Help for a Dad please!

[RobbieR00]

Please forgive if this is a bit verbal diahorrea!

We have a 6 day-old and he latched on 20 minutes after being born, and for 2 days all seemed fine. But, when my wife's milk came in she became so engorged that her boobs were (still are) really painful and rock-hard. 2 days in and little man had lost 11% of his weight, despite appearing to latch on fine and have plenty.

We saw the midwife and she got things moving with a handheld "device!" and some warm flannels. For a day things improved and he put on 1oz in just 24hours by latching on naturally. But my wife's nipples were really sore and started bleeding so at a second meeting we were told to use a manual pump to feed from a bottle instead for 48 hours. Were discouraged from using an electric pump as it would only encourage more milk to be produced.

But now the boobs are still engorged and really hurt to touch. However, expressing is really hard work, only producing maybe 2ozs in 2 hours, and I think this isn't enough (our 3 year-old did have similar problems but 3ozs a time seemed to work).

There is a pack of formula in the cupboard but we haven't opened it and would like to not open it as we believe BF is the best thing to do.

We tried last night to continue with the latching on after a short express but I think little dude is getting too used to the ease of the bottle, latches for maybe a few sucks, but then comes off and just screams. He also gets his hands in the way, and if you hold them out of the way he gets really cross.

It is also getting my wife down and we've had a lot of tears. She feels that she's not good enough as a mum (!!), everything hurts, not enough milk is coming off etc. She's also not very good at asking for advice and would be quite upset if she knew I had registered and sought help here.

But I really need some advice, even if it's just positive encouragement. I don't mind switching to formula, I love helping with expressing and sterilizing where I can, I just want little dude to get enough food and my wife to feel more positive.

Loads of good advice here. It's fantastic that you are supporting your wife in this way.

I agree that hand expressing might be easier and more productive (although 2oz of milk in one expressing session is great for a 6 day old and enough for a feed. BF babies take roughly 1oz per hour). If your wife isn't sure how to do this, the NHS purple book, 'Off To A Good Start' has information and pictures if she was given this by hospital staff/midwives and a midwife or HV who knows about BF will be able to show her.

Also, has your wife looked into 'biological nurturing', also known as 'laid back breastfeeding'? This is a way of feeding where you lay back and allow the baby to root and latch themselves on. I personally found (when I had really cracked, sore and bleeding nipples) that this was wonderful! It meant that baby could latch without it being painful at all and the latch was a good one. Obviously not everyone's the same, but it might be worth looking into? You can find info if you google.

Something else that can help is trying different positioning. So, maybe the 'rugby ball' hold.

In our area we have a peer support scheme and although you say your wife isn't keen to accept help, I wonder if this may be something she is interested in? It's a scheme where other Mums, who are breastfeeding or who have breastfed themselves, have been trained to help breastfeeding Mums, in particular to check positioning and attachment and showing things like hand expressing. Unlike some midwives/HV's, these ladies will have the time to be able to either visit you at home or somewhere else convenient for you and watch a full feed to check latch and although they are not as qualified or able to help as much as an actual breastfeeding counsellor, if the help you need is beyong what they can do, they will know where and who to refer you onto.

Biological nurturing - that's the thing to google. It may not be the right thing for your wife and LO but it helped us in the early days - seemed to help LO get his latch better, especially when I was engorged, and was a bit easier for me than faffing with pillows etc. Plus if LO is sucking from a different angle it can put pressure on different parts of the nipple and help to reduce pain while he and she are getting the latch right

Oh sorry midori I didn't get to the end of the thread in my excitement to post the phrase I had remembered

Thanks very much everyone, you are all stars for taking the time to post such helpful information and stories.

We have had success this morning! A short shower, a short express with the manual pump, and little dude latched on for 20 minutes!! He's now fast asleep despite his older brother's attempts to play trains.

I hope that this will continue! We'll try again at 11.30. Cups of tea all round.

There was one question from Tiktok, he was weighed after 3 days (not 2, my mistake!) only because when we saw the midwife on day 1 she was more than happy, but overnight there was some trouble with feeding so we got an appt the next morning, and part of the checking was a weigh-in.

