Advice for a reluctant breastfeeder?

[easterbaby]

I'm expecting DC2 in November. Already have a gorgeous 15mo DS.
I hated bf and gave up after 3 weeks of pain and exhaustion. It was such a relief to let my body heal/relax, and to bond with my boy.
Instinctively, I don't want to bf again (we ended up being very contented bottle feeders!) but my DH wants me to try with our newborn, so I will.

Last time, my postnatal carers were awful (with the exception of my wonderful GP, who fixed the problems they caused.) I'm putting plans in place for a better deal this time. Eg, I will check myself out of hospital within hours (all being well) and am hoping to book a private midwife to replace my NHS postnatal care.

I'd like impartial and experienced advice on bf, but have no idea where to get it. I tried NCT and La Leche League last time, but was a bit damaged by the propaganda (eg, I was told that I was artificially feeding my baby when I had to supplement with formula milk - this made me feel like such a failure.) I wasn't physically well enough to go outside by myself in the first few weeks, so I missed out on visiting bf clinics. DH refused to take me when I asked him to - he has been told this won't be acceptable next time! :-)

When DS was a few months old, my GP said he has a high palate and it may have contributed to our bf problems. It wasn't picked up by any of the bf counsellors or midwives who visited, or suggested by NCT/LLL.

Does anyone have any tips/advice on dealing with high palates? And bf second time round, after mostly bottle feeding your first DC?

As a second timer, I feel less vulnerable than before, but want to protect myself from the judgemental views of those who think formula milk is no better than poison! It's very likely that I will supplement at some stage in the first year. I wlt give DC2 the best nutritional start and realise that bf is pretty good for mums. Although I dispute the idea that the best bonding comes with bf - DS and I released lots of oxytocin with closeness, cuddles and kisses alone!

Also interested to find out about combination feeding. The NHS midwives only pushed this when I said I was giving up, but by that stage I couldn't face the boob again. I think it might help me to extend bf for longer.

Ok breastfeeding. I've always hated the idea and then loved it eventually.

I'm currently sleep deprived so I'll have to download my tips in a slightly haphazard way. Ask if anything doesn't make sense!

• its always hurt for me in the early days before my milk came in. In both cases I have ended up having a 24houe break to allow my nipples to heal. I've expressed during this time and DH has given the baby the expressed milk. I've used lashings of lansinoh and drunk lots of water to help things along. Without doing this I wouldn't have got through with either child.
• that said I've always found the first six weeks somewhere between uncomfortable and painful. But it does seem to suddenly click and so if you really want to (and I wouldn't judge you for not wanting to) then persevere knowing its likely to get better
• there are thinks like blocked ducts, ductal thrush and

Mastitis which can cause varying levels of Pain when breastfeeding. I've always goodled issues so I have a good idea if I need to go to GP. Mumsnet would also be a good source of information.

• the way I get through the early weeks is to mentally set deadlines e.g. I'll feed til the end of the weekend, I'll feed another week and then reassess. That way I'm not questioning whether I am doing the right thing at every feed because I've set a time where I wil assess how it's going and whether I want to continue.
• try different feeding position. DD is two months old and whilst she will front feed, she feeds much better on a side rugby hold and gets much more milk this way. This does mean I move two pillows around the house to lie her on while feeding at home but it's actually really

Comfortable with lovely eye contact.

• personally I find distraction helps when ita painful

So consider tv, a laptop with a DVD, or an e reader. None of these things need your hands all the time and just make it more civilised.

• remember its not just you learning buy your beautiful baby. DS was my first and got feeding immediately. DD took

Longer. Her latch was fine (if in side position) but she took a while to manage to latch on properly. This drive me round the bend at night where she would try to latch on 10-15 times esp when it hurt but she got better at it day by day

• when DD wasn't latching in well I would hold my nipple back and almost fold it into her mouth to make sure it got far enough into her mouth. I think this is called sown thing like the exaggerated method but someone else will probably know the term.

