Breastfeeding one week is going to break me

[chelle85]

Our little boy is one week old today and I am really struggling with breastfeeding.

He seems to go a maximum of 1.5 hours between the start of one feed to the next but it is taking 45 mins to an hour to feed and settle him. Since my milk came in on day 3 he seems to be struggling at the breast and 5 minutes into a feed he will come off the nipple coughing and spluttering. It then takes 5-10 minutes to try and wind and settle him before he will go back on the breast for another 5 or so minutes before getting gripey again. He will usually manage some pretty explosive wind at this point so then it is nappy change before he will go back on and do a bit longer. Then it is 15 minutes or so to try and settle him back down but 30-45 minutes later he will wake up looking uncomfortable and be rooting.

I feel like feeding him again is a vicious cycle as it just makes him windier.

I've not slept more than 2 hours a night since he was born and can't catch up in the day as this is just constant.

All the midwife and BF "support" say is to feed on demand and just to try and keep hi stomach below his head and lean back to try and slow the pace at which he ia taking the milk.

I'm at my wits end now though and as hubby is back to work in a week I am not going to be able to cope like this on my own.

has he been checked for tongue tie? Any bf support groups near you or support from hospital

Sorry, just reread. Sounds like your bf support aren't great. They shoukd have looked at your latch at least.

But it does get better, i promise. I've got to 10weeks somehow....

Just going to throw it out there straight away, if you are at your wits end and utterly miserable, you don't have to carry on. If you're unhappy it's no good for you or your baby.

Please don't give up-establishing bf is often tough but very worthwhile in the end. I equate it with childbirth; there is pain/inconvenience at some point, so with a vaginal birth it's in the beginning but easier (usually) once baby is born-with a section the delivery can be easier but the recovery harder. There are no perfect ways! Once you establish bf it will be more convenient and rewarding going forward.

Keep at it-these early weeks are for you to take it easy and just feed when baby needs. Ignore the housework/visitors etc, and de-camp to your bed with baby if you can and just concentrate on letting baby feed, and sleep inbetween times instead of jumping up to do the washing etc.

I'd also push for a referral for tongue tie. They're notoriously difficult to diagnose but a good professional will do a thorough check. It sounds similar to my niece, who seemed to be drowning in milk to begin each feed. Having tongue tie snipped made a massive difference.

I find lying down feeding loads easier than trying to hold baby in the right position. Might mean he can move his head away on his own if he needs to rest for a minute as well. Keep going OP it gets easier and your baby will start learning about daytime and nighttime soon. I don't think anyone feels particularly confident about breastfeeding at one week.

Give la leche league a call. They're great. I called them when I was struggling and a very kind and knowledgable woman came to my house that night and helped me get my latch right. Totally free of charge. It is ridiculously hard at first OP, I know your pain only too well. It does get easier I promise.

Please go to a breastfeeding drop-in as soon as you can - in my area there are several run by the NHS and voluntary groups. You need a proper tongue tie assessment and hopefully there will be someone trained to do it at a drop-in, or if not they can point you in the right direction. If there are no drop-ins near you that you can get to soon, ask your midwife or health visitor about a referral to a lactation consultant.

The first 6 weeks for me were exactly as you have described. I was broken. It was a constant cycle of painful feeding with only minutes until the next feed started. Ds's latch was awful at first. With great support from my HV and midwives, I persevered and one day just realised I was doing it. Gradually gaps got bigger and we are still going at almost 10 months. I'm so glad I kept going. I found accepting the situation for what it was and making myself comfortable with snacks and TV was a huge help to me.
However, if you do get to the point where enough really is enough, then that's fine too. My eldest was formula feed and thrived.

Don't be downhearted. This is what it is like at the beginning of BF, I reckon for most people, two weeks of this constant feeding/soreness for some and it begins to settle down. This is all about establishing supply - it's completely normal but no one told me it's fairly constant at the beginning. Honestly, the ease of feeding will be rewarded soon. It's not like having a bottle fed baby is easy- all newborns are hard and tiring. Rest with remote, drinks and mumsnet while you recover/feed.

