Still can't BF at 7 weeks - feeling gutted

[Havana]

Am totally gutted that I can't breastfeed. In spite of my doubts, the hospital staff assured me my daughter was feeding fine, but she lost about 15 per cent of body weight in first week and my milk almost dried up completely. Have been expressing ever since, and putting her to the breast daily in the hope that we'll eventually get the hang of it. Seven weeks on, we're getting nowhere, and I'm feeling increasingly desperate and sad. She has now started making a real performance over bottle feeding (we don't have 'feeds' - she just grazes all day and I get really paranoid about the milk going off) and our whole day is taken up with pumping/feeding. I'm insanely jealous of people who can BF, feel sick when I read about the benefits of BM, as there is no way I can keep this up for 6 months. Feel I can't care for or enjoy her properly when I'm tied to the pump. And yes, I've had loads of support from local BF clinic (have also paid experts to help) but to no avail. Seeing a speech therapist soon. Has anyone else had a similar experience with a happy ending? Or am I kidding myself that it's suddenly going to click?

Sounds like you're doing brilliantly, Havana! lol @ floppy evening boobs.

But I think that's normal. I (very luckily) haven't had serious bfeeding probs, but always had the feeling that my boobs are emptier in the evening. dd2 is often restless at the beginning of the feeds, until the milk lets down and it comes out at the speed she requires.

Your dd has got used to feeding from the bottle where milk comes out at a regular pace, so she may be reluctant to accept that she has to work for a while to get the letdown going. My dd2 certainly feels that way, and she's never known any different! I just pat her and jiggle her till the letdown comes, and tell her she has no proper work ethic.

Great news about the weigh in, Havana!

Hi Havana
I know exactly how you feel. My son had lost 11ozs in the first three days he was born because he wasn't breast feeding properly. He was born a healthy 8lbs 7ozs but it was a very difficult birth. I was induced twice by two different methods which didn't work. This lasted 19 hours and finally we resorted to a ceasarian, although I wanted a natural birth. As the birth was so long and I'd had so many drugs pumped into me, my ds slept for the first 3 days almost solidly and wasn't interested in feeding at all. When he finally woke up he was so hungry and we'd had so little practice of latching on despite all the help from the midwives that he would get frustrated and start screaming . Around the 5th day, he started to latch on properly so we went home. When we got home it all happened again and we were back to square one. It was such an upsetting time and my dh had run out of paternity leave to help at home. We had to give ds formula milk which was out of a bottle and I expressed after each feed (even the 2/3 night feeds so that he could at least have half BF milk. I did this for 2 months then cut down to expressing for 1/3 of his milk and stopped altogether when he was 4 months old. All the sterilising used to get me down but now that he is 10 months things seem a lot better but I do still get the occasional guilty feeling about not trying harder to BF and was totally gutted at the begining. It was the thing that dh and I used to argue about the most. This may not make you feel any better but now he is crawling and almost walking, the BF issues have faded. I still envy my friends who could successfully BF and all the women I see out doing it too but I know that not all of them have found it completely easy and the good thing is I will be more prepared for when we have our next child. Is this your first and will you be having more?

Sounds like you had a really rotten time Spicy, and I'm well impressed you stuck with expressing - specially during the night - for so long. I don't reckon you could try much harder than that. I know that for me, when I was expressing all her milk, I often felt there was a payoff - okay she was getting my milk, but she wasn't getting the best of me. Yes she is my first and I hope to have more but not any time soon! I will know what to look out for next time, but I don't think I could go through the whole expressing lark a second time, certainly not with a toddler and a newborn to look after.

I'm really happy (massive understatement) to report that I've now been breastfeeding almost exclusively for four weeks - since about a week after I posted this thread in fact. At first I was concerned that she wasn't gaining weight, but the latest weigh-in at the HV clinic showed she'd put on a pound in two weeks and is still following the fiftieth centile. The feeds are getting shorter and further apart, and I don't want to speak too soon, but it seems to be going really well! We've been out and about loads, and my life is sooo much better than it was 5 or 6 weeks ago when each day just felt like a race to produce the milk and get it inside her.

So thanks everyone, for the support and the suggestions (the night feeding while she's asleep made a huge difference) and for helping me to feel I wasn't all alone during those lonely 4am pumping sessions. I hope that my experience will help others in the same position to feel that there is light at the end of the tunnel. And I really really hope that nobody will read this and feel badly that they weren't able to continue. Even though it's worked out for me eventually, it very nearly didn't, and I still get mad when I read things that make out that bfing is dead straightforward and anyone can do it if they try hard enough. I'll never forget how I felt those first few weeks when me and DD quite simply couldn't do it.

This may be the happy ending that I'd been dreaming of writing since I started the thread .

Hi Havana. Great to hear that you and the lo are doing well - now that you've got the hang you'll be carrying on for next couple of years Don't worry about making any of us feel guilty for not managing it. I am just thrilled to hear that you have got it all sorted after such a struggle to get there.

Hey Havana, really delighted it's worked out for you
Wow. Can only admire your dedication, I think if I'd faced all that expressing I would have said 'enough'. And I thought I had nightmares b/f; nothing compared to what you've achieved.
Take a bow, you deserve it!
PS no disrespect to any bottle feeders out there

I am so pleased for you, havana....it's great you have found how your persistence and dedication has paid off

So glad to hear that breastfeeding is finally working for you Havana - well done

I'm so pleased for you. You don't know how much I wanted it to work out for you.

Incidentally my ds is now almost 6 months and still going strong. I felt just like you did after going through the whole expressing experience and I have since trained as a peer supporter so that I can help other mums going throgh the same.

Best of luck

Julie

Well done Havana! V. happy for you.