Hope that helps and good luck

Thanks DoodleAlley! The tip on setting your own deadlines is really good - I was always aware of the push to bf exclusively for 6mo, which felt increasingly unachievable. It might also help me to feel more empowered. I actually wanted to give up when I got home from hospital after 5 days, but DH talked me out of it. It meant that most of our bf wasn't "my" decision, which may colour my memory of it. Perhaps setting goals by week is a good approach? The deal I've cut with DH is that I'll give it my best shot, as long as he takes personal responsibility in ensuring I get the best possible chance to recover physically.

I will also look into different positions. I only ever mastered one (the classic sitting up one, with babe in arms.) I ached so much by the end and because I was physically tensing as baby latched on, I felt wretched after 20-30 mins.

How soon can you start expressing? NCT told me not to do this for the first 6 weeks. It might help if I could express some milk for DH to feed baby using a feeding cup. This time, I've got DS to cuddle too! I'd like to keep our bedtime routine as fixed as possible, so he gets exclusive mummy time.

Best tip I ever had on bf (which I hated for the entire 6 months I did it for) was to count to ten, slowly, from the second baby latches on. If it still hurts after 10, the latch is wrong.

At the beginning I was making it to eight or nine before the pain subsided. By the end I didn't even feel it happening. Took about four weeks to get comfortable with it.

Also, lansinoh applied liberally after each feed was the business.

I mix fed from the outset, and will do so again. First emptied each breast, then gave formula if still hungry. It was good for me to know that DD would still be fed, even if my bm wasn't enough.

I think the biggest help for me, though, was knowing that the propagandist bf-ers are complete loons. Puts everything into context.

I expressed at around day three four as was due to pain. With DS did in hospital and they provided oral syringes to give the milk to avoid nipple confusion.

With DD I was home and started with pippetes but used a bottle as it was easier. I also supplemented with a tiny bit of formula til my milk came in as DD had lost a lot of weight and was more hungry than I could help. It wasn't ideal but it was only twelve hours of bottles and i would have been on formula conpletely if i hadnt done this to boost my healing and i had seen it work with DS.

I put her back onto breast after then as I wanted to avoid nipple confusion.

It was a tiny window in my feeding but helped me get on top of my healing and the expressing also boosted my supply.

I try to be pragmatic about these things, and actually had my midwife agree with me, I did what I needed to in order to establish breastfeeding. We are not pumping machines we are people!

By the way DH supported whatever decision I made and just encouraged me to do the first day or two to start with so she got the colostrum if I could.

Maybe it would help to chat to your partner and lower his expectations so it's less pressure on you, perhaps agree to feed while there is colostrum and anything after your milk comes in is your decision? I'd lay money on you being more successful if you aren't feeling so pressured and know that however far you get is your achievement rather than due to pressure.

And do be proud of however far you get and the fact you are trying. Each feed benefits your child and is something to be proud of.

your dh should be supporting what decision you choose. He has no idea how it feels so I think it is quite unfair for him to put this pressure on you. Best advice is do what makes YOU happy

I think we had very different expectations of parenthood and it has taken quite a few honest chats to overcome that. His mum breastfed all of them, whereas mine was a bottle feeder. Our dads are quite different - his would go to the pub, leaving mum to keep house and look after the kids. My dad spent a lot of time helping mum and shared childcare - not quite equally, but he did a lot! Particularly with the older ones, when there were babies in the house.

The thing that most upset me during the first year was the fear that DH wasn't proud of me because of my bf 'failure'. We have a particular friendship group (mostly his uni friends) where there are 5 couples with young babies. I was the only mum who didn't bf for 6mo. Two of the other dads were very vocal about how much they respected/loved their partner for bf and it made me feel isolated. Especially as DH didn't pipe up and say he was proud of me! After talking about it, I realise now that he just isn't a publicly demonstrative man. His family are quite buttoned up, whereas I'm used to seeing my dad hug/kiss mum, and tell her how much he loves her. He knows now that I need him to speak up for us both and I have accepted that he is actually (silently!) very proud of me and our DS.

