4 wk old not latching properly - too late now?

[Lucy1977]

Hi

I'm BF DD who is 4 wks old but we've had a bumpy ride, I haven't ever had a pain free feed and then we got Thrush. Midwives and Health visitors looked at her latching and gave me some help but other times said she was latching on fine but then I watched an NHS breastfeeding video last night and it appears she's not latching right at all? By that I mean she does take some aeorola into her mouth but it definately doesn't go as far back as their diagrams? My DD also fusses a lot and moves her head around and comes off the breast and then re-latches again and there's often a Clicking sound and milk does pour down the side of her mouth sometimes so I know all these indicate she's not latching properly.

Any tips how I do get her to latch properly? My boobs and nipples were tiny in comparison to those in the video I watch and where their aerola appeared soft and easy for the baby to take it in their mouth mine are really hard and wide (their was more mouth shaped). My boobs aren't engorge so it's not like expressing some will help? I tried to get more of the aerola in DD mouth when she was feeding earlier but she kind of gagged and then cried.

DD is putting on weight, she was 7bs 4.5 oz at birth then 5 days later was 6lbs 12 oz and on Tues (so 3 wks since being 6lb 12) she was 8lbs.

Thanks for any advice,

Lucy
Olivia 27 days old

Lucy - the answer to do they feed peacefully is, yes, if everything is ok, bf should be a lovely peaceful exerince for mother and child. In the beginning, difficult, but will get better

But of course if baby is finding it a struggle now she may still have thrush or other problems as suggested by others. I am concerned that you said she seems to have some white on the tongue.

Keep offering the breast. If you can express and feed by spoon or syringe, much better option than formula. Best time to express (electric machine which you can buy or hire) is after the first morning feed. Plenty of milk in the morning. Then you can express again later in the morning or after her lunch time feed.

Lucy, formula will fill her up, but not a good long term solution if you want to continue with bf. Also formula has a lot more sugar which helps thrush thrive. Bm is far less sugary and less likley to pool in the mouth.

I hope you can get helpful advice on Tuesday

Lucy,

Been a while since I stopped b/f and dd4 is now nearly 3. We had awful probs when she was born and she was a preemie so tube fed for 3 weeks. It took me over a month to actually get her latching well. I am not saying anything against bottle feeding (I bottle fed 2 of mine) but if you do want to fully breast feed in the long term try the spoon/cup/syringe to top up feed.

Expressing in the bath may help, I used to have quite a warm bath and lay in the water till the let down started and then express.

Hope you get some more help on tuesday. You are doing a fab job and hopefully in a few weeks will look back and be happy you kept going

Lucy,
My friend's boobs are a very similar shape to how you describe yours - with her it was changing the feeding position that helped. Ask one of the ladies at your group or LL to show you the 'rugby ball hold' Basically baby goes under your arm rather than across your front. Just might work? Good luck anyway and well done for keeping trying

With the going to sleep thing - mine did it all the time in the first few weeks so I used to change his nappy mid-feed to wake him up and then quickly put him back on afterwards, and then I'd also lay him down on a blanket on his back till he woke up and then feed him again till he'd got a good 40mins in. Sometimes I had to do this several times in one feed and it would take an hour and a half total for the whole feed to finish.

Also - with mine (4mths now) he clicks sometimes when I have a lot of milk, like first thing in the morning, and it sometimes helps to lean back in the chair so it's not as fast of a let-down.

There was one tip I found (after weeks of pain and worry) to help with latching on. I don't know if you do the 'nipple squeeze' from above and below before your DD goes on, but try it from side-to-side instead if you do - or try it anyway! It feels a bit awkward, but it really helped DS get more of the areola in and reduce pain and clicking.

\link{http://www.breastfeeding.com/helpme/helpme_video.html\Here's} where I found that hint - quite a few clips to hopefully help!

Also a friend of mine said you can try stroking the top of their mouth or something to show them the right way to suck - never tried it though?

Hi

Aelita - thanks for the tips, she takes my nipples in ok it's just the aerola that seems to hard for her to take far enough back.

Well I went to the LLL meeting today and the BF councellor was a really nice lady, she helped me with positioning but unfortunately we were unable to get to the bottom of why Olivia is so frantic and upset on the boob. Also were unable to solve the clicking sound but to be honest I'm sure it's due to her suck, I think it's like she goes to suck and loses suction mid way through.

I bought the bf book as well so I'll have a read up on tonight.

Thanks everyone

LUcy

Well I think I'm right in recalling that the clicking is usually down to them not getting enough of the areola in. That side-to-side tip is the one thing that really helped me out.

As for her getting frantic and upset, that's something that DS used to do intermittently too - I don't think I was ever able to account for it every time, .

If you can get to a point where she and you have cracked the latching on, I think that's the main battle fought and won. There'll always be some behavioural thing that baffles you! I used to post pretty frantic pleas for help on here myself, but if you're able to stick with it, it should all be plain sailing for you before you know it.

Aelita, sorry I misunderstood the point of squeezing my breast! Right I'll definately try that then! Today she's not been as fussy but has been clicking so like you say I need to get the latch sorted and behaviour will probably change all the time anyway!