I found myself in a Chemist's shop at the end of week one feeling absolutely as you do. I had the bottles and the formula in my basket and I was ready to buy them. I was only stopped my DM (in one of her rare wise moments) telling me to just give it a bit longer, even a few days. I did persevere and I fed him for six months with no regrets. It really does get easier when baby gets a bit bigger and can get a good feed in one go. It's very rewarding to unlatch a comatose baby after a 20 min feed and know that he'll last at least a couple of hours. If it helps, my DS put on tons of weight and slept through the night from 11 weeks. The first weeks were hard, but as with everything baby related - this too will pass.

The first few weeks are really really hard. DD only fed for 5-10 mins at a time, every 90 minutes at least, and I was so worried I was doing something wrong. I only got through it one day at a time, but it does get better eventually.

When my DH went back to work I mostly spent days on the sofa in my pjs surrounded by water, snacks and the changing supplies.

Have you tried hand expressing before feeding to ease the force of the let down? Infacol? I found leaning right back on the sofa doing a sort of rugby hold worked best on one side, and laying her tummy to tummy worked best on the other side, just try everything and hopefully you'll find something that works.

As a pp said, if it absolutely isn't working for you don't feel you 'have' to carry on. But I promise it does get easier.

What helped me was giving myself time limits - first trying to get to 4 weeks, 6 weeks, then 8, which is when it finally clicked. After each time limit I'd re-assess but each time there was a tiny bit of improvement - he basically wouldn't latch for two months and I was pumping all that time - I nearly lost my mind.

Now I can look back and say it was worth it because I hated the hassle of sterilizing, warming up bottles etc especially when out and about, it's great to just be able to pull out a boob.

At four months it usually really clicks and you're both pros. Like any skill it takes time and practise - despite how it's portrayed breastfeeding, for most women and certainly not most babies, is not something we innately know how to do.

However if you don't have the support network (fortunately I did and I don't underestimate how important this was in my bf journey) it may not be worth the mental stress in which case don't feel bad about FF.

Thanks for your replies. He has had his mouth checked by a couple of midwifes and I don't think there is a tongue tie looking at it but he doesn't keep his bottom lip curled down once he is latched. He will pull back a bit and then clamp back down with his lip tucked in. All they suggest is breaking latch and putting him back on but that quickly descends into crying making latching more difficult.

He is only taking one breast at a feed so I expressed my left breast earlier when he had finished on the right (got 50ml in 5mins) and when I put him to the left breast at his next feed he was much calmer and stayed on for 20 minutes though the last 5 of those were more fluttery comfort sucks.

He slept for 2.5 hours after that so I did the same on opposite side and he has done another 2.5. He is now feeding again and has for the first time actually finished one boob and accepted the second with a total 30 mins feeding across both.

Now I need to work out whether I should express what is left at the end of a feed but I don't want to end up increasing my supply given I am already producing more than he wants

Will try la leche league tomorrow and hope we have a better night tonight

Hi chelle85, I felt just as you do in my first week. I was just about delirious (I would walk from room to room with my arms out thinking i was carrying my boy when he was in fact asleep in his moses basket).

I'm a first time mum and my baby is 5 weeks. We've had a couple of hospital stays that have meant I wasn't able to breastfeed and had to express.

We're out of hospital as of Wednesday and my supply seems to have dropped a little and my baby was being fed breast milk via a bottle as they needed to monitor his intake. There were a few occasions I had to top him up with a formula feed which I was dead against initially, but now, if I was absolutely exhausted and really needed to- I would give a formula feed for his last feed. (Stay open minded) Anyway, what I'm getting at is we're starting from scratch with latching on and bf...and I've been here twice before, it is awful- nothing compares to sleep deprivation, you can literally feel it penetrating through your bones. However, it honestly does get easier. I wanted to punch everyone in the face who told me that, it feels like it doesn't but in the last 5 week's (which have flown by!!) It has become easier. I find that my baby will "tank up " in the afternoons at the moment. I bath him at 6.30 and then do a really long feed and he usually goes about 2-3 hours (usually 3) after this. Since ive been expressing, my husband will do the 10-11pm feed which will take my baby through to around 1-2am. Which means if i wanted to go to bed at 9pm I could maybe get 5 hours sleep. I do find that him having a bottle of breast milk seems to fill him more sometimes- probably because it's a large volume taken quickly. Maybe you could try expressing and having your other half do a feed. As I say, I'm a first time mum so what im suggesting may not work at all, but have found that this helps me. My baby, like yours, was feeding hourly and it took ages to settle him. I also found that he was really jumpy through the night and would wake himself up but he isn't keen on being swaddled with a blanket- he will fight his way out of it. I recently bought a grosnug and a love2dream sleep bag. They can be used from birth. It has really helped me and helped him stayed settled and asleep during the night. I hope things improve for you but don't beat yourself up if you need to take a different route than what you first planned. X

It is normal. I used to promise myself that i'd get through today, and if i was still finished tomorrow i would get formula.

