Please help me decide what to do

[kansasred]

I apologise in advance for how long this is.

DD is 9+1. Thought she was feeding ok though for very short periods during first 2 weeks. She regained birth weight of 3.23 kg by 2 weeks. I started to get concerned about slow weight gain towards end of first 2 weeks and also concerned about my milk supply which had initially been very abundant.

She was diagnosed with thrush and tongue tie. TT was divided straight away by a lactation consultant. After this she basically did not latch on for 3 weeks and I fed her EBM by syringe. She gained weight and followed the 25th percentile.

On advice from lactation consultant we went cold turkey on syringe at 5 weeks and she started feeding and I was very happy. We were advised at the same time that the TT had regrown but we decided not to resnip it because of the history of refusal to latch. She was weighed at 7 weeks and had gained no weight at all in 2 weeks so had fallen to 9th. I was also very concerned about my supply again at this point and managed to get it up by pumping and fenugreek.

LC advised me not to worry and to weigh her again in 4 weeks and not before. Of course I bought my own scales... Weight gain was good until about almost week ago when it stopped and she is now losing. This coincides with my supply feeling down again though not to the extent as before. I have started pumping again.

At the moment I feel the milk is there but she is not removing it. She consistently has only fed for very short periods (3/4 mins) and just doesn't seem interested a lot of the time.

If I do have a supply problem the only possible cause I think can be her not removing enough milk which would also tie in with the possible weight issues. My guess is that when my milk is very abundant she does not have to work very hard to get it and so can put on weight more easily, when I stop pumping to keep supply up it decreases and she does not get enough.

I have never had sore nipples, sometimes have had blanching.

So, is there a possible cause for all of this other than the tongue tie? She has had unrestricted access to the breast for her whole life and I have been doing breast compressions, switch nursing etc etc

I have a toddler as well and as of next week will have no more help with him at home so I am very concerned about what to do as I can;t just take to my bed with the baby any more.

Is the likely problem so likely to be the TT that I should get it resnipped? When I saw the LC at 7 weeks she said that unless feeding was painful it probably was not a problem.

I think that she has sufficient wet and dirty nappies - dirty nappies are brown though not yellow.

kansas, I can understand why you are concerned.

The frequent weighing isn't helping, sorry - weighing babies is a precision skill when you are doing it for clinical reasons (which you are). It's perfectly possible for a single weight to look a bit 'off' and for it to mean nothing....I can't tell from your post if your baby really is losing weight to the extent of it being a concern or not, and you don't give enough info about how often you feed and so on. Lack of interest in feeding - I'd need to see this and talk with you about the whole context of what's happening.

These sorts of situations are so difficult to deal with on a talkboard!

How about getting in touch with the LC again - you'll have to 'fess up to weighing her, but she will understand if she is kind :)

I think in your case, the brown nappies are worth concern. In a baby where everything is 100 per cent fine, it would mean very little.

HTH - I think you need RL help and support from a knowledgable person.

Thanks. We decided to weigh her again next week at the HV when it will 4 weeks since the static weight reading. She is not concerned about her and thinks she's doing fine. Her poo is yellower now so im not concerned about that now. I'm scared the HV is going to demand top ups . Do you know of any breastfeeding friendly and knowledgable paediatricians in London?