What should my husband tell people about my breasts?

[macneil]

After six weeks of trying to get my baby to latch on, I feel further away, not closer. I spend more than 3 hours a day pumping, and hours sterilising the pump equipment, all the bottles, preparing feed, feeding her, burping her because bottles make her gassy, etc, and have absolutely no time to do anything.

Meanwhile, female colleagues, friends with babies, are asking my husband lots of questions about how we're getting on. He knows I'm very sensitive about all this, and don't want to admit a) she's living on formula b) my breasts are strange and that's why she won't breastfeed c) we're fractious and exhausted and depressed. If he says something like 'I'm afraid I don't want to talk about that' he'll sound weird, but he knows I don't want him to share all of our problems with people. But I feel like people should also cut him a little slack - he didn't take any paternity leave because he's an academic and no one can cover for him, and he's taking on some of the non-stop bottle factory slack, doing all the shopping etc, while working full time.

I wish this sort of thing weren't just something people talked about - it is my breasts, after all. I thought we'd be able to keep it from my parents in law, but obviously I had to keep vanishing every 3 hours to pump, and then reappearing with small amounts of breastmilk which we'd then decant, and obviously there were bottles everywhere. Fortunately they didn't talk to me about it, they were very understanding. But I wish people didn't have to know.

Hi MacNeil,
Glad you found my last post helpful. It just dawned on me to tell you - there is no need to sterilise your pump between every express. Really. Shove the everything that actually comes into contact with the milk (unless you are using a tiny manual pump, in which case throw in the whole thing - it's just as easy - into one of those ziplok bags and bung it into the fridge. Easy. Sterilise it once a day. I promise you that is enough.

Also, if you can (are you in the UK) contact your local NCT group about hiring an industrial-size electric pump. It cost me about 25 pounds for a month or 6 weeks and became quite a feature next to my favourite chair! That sounds worse than it is - they're not that huge, just a box-like pump that sits on the floor or a table, but they are way more effective than the pumps you get in Boots/Mothercare. And that means they are faster...

But please do keep offering each feed - just feel OK if it doesn't work. Like others have said, the only one giving me a hard time about it was me, so try not to be hard on yourself. Take it one day at a time, and let us know how you get on.
Jen

My dr only does breastfeeding - by which I mean she runs a breastfeeding clinic, and is the city's leading breastfeeding expert. She has been very kind, is very matter of fact, and I think she just think she can't help me any more. I think it's very likely the case that going to a support group would be the best thing to do, but I'm not unnaturally shy/nervous about that sort of thing, and even though the language is the same, still feel a lot like a foreigner here.

The trouble with skin to skin is any time I do it, even if she ate an hour ago, it makes her go crazy for the breast. She starts rooting furiously on any bit of skin, even my bare arm, waggles her head from side to side if the nipple goes near, and then cries hard. If I do it it always makes her hungry and miserable. I suppose the best time to do it would be when she's very very sleepy and has eaten relatively recently. She seems to have embarked on a growth spurt today, though, which further complicates, because after reading the posts I immediately ran to put her on my skin and she screamed the house down and drank almost twice as much as she usually does, only 90 mins after last eating, which is very unusual. I don't, of course, think the skin to skin provoked that, it's just that whenever I do it, it seems to make her hungry. The dr's rationale was that if she goes to the breast very often and can't get food out of it that she'll learn it's a bad place to go, whereas once a day isn't enough for her to remember, and she might be different one day from the next, and work out how to do it.

I do really appreciate all the posts that say I won't think about this after 6 months. While I can't believe that now (I do think about nothing else, but I also have a baby rooting like a mad b'stard on my t-shirt right now.)

I went to the local LLL - they do meetings, but no one on one support, they put me in touch with a consultant who said she cost $60 an hour, which I can't really afford but am desperate so said fine, and then she said she was too busy. So I'm just going with trying her and stuff. And I'm also taking domperidone and fennel tea. I was really pleased with my expressing because it was up to more than half the total feed, and then this growth spurt today has sent it right down.

I'm sorry, I have been going on about my knockers on mumsnet non stop for weeks. It feels good to, but I really have to apologise for being such a breast bore. Thanks for the help.

nothing - no one else's business. As others have said - how is she going - everything is fine!!

Hi MacNiel. I can see where your doctor is coming from - the secret (as I was told it, and found to be correct) is to offer every feed, and provide milk every feed. Its just that the milk doesn't have to be from the breast... Do keep offering the breast, but don't ever let baby become distraught. Try it, persuade if you can, but be ready to give up and give milk in a bottle. I was also advised to bathe together - make the water deep, and get in with her. Do you think it would work if you let her snuggle up to you that way?

oh i see what your doc meant... that is an interesting approach, isn't it? i do see the logic.
jennywren has reminded me that some of dd's and mine most successful bfs took place in the bath, we both loved it. i'd also be inclined to go along with her advice with regards to the formula. if i find myself in the same position again i think i would formula feed in a skin to skin kind of a way, and then let the baby root when less frantic for food.

as it was, i always gave her a wee breast feed then went off to pump while dh gave her some formula. i now think that this was the wrong thing to do, tbh. too tiring and grim.
hope you get through this growth spurt, hopefully your magnificent norks will spring into action and things will just click for you. try the bath thing, and the holding thing. also (as a proud owner of some fairly large knockers myself) i found that dd sometimes latched on really well if i was lying down on the bed and she was beside me.

i do hope you get this sorted, mcneil, but if you don't i can at least comfort you that it really won't feel so overwhelmingly bad in a few months time. i remember the boob bore days, they were purgatorial. but remember, yo u det out of purgatory in the end...