Did MN help you with bf?

[Velomapetite]

I am bf 18 months old dd and have been posting on mn since shortly after she was born. If it weren't for mn, and the advice i got on this board I would have bf past 11 months. Mn helped me overcome a stubborn bf strike when dd was roughly 11 months and also helped me trouble shoot a bout of Mastitis when I reduced feeds. Although I have access to bf advice from local Nct etc. I felt posting here was invaluable for me.

Did you get any useful advice re bf from fellow mnetters? How did it help you?

*wouldn't have bf past 11 months

Yes I did! As well as specific help to a couple of my problems, reading the board lots helped me to feel prepared in the weeks surrounding my dc's birth

The advice I got re bf strike was ingenious. I don't exactly remember what it was but along the lines of keeping the mood light and 'happy' rather than tensing up and being insistent when offering a feed. Also to give dd calprofen and bonjela for the teething and to bf her shortly after she had fallen asleep as she was likely to be too tired to remember her 'strike' and her gums were still numbed from the bonjela so feeding would hurt her. It worked, it was amazing and after 48 hours she started feeding again. Thank you to the person who came up with that .

Absolutely, I have mainly read the board rather than posted but without a doubt I would not have got through to 9 months bf my DS without mn. It got me through tongue-tie, cluster feeding, teething from 4 months (he has 8 teeth now!), bad latches and the biting phase! There is no way I would have coped without reading people's experience and advice.

I should say 9 months and counting as still going!

Absolutely. I found MN my first port of call for advice. I breasted my DS for over 2 years, we wouldn't have even got to 2 months without the advice and reassurance of MNers.

MN is the only reason I actually considered breastfeeding!

I formula fed because that is what's normal in my world, not one member of my family breastfed (well my great, great gran did in the 30's but she was the last) and I had one friend who did so for a week.

When I was pregnant with number 2 I read up more on here and decided that I'd give it a go, the advice I was given was invaluable and for a while this was my sole support when I was being told "I wasn't a cow", "breastfed babies don't settle" and that I should "let do have some time with her" but I drew on others experiences and advice and went on to feed her for 16 months :o

*formula fed my first

Squtternutbaush that sounds amazing, well done for giving bf a go despite lack of support from friends and family.

I also found kellymom very useful in terms of getting reliable information and the tone on kellymom is non-judgmental which I really appreciate. But I wouldn't even have known about this website if I hadn't read about it on mn.

However, I think what got me through my bf difficulties was that there were always other bf mums to respond to a post with empathy and proper tips and advice.

Absolutely. Over 3 DCs we have had tongue ties, mastitis, failure to poo, marathon feeding, extended feeding, clicky feeding and more.
MN has helped through all the challenges, whether just reading or posting for support. Posters like Tiktok and OrganicCarrotCake really helped me and gave so generously of their time and experience.

OpenSandwich, do you also feel that it made a difference that posters responded to your particular bf problem and individual circumstances? For me this was much more motivating than, say, reading a general article on 'how to avoid Mastitis' but I'm not sure why.

Maybe because it feels like someone is taking an interest in me and cares if I bf or not where as at 11 months the Gp and also Hv thought I had gone far enough with bf...

Thanks, I'm so glad we went for it and was a little bit gutted when we gave up but it was the right time for us to move on.

As you say the information I found on here was amazing (I swatted up so much that the feeding consultant that tried to help me on day 2 didn't believe I hadn't done it before because I was suggesting all sorts of positions, methods to get her to latch and was showing her the 2 top method :o) but it really came into its own when we had troubles like a blocked duct, mastitis and suspected tongue tie because people were on hand at all hours (I don't think Tiktok ever sleeps!) to reassure, help and advise how to get through and I'm pretty sure it saved my sanity too haha

MNers were unbelievably kind & supportive one long dark night in hospital when my tiny DS wouldn't latch and a cow of a midwife had said either I formula fed him or we couldn't go home the next day.

I feel emotional now thinking about the outpouring of help and support that started at 2am (must have been night feeders!) and continued until we had escaped and got help from an NCT advisor.

People were also great at keeping me motivated at 5 and a bit months when I was having a hard time with blanching (ouch).

I wish I could name check everyone who posted. I honestly think without you lot I'd have given in and bottle fed that next day.

As it is he's still a total boob monster at 7 months

Yes, or rather it would have if I hadn't been an idiot!

MN posters diagnosed DD with tongue tie after I posted about our bfeeding difficulties... but I thought they must be wrong because the NICU nurse had said DD didn't have TT. Several months later I found she did have it and got it snipped.

