Possible to get 4wo baby to feed again 3 weeks after stopping?

[Sally109]

I bf my DD for the first week but other pressures meant I stopped and moved to bottle feeding with expressed milk and formula top ups.

She is now three weeks old and I have been able to increase my supply so it more or less matches the amount she is taking but feeding this way is alot of faff.

I am starting to wonder whether it would be possible to feed her directly again but she has only had bottles for the last three weeks. Things are more settled at home now (DH was ill) but I still have a 3yo to look after.

Does anyone have experience of doing this, or know how I might go about trying, I pressume I woud have to keep expressing and offering bottles even if she did latch on to make sure she was getting enough to begin with?

I went from ex. bottle feeding formula/minute amounts of EBM with DD1 (due to jaundice and duff advice from HCPs) to ebf at 8 weeks. It wasn't easy and I was pumping 12 times a day for the vast majority of those 8 weeks but when we had cracked it, it was great.

Have you got any bfing support near by - a bfing counsellor, bfing group, helpful HV/MWs?

You can try things at home like co-bathing, lots of skin to skin, biological nurturing to see if you can kick start her bfing reflexes.

You would have to keep giving supplementary feeds to start with but you could try switching to an open cup for some of the feeds or trying a Supplementary Nursing System/LactAid device to give formula/ebm at the breast.

Thanks truthsweet, good to hear it can be done, did your lo still gape and latch on well? I'm worried my DD only just opens wide enough for the bottle teat so trying to bf will be painful for me and frustrating for her iyswim.

I am aiming for 10 expressing sessions a day and have managed to get my supply up a lot by doing this but like you say it isn't easy.

My HV is supportive although I haven't spoken to her recently when she last came she said she could get a bf supporter to visit me at home daily if I wanted to try her on again, I'm just questioning if it is possible or I have the energy.

At the moment I'm also taking thrush treatment so would like that sorted out before I try as even expressing has been very painful.

Hi Sally I'd second getting a really good breastfeeding counsellor to support you - do you know where your local groups are?

It is possible, but having someone who's experienced to give you suggestions will be really helpful in formulating a plan.

I got a 10 week old who'd stopped breastfeeding back to ebf over a peiod of 4/5 weeks. It was hard work but worth it and we're still going strong at 23 months. The local breastfeeding drop-in were so helpful in giving me a good plan to use, otherwise I'm not sure I'd have known where to start.

I had to teach her to stick her tongue out (held her as if I was going to nurse her and stuck my tongue out repeatedly - she soon caught on) and she did feed a lot but she had reflux and was very sick with it so needed to eat a lot to give her something to puke up (or at least that's how it felt!).

She went on to bf until she was 3.6 so her delayed start to bfing in no way meant she didn't get her monies worth in the end. That's not to say you have to bf until 3.6y too, just to show you that bfing did go easily once we were established at it.

You could try exaggerated latching/deep latching (aka the Flipple) where the chin touches the breast first, then the lower lip, nipple is aimed at the roof of the mouth not straight down the throat, then the top lip touches the breast.

If the bf supporter is on offer, it would be good to have their support with out having to go traipsing to groups! Just a word of caution - they are probably 'only' a bfing peer supporter* so if things look like they are too tricky or medical they have to refer you up to their mentor/superior [prob a specially trained HV or a BFC], if they are a bfing counsellor themselves they will be able to help you more. If they are a BFPS they can still give you support while you get advice and info on this particular issue so wouldn't leave you hanging they just can't do it themselves.

All the best and I really hope it works out for you.

*I am a BFPS and if I had a mum who wanted to get baby back to the breast and it wasn't straightforward I would have to refer on as it's out of my scope. BFPS are there to support 'normal' bfing and to relay information and provide support to mums not 'solve' bfing issues. Unfortunately some HV/MW seem to think that BFPS can deal with babies who don't/can't latch or very ill babies when they are really a medical case and not for the likes of us