Breast feeding off to a shaky start - success stories wanted

[WLmum]

dd3 is one week old and bless her heart she's not doing so great at bfing. Has a slight Tongue tie which is due to be snipped on 3rd jan but she also seems to tire really quickly so drinks the initial let down then falls asleep. Main problem for me was that whislt she slept ok in thd day, by night she was on the boob constantly and would cry and root as soon as she was put down. I went to the hospital bf advisor yesterday who suggested an action plan of waking her to feed every 3 hours, expressing after every feed and giving her the expressers from last feed as a top up, thus increasing my supply and her intake. I'm so very keen to bf I'll give it a try with gusto but am finding thd expressing slow - only getting 1-2 oz off which I fear is not enough of a top up. Also, I do not see topping up as a long term solution - if we can't make bfing work she'll have to go bottle which will break my heart.

Anyone able to offer any success stories? I am very emotional about it and would appreciate some light!

Got some fenugreek tablets today - bring on the milk and thd strange maple syrup smelling skin!

DS latched on immediately but only fed on one side, I was bitten to shreds, he didnt gain weight. The midwife and dr said he wasnt toungue tied but a bf counsellor eventually diagnosed tt. He had it snipped at 3 weeks and only 1oz over birth weight. He gained 12oz the next week and went from 0.4 centile to 25th and stayed there ever since. He was bf for 6 months, all I had planned to do.

Thanks everyone, feels like it might be possible after all and hopefully not too far off. I still feel very emotional about and cry everytime the mw asks about it. I know rationally it's fine but...

You sound like you are doing really well! I found the first 2 weeks horrendous, and that was with a baby without tongue tie! I have a theory that as their mouths get bigger and they can get more of the nipple in it gets easier. My 3rd was bigger than the other two, and so much easier!

Not sure if helpful or not, but with dd1 I used to express off one side while feeding her on the other- found I got more that way, more natural letdown, and I froze a fair bit as I didn't really need it, but it kept my supply up and gave me a little "milk bank"!

I was also only expressing 1-2 oz in a session - usually 3 oz over the course of a day and always less in the afternoon. I used to save expressed milk in the fridge and use it for night time feeds, meaning I didn't have to sit up for long feeding sessions at night.

This really helped with catching up on sleep but may not be recommended for a very newborn baby if you still need to feed a lot at night to get your supply established - perhaps after 4-5 wks might be ok to start trying this?

If anyone is still checking in, just to let you know that I've managed to drop the bottles, dd seems to be doing well and is as settled as can be expected at thd grand old age of two weeks. Being weighed tom so fingers crossed, and tt being cut day after. Thanks all. Xx