I was n't managing to get out)

Feeding:
*Using Avent nipple shields (I don't work for them, BTW!) enabled all of mine to get a latch. I don't think I'd have managed without them.
*When giving a breast feed, relax as much as possible, so go to bed, close the curtains, whatever it takes!
*Don't use any perfumed products. You need to smell as 'milky' as you can (!)
*Hold the breast from underneath as baby feeds. Or it might help to 'lift' the breast above the nipple area (I used both these for different DSs).

Nipple Shields:
*Frowned upon by many, but the only way my DSs coould get a latch.
*Wet the silicone before placing over the nipple so they 'stick' on (I used to use a bit of ebm).
*After a week or so of baby successfully feeding with shields, ween off by removing half-way through a feed.

With all of mine, I had a sort of 'babymoon day after about 3 weeks of struggling and using a mix oof formula, abm, nipple shields. I'd go to bed with baby, eat only good food prepared for me, have a day of skin to skin and snuggles, and only feed with 'bare' breast. This worked to get shield-free feeding in all 3 cases apart from DS3, who still wanted shields when tired for about another week (he's a bit lazy!)

I feel so much for you, Pippa. There are lots of people on this thread who've been through this. You are not alone, and you are doing an awesome job with your DD. It is exhausting and very emotional, but please take comfort in knowing that you're doing your best for her, feed by feed. She is a very lucky little girl to have such a great mum.

Sorry for the delayed response - have been holed up in bed trying to feed for the past couple of days! It's so good to hear of other people who've had similar issues and got past them - thank you for sharing and bloody well done! I have a lot of respect for anyone who's carried on through this kind of thing and come out the other side successfully feeding (and sane!).

Tiktok I did tell her I was only getting 5mls of ebf a go but she said it didn't matter as DD would get so hungry she would be forced to latch on. I have decided she is an idiot.

I feel sad and guilty about it but last night we made the decision to cut our losses and give DD a bottle. It's a Tommee Tippee one which is supposed to be similar to a breast and she has NO problem drinking from it (which doesn't make me feel great to be honest, but am trying not to take it personally!!) so hopefully the window's not closed and I can carry on trying to feed her alongside using it. It's certainly easier than a cup and makes feeding time a lot less stressful.