I got through it knowing that i could buy formula "tomorrow"- one day at a time.

It will get better, honestly.

"He has had his mouth checked by a couple of midwifes and I don't think there is a tongue tie looking at it"

Lots of midwives observed DS feeding and they all missed his tongue tie. They are not properly trained and with all due respect neither are you.

www.tongue-tie.org.uk/Mobile/m-tongue-tie-information.html

Please go to a drop in and just get a more expert opinion. If it's not tongue tie they will be able to help with latch etc.

Your so early. And it doesn't sound too abnormal what you have going on.
Try and get to a breastfeeding clinic/bf consultant and the HV can look at your latch and check for tongue tie.
I struggled for exactly 2.5 weeks before things started to get onto more of a flow. (Incredible pain)
The cluster type feeding is so normal in the early days with breastfeeding unfortunately.

Bottle fed babies tend to get worse wind just FYI.

Best of luck

I agree that this sounds well within the normal range and that it will improve week on week. Rest when you can, do nothing apart from looking after yourself and your baby. You have full time support at the moment and by the time your partner is back at work things will be a little better.
You and more importantly your baby are learning how to do it.... it will come.
Expert advice is great if you have access to la Leche or bf counsellor.
Best of luck.... it is a terribly difficult time ... i sympathise

Definitely get the latch rechecked by either a breastfeeding group or lactation consultant.
It sounds like he's taking in a lot of air.

What position are you using? Has baby got support under him when he feeds as well as you?

It does get easier, especially as they get bigger.

Problems which may be due to a tongue-tie:

Mother:
Sore/damaged nipples
Nipples which look misshapen or blanched after feeds
Mastitis
Low milk supply
Exhaustion from frequent/constant feeding
Distress from failing to establish breastfeeding

Baby:
Restricted tongue movement
Small gape resulting in biting/grinding behaviour
Unsettled behaviour during feeds
Difficulty staying attached to the breast or bottle
Frequent or very long feeds
Excessive early weight loss/ poor weight gain/faltering growth
Clicking noises and/ or dribbling during feeds
Colic, wind, hiccoughs
Reflux (vomiting after feeds)

Your baby may not display all of these signs and there can be other causes for these symptoms so thorough assessment by a practitioner skilled in breastfeeding is essential.

(Copied and pasted from the link I shared in my previous post.)

If your baby prefers the boob when it's not full to bursting it might actually be that the angle when it's swollen makes it hard to latch on. I've found when my boob's really full it helps my dd if I sort of press on the top so that the nipple still goes to the middle of the roof of her mouth and then she latches on right away.

I wouldn't express any more than you need to at the moment, so literally just a bit before a feed to take the edge of the letdown and the roundness. Or if you need to for comfort.

Otherwise you risk oversupply, or at least that's what I was told on the phone helpline when I had mastitis.

Thanks all. I wasn't expecting it to be easy but I am just feeling so defeated. He seems in so much discomfort with the wind and I am assuming given that the expressing got him to do longer feeds that my milk must be coming out too quickly for him when my breasts are full. I have tried feeding lying down but that doesn't seem to make much difference.

He has been so much better in day today as when he roots he will settle with a dummy for DH but has really started fussing again now. I am trying to not rely on DH to settle him at night as he will be back at work in a week so I need to be able to settle him myself

Evenings are clusterfeed time I'm afraid for most bf babies, SIL was stuck to DN from 7pm-midnight for the first few weeks.

The massive full breast thing does calm down after a couple of weeks iirc, so hang in there if you can. You're doing well to have got this far

I think you are doing well... you are making lots of milk but you and yr baby are not yet fully in sync. As far as DH settling I think that is a good thing... your baby will be more adaptable ; lots of babies only ever learn to settle with their mothers. If you can , try not to look ahead as you are thinking that next week will be the same as this week but it really won't. Every day you land your baby will learn a bit more about how to feed more efficiently and communicate with each other. It isn't instant but it will come. Give yourself some credit and press on a day at a time .