Going from bottle back to breast with a 2 week break

[johull]

That's just it really. My baby was 6 weeks early and I tried to latch with a lot of help from multiple nurses and BF clinics to no avail.. I now want to try again now that she would have been born a week ago and is now 7lb. I feed her EBM but can feel my supply drying up. Does anyone know if this is a good idea or can foresee any major problems? Just to be clear she did latch on (v, painful) before and was able to suck to never got a 'full feed' from the breast. Any advice or opinions very welcome.

I took DS off the breast for 2 weeks while we were both being treated for thrush as I didn't want to keep passing the infection between us. During this time (when he was between 3 and 5 weeks old) he was bottlefed with EBM.

The first time I offered the breast again after this break he refused it, which was really upsetting, but I persevered (lots of skin to skin helped) and we cracked it by the time he was 6 weeks old and never looked back.

He is 6 months old now and we are continuing to breastfeed successfully :) So it can be done OP, with perseverance (and painkillers to begin with - even with a good latch I found it painful for a couple of weeks). Good luck!

I took DS off the breast for 2 weeks while we were both being treated for thrush as I didn't want to keep passing the infection between us. During this time (when he was between 3 and 5 weeks old) he was bottlefed with EBM.

The first time I offered the breast again after this break he refused it, which was really upsetting, but I persevered (lots of skin to skin helped) and we cracked it by the time he was 6 weeks old and never looked back.

He is 6 months old now and we are continuing to breastfeed successfully :) So it can be done OP, with perseverance (and painkillers to begin with - even with a good latch I found it painful for a couple of weeks). Good luck!

Thank you for your comment. I really feel like a failure for having to stop but she was 4lb born with a collapsed lung too so lots of things prevented me from BF. did you find yourself feeding all day at the start and if so how long until you felt like there was a nice gap between feeds?

Oh and did you ever go back to bottles even when he refused?

Please don't feel like a failure. You tried and she wasn't able to. It's not your fault. You have been expressing for that long, well done you. I expressed for two weeks and went crazy, it is such hard work!

You could give it a try again as your baby's mouth will be slightly bigger so you never know, so might take the breast. I think best thing to try is skin to skin and then see if baby latches on.

I would try once a day and continue giving bottle. If it goes well, then you can switch over, if not, don't worry.

I would also add that breastfeeding was painful for at least 2 weeks for everyone I know. For me it was toe curling painful for about 2-3 months. In hindsight, I wish I hadn't put myself through it - it wasn't worth it.

I known and safe drug to boost milk supply in such situations is domperidone, (motilium) often prescribed by hospital docs to help milk supply, but you can buy it over the counter, it's an anti nausea drug, and you would have to tell a pharmacist that it was for this use if you didn't have it on prescription.
This may be an option worth considering. Have you spoke to your hospitals infant feeding specialist? They maybe able to help

I haven't spoken to them no as I wasn't sure if I wanted to go back to BF Babur I really do

I breastfed at lunch but she's doing the whole cluster feeding thing. She does 10 minutes-sleeps for 10 and then another feed. Does this alwAys have to happen? Or is there another way?

If so how long does it last