I also had great support on here while DD was in NICU and I was trying to get her to learn to BF while still very tiny.

Oh dear I actually didn't find mn that helpful when bfing but we are talking 8 yrs ago now

I had to combine bf and ff for numerous reasons and was told I might as well give up it would never work and one memorable poster told me I obv had no faith in women

I think it was unfortunate I had that response early on it put me off posting for a long time, I stopped bfing when dd was 11mo as she refused to latch - she had a cold at the time and struggled to breathe and feed!

Anyhow am glad you all had support, when mn works well it is amazing!

Oh no girlyfriend that sounds really unpleasant the last thing you need when in doubt is a put down. Maybe bf was not as 'big' for lack of a better word when you posted eight years ago and maybe lots of new posters have come on board since then with a more helpful attitude.

lastone it's really inspiring to hear that you received support during that difficult night especially as your rl midwife sounds less than helpful .

minipie I get the impression that posters on mn bf board (sorry I didn't pay attention to the names ) are really clued I and available round the clock.

I'm like minipie. Never realised DD had TT, gave up bf after the most miserable, painful 4 weeks of my life.
I was discussing her on here a few months after and someone thought that her bottle behaviour sounded very much like she had TT and possibly lip tie. She did. I contemplated relactating but ultimately decided not to because she was very content and happy on bottles. Relactating would have mainly been for my benefit.
But I'm grateful to MN for the info on TT. Honestly, you'd have thought my HV had never even heard of it. Not once did she raise it as a possibility.

Yes, thank you MN and Tiktok!

It took DS 2 weeks before he could latch on properly. At first he couldn't latch on/suck the nipple at all, the paed had missed his tongue tie (saw a specialist and had it confirmed snipped at 1 week, then he could latch on for short periods before sliding back into a shallow latch). I went to a breastfeeding clinic when I was visiting family (we don't have one in my area) when he was about two weeks and they really helped us perfect his latch and since then we never looked back!

I did come on MN for advice after his tt snip when he still wasn't latching on properly, and although I received some helpful/knowledgeable replies in my situation I really needed real life help by a BFing professional, which is what I finally got!

However, having read endless MN threads during pregnancy and knowing before hand about supply and demand, it taking a while for milk to come in and how unlikely it is for someone to properly not be able to breastfeed it gave me the confidence to keep giving him cup top ups of EBM, ignore bad advice and keep persevering with breastfeeding -

The hospital midwife refused to listen to me that I thought the paed had missed his tongue tie (which they definitely had, the specialist saw it straight away and found it was quite restrictive) and said that I would have to either stay in trying to (pointlessly) get him to latch or agree to top up with formula and leave. Well I agreed to top up with formula but then basically binned her plan as soon as I was out of the door (my community midwife agreed that this was a good idea). If I hadn't known that the amounts I was producing were completely normal for a bf baby I would probably have not managed to breastfeed in the end because my supply would have dropped right off since she gave me a plan to ff the full amount every 3 hours. I still get worked up about this when I think about it, and I feel really resentful that I had to give him some formula in hospital before she'd let me go, part of me wishes I'd just flounced out with him. Anyway, DS is now 7 weeks and has put on weight really well, he moved up a centile recently.

I have also never had the worry that a lot of women get at his growth spurts that I'm not producing enough because I had read about them before hand on MN.

Oh god yes tiktok was wonderful and there was another, was it breastmilklatte? I can't remember.

I joined mn so I could post a bf question. (My ebf 3 month old was gaining 'too much' weight, and HV was very concerned.)

I got some great advice, was stunned by how quickly the replies came (having previously posted on other bf forums where you'd wait a day for one or two replies), and it gave me confidence to stand up for myself to my unsupportive GP.

If I ever needed bf help again, this would be my first port of call. So thank you!

I had lovely support from MN when I posted after having given up bf with my first dc. I was full of guilt and lots of people posted and really accepted my feelings while at the same time pointing out all the ways I had been let down by health professionals. It helped immeasurably and meant that I knew exactly what to ask for/do with dc2, who I went on to breastfeed till she was nearly 2.

Another fan of Tiktok here! MN has massively helped me in coming to terms with the fact that I didn't EBF.

I was in a lot of pain in the first couple of weeks of bf and all the nhs advice I'd been given- antenatal classes, leaflets, midwives, website etc etc, told me that if it hurt I must be doing something wrong, yet everyone who'd seen me feed said my latch looked fine. Eventually I found the mn info page which mentioned that sometimes it hurts at first. It was such a relief to read that!