Thanks again all. XX

Hi Robbie.
This can be a really scary experience. I remember going through the same thing myself and as a parent (in my case a mum) I felt like I was letting down my ds. It's easy to become obsessed with them putting on weight but all I can say is that I perservered and eventually the weight gain came.
Fast forward ten years and that little ds who gave me sleepless nights is now huge! He's nearly as tall as me and has size 7 feet He's a bone-crunching defender (football) a fearless forward (rugby) and took a wicket in cricket the other day that was so ferocious it nearly broke the bale!
Try not to worry too much. You'll have

That all sounds great - and the weighing on day 3, not 2, sounds justified :) My concern was that too early weighing does not give good info,

That's great to hear Robbie!

Remember, forget the clock watching though. Feed the baby when it is hungry/shows signs of hunger, totally on demand, whether it is every 0.5hrs/1hr/2/3hrs etc. That goes a long way to prevent engorgement and mastisis. Good luck!

Thanks again all. We had an appt yesterday to check for tongue tie with our local bf specialist. Tiny tie, but not to be operated on. Feeding was checked and a few techniques learnt, and now we are pretty much getting first time latches! Up a few times in the night, but 30 mins each time, not 2 hours! And no sterilizing for me, so I feel a bit more human this morning. Little dude is feeding on demand, and my wife is a great deal happier this morning.

XXX Big smiles all round, time for a cuppa I think!

Nothing to add to the fabulous advice already offered. But wanted to say I am pleased things seem to have improved already.
IMHO having a DH who is so supportive of mum wanting to BF really can make a difference. If the BF doesn't work then so be it, but to have a DH who "gets it" really does go a long way toward making a mum feel more secure and happier with the choices she makes.
Well done you for asking for help , oh and for you and your wife.

Well done to you both, pleased its working out well. Remember to take her plenty of drinks and biscuits (don't leave them a couple of inches out of reach then wander off as my DH is apt to do) and get some good DVDs together / record good things on the tellybox. Cos there's only so much daytime tv you can take when feeding :o

When I look back on my breastfeeding problems in the early days, the thing that helped me most was the support of my husband and my family, so well done you for being there.

You have had lots of great advice on here. The one thing I would say is don't go too much on weight - look for a healthy happy baby with lots of wet nappies. Some bf babies poo 2-3 times a day, some poo every 2-3 days, all different, so don't use poo as a measure of success. Because we are looking for such tiny weight gains, things like baby just having a feed, or needing a poo, can add ounces, so look for a general trend. It's also not unheard of for scales to be out or midwives to write the weight down incorrectly, so do be aware of that.

Lansinoh is great for sore nipples, and if your wife can get the hang of expressing, then excess milk can be frozen and keeps for up to a year in a chest freezer, or 6 months in a normal freezer. It also means that, once breastfeeding is established, your wife can express a feed and give her nipples a break.

One tip I was given was to buy a Medela Haberman bottle (available at large Mothercare or online). It's a special teat, originally designed for special needs babies, but great for breastfed babies who have the occasional bottle, as the baby needs to actively suck to get milk out, so it stops them getting lazy.

Another life-saving tip, especially on those nights when baby is cluster feeding all night (completely normal so don't panic!) is to have a piece of chocolate cake and glass of wine to hand. Your wife can have a small amount of alcohol whilst breastfeeding, and it can help relax and chill out just enough to get through those bad times.

Check out Kelly Mom for advice about growth spurts and cluster feeding so that you're ready and expecting them. A lot of women who say that they had to stop breastfeeding because they didn't have enough milk actually just hit a growth spurt, but because we have lost the skills and knowledge of breastfeeding in this country, women lose their confidence and think that something is going wrong when actually what they are feeling and experiencing is completely normal.

Good luck and don't worry about coming back if you need more help.

p.s. forgot to say, when giving breastmilk you don't need to sterilise, just wash stuff in hot soapy water and rinse. One of the amazing things about breastmilk is it is "self sterilising".