Agony when feeding 16m ds :(

[CherryPie3]

I'm just wondering what I should really do now. I'm struggling to feed him from my right side as it's incredibly painfully, it makes my whole body shake and I end up with tears streaming down my face :(
The left side is now starting hurt the same way.

At the moment he still has a morning (7am) feed, lunchtime feed, bedtime (7pm) feed, 11pm feed and often at 2am and 5am too although that seems to be dropping off now thankfully.

I'm currently trying to decide whether to carry on feeding him as I love it, or whether to give up now. I tried to speak to my hv about it but she wasn't that interested and just told me to stop because it's no longer offering anything nutritionally to him. She just said to give him a cup of water.

Please advise, has anyone experienced this themselves?

Thanks x

Oh dear

Of course it's still good for him nutritionally

DD would sometimes graze me with her teeth which woud be so painful

Is your GP more sympathetic? Do you have an infection?

Local breastfeeding group or la leche league would be useful long term but you need a solution to the pain

Thank you for your reply Ruby.

He does graze me with his teeth but I was used to that iykwim. The pain is from when he latches on and then for a good ten minutes after. It feels like he's sucking so strongly it's ripping me nipple apart. As a result of this sudden strong sucking reflex the entire base of the nipple has cracked - which is probably why it feels like it's tearing apart, because it physically is. It's only a matter if time before the left side cracks too.

I do intend to go along to my local breastfeeding group as they were amazing when I was having latch problems with ds at 4wks old.

I don't want to give up breastfeeding. I'm proud of it!!

my nipple

iPhone autocorrect! (I can spell, honest!!)

Oh ouch :-(
You need to get it healed
Wonder if the advice about leaving nipples to air is good or if it needs moist healing. Am lucky in the 2 years of feeding DD have had no real issues with cracking so I hope someone else is along soon to help
Well done on feeding for so long x

So you should be proud of it! And yes, it does still have nutritional benefits. Your HV is obviously not aware of the WHO recommendations that a baby be BF for 2 years or beyond. I hope the breastfeeding group manages to help you.

My DD1 is 3 years old and she goes through phases where she doesn't latch properly for one reason or another- teething, distractions, her mouth/jaw has grown- so we have to figure out a new position every so often. What works for a baby may not work for a toddler. The only way I can comfortably feed DD1 at the moment is if she sits on my lap.

Here are some ideas for healing cracked nipples. If better positioning doesn't sort the problem then you might want to get checked out for thrush.

Is there any chance you are pregnant?

Thank you both for your replies - they are very much appreciated.

I find it very troubling that I always receive better advice on here than from the health visitors, the while team here seem to have the same view that I should just stop feeding him - but I'm not.

Eau - wow 3 years!! That is so inspiring . I'm pretty positive that I'm not pregnant as we have 2 school age children (5 + 6) too and dh is very against any more. Which is very sensible but still makes me a bit sad (another thread I guess...). I am due on anyway tho so we'll see. I'm sure it's impossible.

The mumsnet app won't let me click the link but will check it out tomorrow when I get on my laptop - thank you! Tonight I'm going to try sitting him on my lap rather than cradling him - I've been considering this a while but have no idea why I haven't implemented it. Maybe just because he's my baby and I wanna keep him small

Ruby - I don't know About air exposure healing but I've been slathering the Lansinoh on like a demon!! It ain't helping tho I'm willing to try anything to help it heal.

X

Thrush? We got it for the first time around that age.

Hi Time, thank you for replying. We both had thrush when he was 3wks old but I honestly can't remember what it felt like - I think it felt like my boobs were on fire, or is that something else?? My boobs definitely feel like they're burning but I thought if was from the nasty split?

I think I need to go to GP (or nurse practitioner) and see what she thinks. My GP is pretty clueless when it comes to breastfeeding, I practically prescribed myself fluconazole last time and nystatin for ds (which I love the smell of!)!

x

I had to print off the BfN leaflet and hand it to GP to get the right meds.
I think thrush makes the skin more to crack, and cracks let the thrush in?

I breastfed ds till he was 23 months when it suddenly got really painful. To the point I was pushing him off (we'd gone through teeth, pulling, distractions etc). Turned out I was pregnant.

Cherry, for you. I thought this would be my problem this week, too, but I adjusted DD's latch and now the pain is subsiding.

