BF crisis of confidence - just cannot feed this baby

[bigwellylittlewelly]

Ok. This may out me but I am literally dreading every single feed at the moment, dd2 is 19weeks. She was a CS delivery and had a slight posterior tongue tie which was snipped at 9 weeks. Prior to that she projectile vomited so severely she was checked for pyloric stenosis. She fed every 3-4 hours and slept 10-8 every night from five weeks until we hit the dreaded 4 month sleep regression. We're regulars at our breast clinic who agree she is a poor feeder. Her weight gain isn't great, but also not concerning IYSWIM?

I hate feeding her. She bites my nipple, she scratches and claws at my breasts and nipples. She doesn't seem to settle for a feed and bobs on and off and on and off. She now grazes and never has what I would call a good feed.

I never expected this. I fed my older dd until she was over two years old. We went to hell and back, via NICU, a coma, brain damage, tube feeds, severe CMPI, mastitis, dire sleep habits, and constant attempts by well meaning health professionals to cease breastfeeds. And yet despite that I fed her and enjoyed it.

Any advice would be welcome. I know I could bottle feed - I've really really tried expressing both by hand and also by a Medala Swing pump (which brings back terrible memories of NICU and a critically ill baby I pumped for not knowing if she would ever drink it). I could formula feed but want to do my best by dd2 and give her what I gave dd1 and it seems madness to pay when I could feed her for free.

So very mixed feelings and I really would be grateful for advice.

Switching to bottle feeding is a really personal decision, and only you can make it really. It sounds like BF-ing is really getting you down, but only you know whether you can come through it.

I switched to FF when DS was 7 weeks. I cried for a day and then thought 'fuck it', refused to feel guilty any more and just got on with it.

Which ever way you go, your baby will be fine (she really will), so make the decision you're happy with.

not sure that helps really, good luck.

I'm sorry your feeling so rubbish. There is nothing worse than that dread, dread of them waking up and wanting to do it again.

Firstly tt can sometimes reattach or parts that are attached are missed.
Get that re checked.

It sounds like she has learnt bad sucking habits and it will be a pain to reteach her but it is doable. It is as simple as breaking her latch every time it hurts so she learns that way doesn't work and experiments for different ways (simple but arduous!)

As you probably know the clawing at you thing (awful isn't it!) is her trying to stimulate let down which your poor body is struggling to do because it is dreading the feed.

Some options to ease this are;

stimulate letdown yourself either by hand or with the milking machine and latch her on when you start producing.
Give her a wee bit of expressed milk (or formula) pre feed so she's not so frantic.
Drink shit loads of water
Hot bath

Please dont feel bad if you decide to mix feed for a while (or stop altogether obviously but it doesn't sound like you want to) my dd also had a tt and from 6-12 wks had to be mix fed. (She couldn't suck enough and I couldn't express a drop at that point)
It wasn't the beginning of the end and doesn't have to be. In a more open society your mother/ sister or friend would feed her some for you. In our society thats rare.

If you do decide to give some formula I recommend getting your dp to do ALL of the night feeds to let you nipples/boobs have a prolonged period of recovery. Before you feed dd in the am (or while) express one side. Not only will she not need to work hard for a letdown you'll have a bottle of your milk for one of the night feeds.

Gosh what an essay, sorry

So, you know you have the choice to move to FF if you want to, that is a doable choice and it's there any time if you feel you've really had enough.

But at the same time it sounds like you'd rather get BFing working for you, so feeds are more enjoyable.

One idea that occurs to me is oversupply. That can cause mucho puking, unsettled behaviour with lots of bobbing on and off, nipple chewing. Basically, it means the milk is flowing too fast for baby's comfort and all these annoying behaviours are her way to slow the flow and protect her airway.

IME oversupply is common, often missed but pretty easily fixed. There's lots more info here

You poor woman. Oh I feel for you. It sounds like you really don't want to stop BF so with that in mind is there a support clinic (other than the one you have been attending) near by where you can go get some advice? You never know, someone there may have had similar experience.

Yes, I echo the advice to get the tt checked again.

FWIW my dd was the same around the five month mark- easily distracted, popped on and off. It drove me mad but she settled down again by six months. I found that feeding lying down helped. Less to look at perhaps?

Overall, if BF is making you that unhappy then please don't feel bad about FF. It's not a terrible thing to do at all!

My DD also fannied around a lot at that age, but has settled down again.
Not sure what to suggest, but if she is scratching, ruthlessly clip her nails every day so at least it doesn't hurt.
If she is biting, do you think she is teething and teething gel might help? If she bites, don't pull away or try to delatch because that just hurts, pull her head into you so that her nose is cushioned into your breast and she has to let go to breathe, it's a gentler way of removing her and learning that biting = no milk.

What about a breastfeeding necklace to try to keep her engaged with feeding? Feeds in a quiet, dark room can also help.

Some great ideas, will reread in the morning. I think we've got trapped in a poor cycle of grazing rather rhan decent feeds. I did have an oversupply issue - I'm not looking after myself particularly well so could certainly improve mt hydration.

I could have written so much of your post! I am having exactly the same problem, being bitten by a wriggly, clawing baby. I am so fed up!

I've been ill for a month with repeated sore throats and gastric flu, and the feeds were often 1.5 hours apart. Never 3 hours apart like my firstborn was.

In the end my health visitor suggested I trial combined feeding for one weekend and see what happened. I fed one breast, one formula, and expressed when I gave a formula feed. Very soon a formula feed became an expressed milk feed instead, so of all the feeds given, only 2 were formula (at night).

Weirdly I discovered today quite by accident that if I pat baby while breastfeeding, he will settle. As soon as I stopped patting he began to squirm and bite. I managed to feed him 20 minutes and it was a decent feed. But I can't keep that up as its exhausting!

I'm a bit worried he might prefer the bottle now, even though it hasn't been a week yet since being introduced. But he's finally going 3 hourly a lot now, so its helping. And it's making me feel a lot better.

But it's still not my perfect outcome at all. I wanted to BF a long time with this, my last, child.

I might phone LLL tomorrow and see if they have any ideas without going back to 1.5 hourly feeds round the clock.

Oh and I got the posterior TT cut late at 12 weeks (diagnosed late) so I'm wondering if he will never re-learn feeding! I got it re-checked in case it had returned but it hasn't.

I'm really sorry you're going through it but I'm also feeling better that I'm not the only person in the world going through this. I wish you all the best and hope it resolves for you.