Can I have a little self-absorbed rant about BF?

[gallicgirl]

I think I just need a bit of encouragement and a reality check but I'm really struggling with breast-feeding at the moment.

DS is 3 weeks ld and has a tongue-tie which will hopefully be snipped next week. As a result, nursing is painful and nipples are swollen and tender (apologies for TMI).
I've seen a breast-feeding supporter and position is ok-ish but he can't latch particularly well and as a result i think he's not feeding efficiently.

I've been expressing maybe twice a day to give him a bottle and he's also getting formula. The reason being, he can nurse for 2 hours and then still take 150ml by bottle so I can't see how he's getting enough milk from me. It's really discouraging and I feel like I'm only breastfeeding in order to keep up supply.

The other issue is time. Kellymom and MW, HV all say to allow the baby to feed until they come off the breast. Trouble is this can take several hours. I also have a 4 year old to look after and feed and I struggle to find time to do anything. I ate breakfast at 11:30 today and lunch at 3:30!! If I don't eat, I can't keep up supply and it's all a vicious circle :( If I take him off the breast after a shorter period of time and give him a bottle, then I feel that he will get lazy and prefer the bottle.

He has lots of wet and dirty nappies and is gaining weight so I know he's doing ok but suspect this is purely because of the mixed feeding.

Has anyone had a tongue-tie treated and then continued to breastfeed? Will it get easier and quicker? How long should a feed take because if it's always going to take hours I might as well stop now.

No personal experience of tongue tie but everything I've read on here seems to regard it as a miracle game changer. You might still have cluster feeding at points but ime it should take about half an hour to empty a breast. Hope this becomes your experience, too. Can you not set yourself up so you eat while bf?

Yes, twins with tongue tie and managed keep feeding for a year once they were snipped. Honestly it's a totally different experience once the snip is done. Do what you need to to get through hntil the tie is snipped. You'll have another week-10 days of readjustment but you should see a steady improvement Over that time and then hopefully feeding will improve. There will still be long feeds because your supply will be a bit low but hopefully 2 hr feeds should reduce massively !

Don't look at his direct feeding as actually feeding him for now. Remember that a good proportion of it is for supply reasons (and will be for a good few weeks yet). The fact that he takes a bottle afterwards does not mean the bf wasn't worthwhile nor that your supply is bad.

DC1 was bottle fed expressed milk for three weeks with no direct feeds, because of an inconvenient combination of borderline tt, small mouth and inverted nipples. He switched to straight bf with minimal difficulty (nipple shields) and fed for a further two years.

Good luck. Balancing the needs of a newborn with those of older siblings is hard enough when all is going well

My dd had a posterior tt diagnosed and snipped around 8 weeks. I gave her a couple of bottles of formula a day to help her weight get back on track but phased these out by a month later. We're still bf now and she's one next week.

I have. DS was EBF and he had his revision/snip done at 8 weeks. Took me that long to get a referral to Kings as he was gaining weight. Didn't seem to matter that like you I was having to feed him constantly!

Once he'd had the procedure it was like he was a different baby.
It took a few days for him to get used to nursing with his newly freed tongue but once he got going he was a much more efficient feeder. We went from nursing every 30 minutes for a few minutes at a time to him nursing for around 15 - 20 minutes every couple of hours. His sleep also drastically improved once he was feeding more efficiently.

As he got older and he was consistently eating solids the number of times he nursed a day decreased as did the length of time each feed took.

I went on to nurse him until he was 2 - there's no way that would have happened if the TT hadn't been sorted out.

Congratulations on your new baby and well done for continuing to BF through the pain. It will be enormously better and your nipples can heal as you continue to feed once his tongue is sorted. Hang in there and do what you can to keep your supply up!

Sorry I posted in a rush before bath time, meant to say feeds got less frequent and shorter but I do often take dd off before she just lolls off milk drunk, if she's not finished she'll protest but she used to suckle in her sleep for ages. When I was building my supply up after the division I'd feed her lying down and drift off because I felt that even if she wasn't removing any milk some nipple stimulation might aid my supply. I'm not sure that's true now but feeding lying down definitely helped me get through the nights.

Thanks everyone.
We're actually really lucky with sleep and get at least one 5 hour stretch, usually at night. He feeds really well in the mornings so I like to make the most of it but unfortunately he's refusing boob in the evenings recently. I'll keep on offering boob and perhaps try it more frequently but for shorter periods.

It's reassuring to know that feeding is likely to improve once tt is snipped. Can't wait for regular short feeds!