My baby is 7 months - there's no hope of her ever breast feeding now is there?

[Throughautomaticdoors]

I'm expressing still, six times a day. I want to keep giving her breast milk. But I also really want to stop expressing.
I started in the first place because she was prem and we had some issues and then never felt confident enough that she was getting enough milk when I fed her myself. So I carried on expressing and feeding her that.

But I can't keep doing it, it's ruining my life and preventing me enjoying my daughter and my older child. There's no hope of ever getting her to feed from me now is there? It's a lost cause I presume?

How would you feel if you switched her to formula?
It sounds to me like you've worked really hard and need to get a bit of your life back iyswim.

I'm not sure, but I think you prob could. Maybe nipple shields to start with.
I'd definitely look into it, if you want to.
It would be much easier than expressing-well done!
That said she's had 7 months of beast milk so you could mix feed as an alternative.

So so so well.done for your perseverance this far. Best start you could possibly have given baby! I hated expressing too but we did get dd (23 weeker) ebf with a couple of months of nipple shields en route, so it definitely can be done! She's still going strong now at 14 months.

Are you in the UK? La Leche League are amazing; if you can find a local group on FB you could attend a meet or ask for a qualified volunteer to come across and watch you feed / latch etc?

What are your concerns about the volume being taken in? Have there been problems with weight gain / not enough nappies?

PS - your user name just choked me up. That song used to play in my head every day in the hospital.

She's grown really well - she's now above the 91st centile non corrected. But when she came home I was so panicked by how much she was eating as the tcu had drummed into me that she had to have x amount every three hours that I couldn't relax and just feed her myself. And she did latch to be honest.
I could try with the shields. Expressed milk wise she has between 800 - 1000mls a day but it's often on the lower side of that now that she is having a little bit of solids.

Yes it chokes me up too. We were in over Christmas as well so it always feels like it's about us... Obviously it isn't but it feels like it!

Ugh the transition is tough isn't it? But 'normal' bf babies don't take regular amounts at regular intervals. My experience was that the hospital feeding advice seemed to be shaped around bottle / formula fed approaches because it's less common for prems to be bf.

From what you're saying, she sounds like she's totally thriving! Does it feel too risky to just give it a go? What do you feel like you have to lose?