Hi all,
Wondered if anyone had any tips/experience whilst we are waiting on appointment with a lactation consultant.
Little one was born four and a half weeks ago and everything was going swimmingly with breastfeeding up until a week and a half ago when I was re admitted with ?infection. We spent a couple of days in hospital (roughly 36 hours or so but on top of that time in a and e etc) and I had IV antibiotics and then completed an oral course of augmentin. Since that (and this may just be coincidence of course) we have really struggled with the breastfeeding. Which is soul destroying because that was always something that just worked for us despite having a section which everyone says makes it harder. Ha, for us it didn't. We were smug. Not so now - more like at our wits end.
She will latch on brilliant, start sucking and then basically spend the whole feed pulling off and going back on. Few sucks each time, but nothing consistent and no real duration at the breast. We then have two plus hours of screaming whilst we try to wind her. It's getting worse and really we are getting to breaking point. I have been incredibly lucky in that my husband has been changing over jobs and therefore has been around to help with this, but he will be back at a new job from next week and I honestly don't know how we are going to cope.
She won't sleep in her bed nest or in her Moses basket, she will only sleep on us, if you put her down she will actually scream until she is sick, and we have tried leaving her, which results in me in floods of tears, her in tears and puking over everything and daddy trying to balance it in the middle, but she will just carry on screaming.
She seems so unhappy/cross and we are at our wits end to know what to do.
We have tried everything suggested in the baby calm book and have tried all the tips for over abundant milk supply/fast let down. So that's expressing a small bit first, lying down to feed, trying to feed upright, keeping her upright for an hour or more after feeds etc. we've tried infacol despite no evidence and we feeling terrible for filling her full of crappy synthetic nonsense. We've tried drives in the car , walking around, tiger in the tree hold, changing music, always checking on her nappy of course, also trying to decrease stimulation, so darkening the room, skin to skin for hours at a time. We've been to see the children's centre breast feeding support who say that the latch and everything is ok but maybe she is just a fussy baby.
Anything we might have missed? Can't really see a way out of this. I don't want to switch to formula because for me the one bright spot has been the breastfeeding, but were coming up two weeks and I don't know how much more we can take. Something will have to give because four weeks with no sleep and now this is killing us.
Thanks for any tips, hopefully the lactation consultant will be able to offer some miracle.