Help needed - 1 week old and struggling to BF

[MummyM14]

I need some help and advice. My first baby is struggling to BF, sometimes he latches on fine and feeds for an hour but other times he just pushes away, gets frustrated and won't feed. I have resorted to pumping and getting my husband to give expressed milk by a bottle (midwife advised this as I was initially very worried about using a bottle at all). He does come back to the breast but very intermittently. I feel quite down when he won't latch as the experience of BFing is so great and I hate it when it doesn't work out. Has anyone else had this problem? Is it ok to use bottles when he won't feed from me?

Hi there. I had similar problems with my ds (now six). I ended up expressing at least half the time for the first month or so, but in the end we cracked it, between us. If breastfeeding is important to you, see if you can find bottles with an anatomical teat as it's easier for your baby to switch between bottle and breast (we used these www.tommeetippee.co.uk/product/easivent-bottle/ which worked well for us later on) and we used one of these www.mothercare.com/Medela-SoftCup-Advanced-Feeder/780658,default,pd.html?cm_mmc=Google--Feeding--PLA--Medela&cm_mmc=Google--Feeding--PLA+-+Feeding--PLA+-+Feeding+-+PLA&gclid=CPP-srn7ib0CFenjwgodPnQAfw in the very early days. Do you have a local breastfeeding support group/drop in? They can be good for support - it may be just that you haven't found the right position for you and your dc. We liked the rugby hold on one side and the "normal" hold on the other. Don't worry about expressing and using a bottle - it will buy you some time and take the pressure off while you work things out on the breastfeeding side, if that's what you want to do. For me, things got much easier at the 6-week stage. Good luck!

Sorry - should have read the instructions below about the links! Here Tommee Tippee and softcup

Definitely find your local breastfeeding support group. The level of experience there will mean they will have lots of different ideas. I had trouble with latch on my left side when dd was tiny and they showed me how to flick my nipple in to her mouth so it hit the back of her palete. It made all the difference and was the beginning of it all getting better.

Thank you both for replying. Had a couple of good days with him feeding during the day but still refusing the breast at night.. I'm using the medala system so will continue to resort to expressing and bottles when I need to. Any a advice on night feeds?

Hi,

My little

One wouldn't entertain the breast for the first week, and was bottle fed expressed milk. Breast feeding just sort of clicked with her after a week and she didn't have any problem going between the two.

I think persevering is probably worth a go. Night times were hard with my wee one for a while. She was so sleepy and a bottle was less work. Eats like a horse now though!

We used Medela Calma bottles and teats.

Hello, me again - had a name change, but still purple.
Night feeds were hardest for us, too - I think it's because you're tired and all you want to do is get back to sleep. I also used to find that my breasts got so engorged that DS couldn't latch to start with, so I used to take the pressure off with the pump and then it was easier. Well done for keeping it up...you're doing an amazing thing. It'll probably all just click, like with Scoti.