Breastfeeding - need some help /support

[snowydrops]

Hello, I posted on here's few days ago and found the support brilliant so I'm back again basically to stop me giving up BF as i seem to be running from one problem to another!!

DD will be one week tomo. Born by ELCS. Feeding started off ok, colostrum came and I thought she was latching ok. I have big boobs / nipples and she is quite small and I've been worried at times she doesn't 'get enough jn'. In hospital various people (mainly volunteers and the odd midwife) had a quick look and said all looked well. I was sore but not in agony.

My milk supply seems ok, with DD1 I struggled with supply due to illness, recurrent thrush and so in the end expressed and combi fed for 6 months I am very keen to avoid this again.

Soooo since being home four days ago nipples have more and more sore. Today I have only been able to feed from one side (expressed the other) because it's cracked and bleeding. I know have a slight crack on the 'ok' side and it absolutely kills to feed.

I have shown my midwife (twice) who says her latch is good. I vary the position she uses. One thing I have noticed is her latch is incredibly strong, more so than DD1 ever was, it's likes vacuum in fact I can sometimes struggle to remove her from the breast using the finger under lip method. Could it just be her latch is really strong?!

Tonight I've also started to feel like I've now got thrush, my whole breast guests, nipples are burning / on fire after feeding and expressing.

I've tried nipple shields and she didn't like them / I couldn't really get the hang of them.

I can go to a clinic tomorrow but I just don't know what to do and was hoping someone could at least tell me they've been through something similar and got it sorted....I am soooo keen to BF (even if ends up partially!) but cannot deal with this amount of pain

Also I should say she is going through a phase on latching on and off approx 20 times before we even establish a feed, I can only think that this is due to her also having had Theo's bottle (that I've expressed from the other side) and preferring it or perhaps from the thrush which she's being treated for but actually doesn't seem to have any symptoms of.

Have you tried a nipple shield? It can give you relief from pain during feeds if it works.

I went to a clinic this morning and DD was diagnosed as having tongue tie which has now been snipped. They also advised using shields until it heals over so DH is off to buy some this afternoon. Fingers crossed this will all help.

ditto on the "flipple" technique and also bathing together and trying to feed there. found my DS latched right away in the warm water and we made alot of progress from there. tongue tie snipped at 3 weeks and he was exclusively on the breast at 8 weeks. used medela shields as well. good luck!!

I found making sure you air dry your nipple Between feeds really helpful for the cracks. I stopped using lanolin after a couple of weeks but still occasionally got sore bits and they cleared up each time really quickly just by ensuring I aired them.