He is a brilliant dad and I love him very much. Really looking forward to having another LO with him. But I have to say, I really wish men breastfed (I believe they can, in extreme situations of starvation! - but that is probably too much of me to ask.) :-)

Btw Twitchy, thanks for the info on expressing. Do you know if using a feeding cup (rather than bottle) in those first few weeks cuts out the issue with breast refusal?

Also make sure DC2 is checked for tongue tie by an expert, trained midwife or NCT councillor as this will set you up with problems. Fwiw I bottle fed dc1 after 3 weeks of hell and un diagnosed TT. DC2 is now breast fed at 8 weeks and TT snipped at 7 days. Even then paed and 3 midwives said no TT! Severe posterior tie diagnosed by trained midwife!
This has been a different experience. I have used local bf groups and tbh do find them a bit much and ott but they helped with latch issues etc so use them for what you need.
Good luck and I bet you find things quite different this time.

We were checked for tongue tie quite a few times, but it wasn't diagnosed. Interesting that it can be hard to pick up. I guess our society is losing some of those skills.

I'm in two minds about the bf clinics. Suspect they are staffed by hardliners...one of my local mum friends who combi fed from the start (and kept going for 6mo) was actually shouted at by one of the co-ordinators! She did find a more reasonable one, who said if it was working for her, to keep at it. I'm normally a v calm person, but I'd be worried hormones/stress might make me swing for someone who told me I was poisoning my baby!

I know what you are saying, I just took what I needed, advice on latch etc, tongue tie check, and then haven't been again. We give a bottle of formula a few times a week so he is not a bottle refuser.
Thing is you and I know formula is not poison as our pfb's are thriving, however I felt I wanted to give it a go to see what it would be like for it to work.
I would say don't stress, try it again (colostrum important anyway) get a specialist to check for TT and if all goes pear shaped then ditch it. That was my attitude and am pleasantly surprised it is now painless! TT runs in families so if it was missed last time you next child may be affected. Diagnosis and treatment of TT is appalling in my opinion. I had to push to be referred to the TT clinic but without the snip no way would I have continued feeding.
Good luck and remember they don't go to school with a label around their necks saying 'I was bf until I was 3' or ' I had a bottle from day 1'.

We found the milk just dribbled out of DS mouth with a cup and so used an oral syringe though it is laborious.

With DD we did syringe and bottle as was only for a short while.

But every baby is different and yours may take to it easily.

It's not very easy or comforting for a baby to feed from a cup ime.
I would agree with setting yourself short term targets and not putting too much pressure on yourself.

If you're not too hung up on the 'risks' of formula I think a couple bottles a week from early on is a good strategy-especially when you have another dc to care for. It gives you a bit of flexibility and freedom that you might not get with exclusive breastfeeding-especially if you end up with a bottle refuser.

In terms of getting started, I don't think you can feed them too much in the first few weeks-the more the better-it's good practise for both of you and will help you establish a good supply. But do explore other ways of settling them, again for a bit of flexibility for you.

I had a nightmare breastfeeding my first dc and limped on miserably for 3 months.

Put a bit of work into getting going with my 2nd but quite enjoyed it in the end and fed him for 10 months. I stopped because I got horrendous mastitis out of the blue and really didn't want to ever experience that again!

I recommend this book to everyone! I love it.

Hello, just wanted to say do whatever works for you and your family. I did ebf for 6ish months, but was v v hard to sort out at the start.... And ds was a crap sleeper, which I think may have been improved by mixed feeding. Being parent of a newborn is so hard (as you know!) so don't put undue pressure on to you & baby. Relax and enjoy! Hope all goes well. Xx

I think that there are two approaches you could take (or possibly find a point somewhere in between).

