DS1 who is perfect is 3 days old, the delivery was fairly straight forward, (ventouse for the last final couple of pushes, but showed no signs of distress throughout delivery). We were in hospital for a couple of days and although there was 'help' with bf in hindsight it was disjointed and varied and no on actually ever showed me what to do.
Anyway, my heart is breaking as having set my heart on bf I am really really struggling. He doesn't want to latch on - he can suck, he gives feeding cues (hands in mouth, smacking lips etc) but doesn't actually open his mouth wide when I rub my nipple on. Seen the community midwife today and the local bf consultant who were both great, and made me feel as though I'm doing the right thing (trying to feed from breast but feeding with expressed milk (which I've got loads of - it's come in) via syringe to actually get some food in to him. They both said my positioning of DS was good - annoyingly he was very placid when they were here, and so they saw him latch on, and the breastfeeding support worker got him on for a 15 min feed (in hindsight, the only proper feed he's had from me). I now can't replicate this - DS just gets really cross when I try and latch him on, and flails his hands (scratching his face :() and screams uncontrollably. I've tried skin to skin, but although he clearly loves it, he just sleeps - if I try rousing him to feed before he's ravenous he still gets cross when I try and latch him on, if I wait until he wakes properly to feed he's too ravenous to try.
I've set my heart on BF - and it's so frustrating that I have no supply issues, DS has the right 'skills' and the support worker said my approach was fine, it seems so fruitless to fail, however, I'm already terrified that I'm heading for failure.
Can anyone help me? I might not reply straight away as I'm going for a sleep now (I'm shattered), but I'd appreciate any advice/encouragement.
Thanks :)