Too much milk for 2 week old to breastfeed?

[LadyMC1]

Please help! DS arrived by emergency caesarean after being induced failed. I had to have a general anaesthetic so we didn't get any skin to skin for a while after he was born. We've struggled with breastfeeding from day 1 but we've recently come into a new problem. I fed him at 4am (was due to be 3am but took an hour to latch) and since then I have tried twice - once at 7am (he wasn't interested) and once at 9:30am. I have just managed to get him latched on from the 9:30am attempt - so over 2 hours. That said, my flow is very high - milk drips out if I don't apply pressure so whilst he has been trying to latch he has been getting a flow of milk. I've tried to hand express to stop the dripping to encourage him to latch properly but no luck so far. Any suggestions are very welcome. I will try to get to the clinics and support groups but at the moment I can't drive so I'm limited.

Once he's on he does feed well, although it's painful for me. As it takes so long to get him on in the first place I don't want to take him off and try again.

Please help me!!

What is the issue when you're trying to get him latched on? Is he trying to latch on, but slipping off? Or not able to latch on at all? Or latching for a bit then popping off?

Pain + latch issues sounds like he could have tongue tie. Has he been checked for this? MW and GPs are notoriously bad at spotting it, so ask if there's an infant feeding specialist at the hospital where you gave birth who can see you. Many areas also have bf supporters who will come to your house. NCT also offers this, I think. So if you have no luck with your local mw team then you can call the NCT bf helpline.

Meanwhile, things you can do to help get a decent latch:
Express a bit to soften boobs (if they are engorged) to help baby latch on.
Try different feeding positions (rugby ball always worked quite well for us when DC were very small)
Try the 'flipple' technique of getting baby to latch on well (you can watch videos on YouTube, etc).

Good luck!

Hello lady :) You need your midwife to help you, are you in the uk?

How are you trying to latch your baby on? You can try just resting the nipple on the groove above top lip, then when he opens his mouth, you can push breast in slightly/baby forward. Have you tried feeding lying down? That could also work.

www.laleche.org.uk/telephone-helpline/
The la leche league have a great 24 hour helpline with mums who can give lots of advice too.

I remember how stressful this is, so please call your midwife and ask for help.

Sounds like your boobs may be engorged? So boob is quite hard? If so then yes do express in order to soften - especially the area around the nipple.

Did he latch well before today?

And absolutely agree with what CityDweller has said about getting checked for tongue tie, by someone who knows what they are doing (usually a breastfeeding counsellor/lactation consultant and not HV/GP)

Thank you all so much. No tongue tie but good suggestion. :-) I called the helpline and used your suggestions above - we're definitely getting there! Expressing loads before feeding and slouching/lying down works really well- getting gravity to slow down the flow. I guess having lots of milk is a good problem to have - and I'm going to donate it to the poorly and premature babies at our local hospital so it won't be wasted. Thanks all again! Very reassuring :-)

Just to reassure you I had similar problems. I found a hand pump great for expressing off a little milk as breasts were too hard, and lying down helped too. Things do get easier and quite quickly things improved and I could bf sitting up etc. And didn't have to express first.

Good luck.

Just be careful with the expressing as you can end up making even more milk

Thanks everyone. Foofoo I'm glad to hear your problems resolved quickly - thanks for sharing! It's already better expressing and lying down. Fab!