BFing was a disaster 1st time round. I want to try again with DC2 but am I mad to? Support, advice, positive stories needed!

[theborrower]

I'm pregnant with Dc2. With DC1 I had an EMCS, low birth weight baby who couldn't latch (so had to have formula from day 0) and I left hospital after 4 days with her never having latched, left with syringes and baby cup. I went to BFing clinic, did the whole try-cry-top up-express thing for ages until she started feeding, she seemed to be doing ok but lost weight before TT diagnosed but not fixed until 8 weeks. We still couldn't get her to EBFing (think my milk supply was buggered by this point) and by this time I had mild PND and couldn't stand doing the whole routine anymore. We switched to BFing only twice a day (morning & evening before bath) and bottles rest of time which seemed to work until milk ran out/ baby stopped taking breast around 6 months.

I would like to try and BF again this time. I know not everyone has spectacularly bad luck like I did (most friends seemed to have little bother, babies just got on with it straight away), but I worry that it will happen again.

Does anyone have a similar experience? What happened with your second child?

Oops, posted too soon (bloody phone).

Meant to say, I will try but I'm not prepared to do the torturous time sucking try-top up- express routine again. I don't want to get PND again, and I won't have the time and energy again, I already have a child to look after. So I'm thinking that if baby doesn't take to it quickly I'll just go too FFing. But how long is it reasonable to try before realising it's going tits up again?

What am I really asking?? I guess I'm looking for some positive stories after a crap first time! If you have any, please share. I don't want to give up on the idea before even having the baby.

Not as dramatic as your difficult start but we did get readmitted to hospital at 5 days with ds due to mot gaining weight and lethargy. I mix fed using shields as I couldn't get him to latch. Managed to about 10 months but he obviously found bottles quicker lazy bugger and I didn't really notice until it was too late that he hadn't had a feed from me in a few days.

Dd however latched on within minutes and is still ebf at 8 months. I've had the reverse problem with her, she just will not entertain a bottle which made returning to work a bit worrying!

Good Luck!

Hi, dc1 nightmare to bf, had to supplement. Dc2 was a dream to bf, we both took to it straightaway. I had Emcs with dc1. I loved bf dc2.

Try, see how it goes then stop if it doesn't happen. Don't put pressure on yourself.

Just seen your second post. If you have people around, try to arrange to have someone with you for the first couple of weeks to play with the older child so you can just sit on the sofa with the baby and eat cake and biscuits

Ds was 19 months when dd was born, and I either had dh or dm with me in the day to entertain ds as much as possible so I could concentrate on dd. Then between feeds they got a cuddle with dd and I could play with ds. Seemed to work ok for us.

I had problems too with my first. I felt a huge amount of pressure to bf. it turned out my milk just didn't come in probably because of her traumatic birth and the fact I was quite poorly afterwards. I was very tearful and hard on myself for not managing. actually a couple of staff were pretty hard on me too.
I won't be put under that pressure again.
I will try my best and if it doesn't work I will switch to bottles.