The first is not really to think about breastfeeding as an issue, as such, but to make sure that you have really good postnatal care in place for you. Make sure that you get lots and lots of skin to skin with the baby for the first few days (or even weeks), think about hiring a postnatal doula to look after you and your older child for a bit to give you a bit more time alone with the baby - make sure that you get a real "babymoon" for the first week or two where you have nothing to do but eat cake, snuggle and feed your baby, and read stories and watch Cbeebies with your big DS, and just do what your instincts tell you to do. Have someone on call for breastfeeding help if you want it, but just go with what feels right deep inside, and if that's giving formula, then go with that, as it sounds as though it is a choice that you were pretty happy with the first time round, and so might be again.

The second option is to find some really good breastfeeding support in advance, so that by the time the baby is born you have already discussed the problems you faced last time with someone who you trust to give you decent advice and support this time round.

You might want to find a local lactation consultant who is IBCLC qualified before you have the baby. You might also be interested in the services provided by Milk Matters, which is a nationwide private IBCLC service, and which includes a second time mum debrief aimed at women who had a hard time breastfeeding their older children and want to talk things through and put a plan in place before the baby is born.
milkmatters.org.uk/services-offered/

You might also want to read this book, also aimed at mothers in your situation. I haven't read the book, so I have no idea how good it is.
www.amazon.co.uk/Breastfeeding-Take-Two-Stephanie-Casemore/dp/0973614218

Good luck with your new baby. I hope it all goes well.

P.S. I suspect that I'm the sort of person that most people mean when they talk about hardline judgmental breastfeeders, and my suggestions weren't so bad, wwere they?

Gah! I forgot to convert the links.

www.amazon.co.uk/Breastfeeding-Take-Two-Stephanie-Casemore/dp/0973614218

and

milkmatters.org.uk/

For me breastfeeding was just uncomfortable for about the first 8 weeks. But things that helped were Kamillosan cream (the good thing about this is it's edible and ok for baby so you don't have wash it off before feeding - I would put it on as a preventative measure before getting cracked nipples next time round) and nipple shields. I used to do one feed every 24 hours without shields so that DS didn't get too used to them, but he always seemed equally happy to feed with or without them. In the end I breastfed for 6 months.

If it hurts and you dont want to - then bear in mind that you dont have to - baby getting fed is the important thing - so bottle feed if that's right for you and DH can help take turns.

I hope if your dh is so keen on you bf that he is prepared to do the work to make that possible I.e, you bf newborn, he does everything else. Bf is a full time job in the early weeks (which I personally liked cos it gave me lots of sitting on the sofa time and was a cast-iron excuse for leaving all housework to dh)

This is good thanks-I'm in same position & due in 4 weeks (section booked). Last time 3 yrs ago bf was awful, DS lost loads of weight, I was unaware of anything that might be problematic & had latch problems then mastitis followed by thrush & then DS developed reflux. I was totally miserable but EBF til 6 weeks odd then gave a bottle of formula a day while doing lots of expressing.

I plan on 2 weeks min just staying home & feeding & recovering & have stocked up on everything that I may need to make it easier-nipple shields, latch assist, feeding pillow, double pump. It's a bit extreme I know but I feel happier knowing everything is available if I need it.

Good luck :)

Thanks everyone, you've helped me to get some new perspectives. And Yami, you had me at cake!

Had started to feel anxious and unsettled about this, which I don't want to overshadow my pregnancy. Am looking into self hypnosis - this helped me prepare for birth last time and they have a bf cd too. Believe you play it to prepare, and also during bf (might fulfil the relaxation tip.) I loved skin to skin last time. It didn't help me overcome my problems with bf but I kept it going for at least 6mo as it is so soporific! I also plan to co-sleep again (without DH) for the same period.

If baby is born to term & well, think I'll aim for colostrom first. Then as much of the first 10 days as possible - my GP said this is when bf offers provable benefits. Daily formula top ups after bm will keep him/her hydrated and ensure weight gain. Of course, if baby is early or unwell, I may feel differently - but that would open up a broader set of anxieties.
I'll keep digging on the high palate point & will be v pushy on TT!

Evelynj - best of luck with your LO too! Sounds like you have a great plan in place. x