feel like giving up breastfeeding

[bedraggledmumoftwo]

Dd2 is 13 weeks old and i feel like i am losing an uphill battle with the feeding. It is really upsetting me as it seemed to be going really well but at her 8 week check she had dropped from over the 50th to between the 2nd and 9th percentiles. She has had four colds already, each lasting a fortnight, and when she cant breathe she wont latch. After i knew she had lost weight i started trying to feed more often but she screams if i try to feed her when shes upset, and i am just getting more and more wound up. I feel like i am force feeding and starving her at the same time. Before i would assume if she wouldn't take the breast she wasn't hungry but now i cant assume that, and she often will take a bottle, and with every bottle she has she fights the boob more. I'm on ADs from pnd and anxiety with dd1 and at first i felt like i wad doing much better not getting worked up this time, but now i am getting into a state and fantasising about formula as then id know for sure if she was hungry or not! Ugh,i felt like this with dd1 and really felt like it was easier this time but here we are again

New not btw! Bloody phone!

Although most MNs probably recognise me as the person with the eternally BFing DD2, your DD sounds just like my DD1.

By 4 months DD1 much preferred bottles to BFing which she'd never done very well. After I had to take 24 hrs off BFing after a minor OP she never bothered again.

Sometimes you simply have to go with what works best, pragmatic parenting has a lot going for it.

If you want to help build supply than plenty of porridge, oat based snacks, fennell tea, skin to skin, a day in bed with baby if you can manage is great to boost supply,

re bottles, when giving a bottle don't tilt it as much, it should be almost horizontal with a small hole in the teetg and slow speed, this is to make baby work and helps prevent bottle preference which sound like your little one has

Ps you are doing great, have done great, and whatever way you find works for you from now on, you will be great,

I had a hell of job when I first started bf with ds1. He really struggled to latch on and my confidence dropped.
I expressed milk and fed it to him with a cup(think childs tea set) strerilised like a bottle, this meant he didnt get used to a bottle teat.
I then tried nipple shields and used these for about a month, they made a huge difference to me and I would recommend them.
It may be the colds that make it difficult and the bottle is easier for dc.

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This might help

If you want to use some formula or fully formula feed then you aren't being unreasonable at all to do that.

But if you wanted to breast feed for longer then maybe it would be a good idea to get some support from one of the helplines or local support teams (if you have one) so that you don't feel like you were forced down a path rather than making an active decision.

Breastfeeding goals are individual, and what matters about it is that you get the support to meet your OWN targets, not how long (or if) you want to do it in the first place.

Hello

We've moved this to Breast and Bottle Feeding at the OP's request.

Interesting to see the different focus of advice on a different forum. I guess the question is, do you really want to give up bf, or do you actually want the problems with bf to be resolved so you can carry on? I thought I was desperate to stop too, until I tried to stop and I couldn't do it emotionally, despite all the pain I was in! I have no advice I'm afraid as it's all going wrong for me, but if you do want to resolve the bf problems then there are lots of people here with good advice.

Hi, i don't want to stop, i just get the feeling the baby does! I originally posted in aibu because i felt guilty that i was fantasising about how much easier life would be if i just gave up fighting!

I know what you mean. I fantasise about formula constantly! I also suffer with depression and anxiety, and feeding issues certainly haven't helped! I also wonder if dd would be happier with a bottle- she doesn't scream when a bottle approaches! But then I think about the health benefits and the bonding... Endless! I don't know about you but anxiety makes it impossible for me to make a decision, I've been giving up tomorrow since two weeks in! (Dd now 8 weeks, still not latching properly). Whatever you decide, yanbu.

The first few months are often the hardest for Breastfeeding, it sometimes seems like many people reach the end of their resources and stop before they wanted to just around the time that it often starts to get more predictable and manageable.

Some women find stopping was absolutely the right decision for them, but others find the feeding issues don't resolve with switching to expressing or formula - or that they are replaced with other things they find hard.

Why not give one of the Breastfeeding help lines a call? They will be quite happy to listen to you about the things you are finding challenging and will have some suggestions about how other mums might have dealt with nursing strikes (when baby starts refusing the breast) like going back to skin to skin and baby led attachment that you might want to try before stopping (because stopping isn't what you say you want rather than because stopping would be bad!)

Sorry, I know she wasn't 'refusing the breast' as such in your post - but that you feel she isn't really taking enough to be satisfied when she's there.

I'm feeling a bit less upset as i may have discovered the cause-i am now on antibiotics for sinusitis. Having no sense of smell and terrible pain when i drop my head to tie my shoelaces, it occurred to me she might have the same(we have both had a constant cold for the last six-eight weeks). In which case, if she cant smell the milk and me pulling her horizontal to feed is hurting her head seemingly for no good reason, i can understand why she might scream!

Ah poor you and poor her. Is she on antibiotics too? (if so you might want to give her some baby probiotics to help her tummy, and you should have some too ideally).

Have you got a decent snot sucker? the Nosefrida is really good. If it's sinusitis though then you won't be able to suck much out as it's more swelling than snot.

Spring is nearly here and hopefully the colds will subside, so if you can manage to keep your supply going over the next few weeks, you may find it's all a lot easier by then. But whatever you decide will be fine