Firstly, I believe I'm right in saying that your DS is getting over 50% of many of his nutritional requirements from your milk at this age - not to mention the boost for his immune system - your milk will update his body with added resistance to every bug you catch this winter. And, of course, comfort - especially good if he still has teeth to come!

For the pain itself I suggest you check the latch and see a bf counsellor next week.

Good luck!

Try rubbing your breastmilk on - I was told by a bf counsellor that it's at least as good as lansinoh, if not better.

Have you checked for white spots on the nipple? These 'blebs' are blocked ducts and I've found them amazingly painful. GP had given me treatment for thrush, but searching on MN was the only way I found out about them. I think rough treatment from DS (also 16m) can cause them.

Thanks ladies

I feel better knowing that my mill is still good for my little boy, I knew I'd heard bf was recommended up to 2y and beyond but doubted myself when the hv's said it was pointless. If it was just one of them I could maybe understand but this was 4 members of the same hv team!!

I can confirm I am most definitely not pregnant so it isn't that causing the pain.

I can't any White spots either but I'll check that again in the morning when there's better light - ds is still in our room and fast asleep and in an effort to keep him that way I'm not turning on the light.

I will (and have done already) rub a litke breastmilk over the area to see if that promotes healing - fingers crossed!!

Thank you to everyone who has posted, I really do appreciate it xxx

(and please excuse my spelling/typing, I'm on my phone and always in a rush so I never check things, my phone like to autocorrect too so you never know what it's gonna say...)

xxx

See?

milk

Evening ladies, well today my nips went from being badly cracked to badly bleeding :(

Trip to breastfeeding clinic on Friday for me, seems so far away tho :(

ouch!

Oh your poor thing! You must be in agony.

Right then, some practical advice. To ease the pain right now (assuming you are taking paracetamol etc), and for the short term, have you tried either warm/hot flannels or dangling your breasts in a bowl of warm water? A drop of lavender in it won't do any harm if you have some. Secondly, are you using just a thin smear of lansinoh? It works better that way. :)

Now, to think about healing your poor nips. I suspect that there's a bit of a positioning issue which has been the cause of this starting- it happened to me as my second grew, although thankfully nowhere near as severely. What position does he normally feed in? It might be that changing positions takes some of the physical stress off your nipple, allow it to heal without the wound constantly being reopened. For the same reason, you might consider either hand expressing or using a pump for 24 hours or so which might be a feasible way of continuing to give him bm until your skin is a bit more healed.

I've got my fingers crossed for you- I think you're doing everything you can, and as such are being wonderful!

THESE are expensive, but so worth it and they work very quickly. I put mine in at around 4:30pm and by the next morning, my crack was 90% healed and all pain gone.

Ductal thrush feels like your nipple is being sliced up with broken glass IME and mastitis (for me) had the whole breast in pain.
I personally found the La Leche League fantastic for help and advice and after more than 12 bouts of ductal thrush and several mastitis, I'm still feeding Dd at 4yrs and 10 months.
And FWIW, my usually fabulous and knowledgable HV was almost horrified that I was still bfing Dd at 16 months! I haven't bothered to tell her I'm still doing it

Thank you so much ladies!! I have read your posts previously but it's been so hectic here I just haven't had 5 minutes to reply.

Surprisingly things seem to have improved which I wasn't expecting. Yesterday I discovered two brand new teeth in ds's mouth and he has been feeding easier since, I honestly can't believe it.

And last night he slept 7pm-6:30am, which he hasn't done for ooooh, about a year!! I realise this isn't exactly relevant to this thread but it's such good news I had to share.

My nips are still bleeding a little but since I starting soaking them in hot water and lavender (thank you!), and also applying just a thin layer of Lansinoh instead of a lot (thank you!) - the difference is incredible.
I haven't managed to check out the link in the previous post I'm afraid as my phone just won't load it for sone reason, but I will when I finally get on my laptop!

So it's good news from me and it wouldn't be if it weren't for you ladies! I really am so grateful .

I now intend to feed my little ds for as long as I can and as long as he wants my milk.

xxxx

I was going to suggest teething as it always buggers up my ds's latch and it's the only time he bites me as well. glad things are better and I hope they heal fully soon.

Excellent news CherryPie :) Do check my link out as I found these invaluable. I keep wondering if I should sell them on, but I think maybe I'll put them away for Dd