Talk to me about continuing to bf a tongue-tied baby (moral support needed!)

[CityDweller]

My 16 wo has tt. Been cut 3 times, grown back each time. Last snip was last week and it's already reattaching. Whilst feeding was agony at beginning, now the issue is mostly that she is very fussy - pulls on and off, chokes, splutters and dribbles and gets upset. Feeds are short during the day, longer at night. But, she's gaining weight fine and otherwise thriving.

It makes feeding out and about tricky and it's also upsetting for me seeing her get distressed trying to feed. I'm also worried she'll eventually start refusing to feed as it upsets her. We've not managed to get her to take a bottle and, as it is, I have that thing where my bm goes off really quickly, so is a pain to store.

I had hoped to bf to at least a year. Has anyone continued to feed a tt baby? How did it work out? Am I mad for even trying?? I've had great RL support, but ultimately it comes down to whether/ how I can cope with the day to day...

Thank summer - again that gives me some hope. Annoyingly DD seems to hate laid-back positioning. You'd think it'd help, but it seems to make it harder for her to latch...

Ds2 wasn't keen either tbh, I used to resort to expressing off milk to get rid of the heavy let down and then attach him once it slowed down if he refused to feed with me leaning back.

The only problem with that is it increases supply and compounds the problem. I ended up with pints of expressed milk going down the drain as he couldn't drink from the bottle so there was no point storing it.

Once he was a bit older he started to be able to manage without choking, round 5/6 months I think, and it got a lot easier.

Also, try attaching her sitting up so she can latch right, then leaning back when she's on to slow the flow.

do you let her latch on herself? I used have to pinch my nipple into shape for him, some of the breastfeeding websites explain it better, you form the nipple into shape for them and sort of shove it in their mouth, it's a bit controversial but it certainly worked for ds2

She does latch herself on now with no problem - I just have to put her mouth in the general vicinity of my nipple and she does the rest herself... But if I try and encourage biological nurturing she doesn't latch so well. I do generally lean back when feeding her, but I'm not sure it makes much difference...