I think you're right KK - my nipples have been really itchy today and I've had the odd shooting pain so I don't think the thrush has gone (someone told me treatment usually should last for longer than a week?) I took Olivia to be weighed today and she's put on 8oz in the last wk so I'm pleased with that and the HV said to get a prescription for some nipple cream to treat the thrush tomorrow (the doc will have a look tomorrow).

Thanks everyone

Lucy

Sorry for not answering your quesiton Lucy - been a busy couple of days and not switched on.
To be honest, feeding got gradually worse with my dd and so I don't remember any relaxed feeds for quite a while - but then we were having a pretty rough time with colic and everything as well and so I don't really remember much of anything good around that time.
I really really hope you get sorted - obviously I did not and ended up formula feeding which took me a long while to accept as I had been so determined to b/feed. I still wonder now whether I did enough - even though I know (when I think sensibly about it!) I did everything I could have.

Well done for persevering - it's tough, especially if you have others around you that are apparently finding it all very wonderful and have taken to it naturally - made me feel like even more of a failure ...
Good luck with ALL of your efforts.

Lucy - did you see the bf adviser yesterday ?

If it turns out you still have thrush, I highly recommend you continue with the Dakatin oral gel (research says it is the best thing on the market at the moment) - use a clean cotton bud, I found when I used my finger it just swam around in baby's mouth, but it sticks quite well to the cotton bud.

Also you need to get Canestan cream or something similar for your nipples asap. You both need to be treated at the same time otherwise the damned thing just won't go. Apply canestan on your nipples after each feed, no need to wipe off if some time has passed before the last feed as it will get absorbed and very little will pass to baby.

This was the tough bit for me: I went on a low sugar and low dairy diet for a couple of weeks. It made a huge difference I think as thrush thrives on sugar, dairy and carbs, so the less your intake the more likley you are to get rid of your own thrush.

Other tips: wash all baby and your clothes on at least 50 C - change bra frequently - wash hands frequently (including any one else who comes into contact with baby) - don't all use the same hand towels to dry hands - use paper towels instead for a while.

All these should help reduce cross contamination.

Absolutely true about continuing treatment for longer than symptoms. Sometimes when you think it has gone, it hasn't and because you can't actually see the darn thing you think it has gone(my baby never had any white bits in his mouth, I just knew we had it because of his refusal to take the breast and my shooting pains) .

Best of luck !

Sorry, I meant DAKTARIN

Hi

Busybaby - hey, don't you beat yourself up - you did try everything for you and your baby to continue bf, you did and are doing a great job.

Koolkat, yes I went to the BF councellor yesterday and she was great at helping my latch but didn't have any ideas regarding teh clicking noise or Olivia fussing etc. She couldn't see any thrush.

I went to the local BF support group today and again the HV that takes it said she couldn't see any signs of THrush in DD mouth or on my nipples so maybe the odd shooting pain I get is just my milk settling down? I was concerned last night when I had more pains but, touch wood, today I haven't had any. Thanks for your tips about keeping the thrush away, I do all the things you suggest EXCEPT the diet bit :-( I hold my hands up that I eat all the wrong things (plus plenty of fruit and ved and protein a day) - dairy and sweet things are my downfall (and the most easiest thing to grab when DD is screaming and I'm starving!) I'll have to get in good habits of chopping up more veg and putting in the fridge.

Each day seems to be mixed with Olivia being fussy and then not so I think I'm drawing the conclusion that it must be wind or something causing her such grief but I'm going to keep an eye on this thrush just incase it hasn't gone.

Thanks everyone for your ongoing support.

Lucy

I had the odd shooting pain in the beginning and read somewhere it can be when your milk is filling up again or something.

Lucy - that's great that you are getting support -hopefully the pain will go away soon.
You can always get loads more support here too. Just come back and someone will try to help

I don't know if I mentioned kellymom.com ? If you go to this website it has loads of info. on everything incl. thrush, fussy baby, clicking, etc. I self-diagnosed thrush (as usual because my GP and HV are rubbish !!) using kellymom. I didn't know about MN at the time, so for a very long time it was my only source of info., I am eternally grateful to the woman who set it up as it saved me from many bf disasters !!

Good luck again !

Hi Ladies

Just wanted to update you as you were all very kind to give me your time to reply to me.

The BF is still a bit stressful but I think that:
a) DD is just a fidgety feeder and will always latch, come off, latch etc
b) the clicking noise is part of her losing suction maybe due to poor latching but I don't think I'm going to get her latching any better at the moment and it's not sore or anything
c) I think when she's got trapped wind that's when she stops and screams etc. I'm trying to feed her when she's showing early hunger signs.

So to summarise we're still bf and I've started to express more now I've sold my medula pump (made me too sore) and got an Avent Isis (which seems to work far better for me) but it's still not how I imagined the BF experience to be. Hopefully we'll be able to perservere long enough for DD to get a wee bit older and then maybe I wont be as paranoid that she's not eating enough etc.

Thanks again everyone

Lucy