Trying to breastfeed - feeling like the worst mother ever. Please help if you can.

[Hippymama1]

My baby is two and a half weeks old and was born by C Section. I didn't have any milk for 5 days so fed him on formula and when I did have milk, he couldn't latch on and would become frustrated and cry, I would cry too - there was lots of crying. I would then give him formula.

Eventually we started to get the hang of it and I started to combination feed with my minimal amounts of breast milk but then he was really sick - not spit up sick, projectile run to the out of hours GP sick.

GP said that it was likely a change of milk or a combination of the milks making him sick and to stick to the formula and keep expressing until I get enough breastmilk for a whole feed and then give him that with the aim of getting my supply up and then solely breastfeeding.

I have been expressing and have enough for a whole feed but I then made the mistake of calling the NCT breastfeeding helpline, who told me that he was being sick because I was overfeeding him, I was stretching his tummy and shouldn't be giving him so much formula as he would get greedy and become fat (FAT?! HE IS TWO WEEKS OLD?!!) and should forget expressing, just put him on the breast. Thanks very much for that! If only it was that simple?! There have therefore been more tears - I feel like an awful mother and that I am not doing the right thing for my child... I just keep getting different advice and I am not sure what to do...

I am now, in addition to worrying that I am not breastfeeding, worrying that I am overfeeding my baby - I feed him until he refuses the bottle and then wind him etc and he goes to sleep fine - he usually has between 50 and 80mls of formula per feed and isn't sick afterwards...

Has anyone here ever had combination feeding make their baby sick?

If you did combination feed, how did you do it?

How much formula did you give your baby?

Any help or advice anyone has would be gratefully received - I am trying my best but know it isn't good enough and there is so much judgement around from my parents, inlaws, NCT... I have tried the National Breastfeeding Helpline but there is no-one available...

[CosmicDespot]

Glad you are feeling more positive.

[weeonion]

Hows it going hippy?

[Hippymama1]

Hi Weeonion Things are going better thank you... I am feeling better about things and am BFing a little every day to keep the supply up until I get an appointment for the tongue tie which will hopefully be next week. I am hopeful that things will improve a bit after that and I can move on to more BFing. I am feeling loads more positive about things now!