OWWW! and confused. Please help a 1st time Mum with breastfeeding!

[Mossie]

Ds just one week old today. Have been bfing him since he was two days' old (see birth announcement for reasons why if needed) and he seems to latch on well.

But my left nipple is sore and has some skin peeling off it, have used PureLan lanolin on it which eases it slightly but hasn't stopped it drying / chafing.

Is this normal? If so what can I do to ease the discomfort? If not, how do I get him latched on right? I have size 34G breasts atm and the areola are massive so it's impossible to get the whole of it in his tiny mouth!

Also can someone give me a guide of how long he should feed for? Sometimes he latches on and seems to suck for about twenty minutes, then stays latching on without sucking or with only sucking intermittently, for another 20. Should I take him off? Leave him on?

And if he comes off by himself, should I offer him the other breast?

This is all very confusing; I'm trying to do my best but it is starting to get sore and I don't know if I'm doing it right.

It's hard to say how many feeds he has, because do I count a feed as how long he actually sucks for, or how long he just stays latched on for? But as a guess, about ten times a day?

I want to persevere - I was enjoying it so much before it got painful - but what can I do to stop it hurting, and is part of that due to him not actually feeding iyswim?

TIA, Mossie xxx

Sorry, - no advice, but bumping for you!

Good luck!

Several issues here - first of all, congratulations on your new baby!

Your breasts aren't too big to bfeed successfully - they're the same size as mine!

Your latch might need a bit of work - I have BF supportline numbers on my profile - give them a ring tomorrow.

If he's feeding and you're comfortable, let him suck as long as he wants. When he comes off one side naturally, offer the other side. He might not take much, he might not take any, he might feed a while.

Really honestly don't worry too much about how many feeds he's having - as long as he's weeing and pooing.

Keep posting - do ring someone - and it WILL get enjoyable again.

contact a bfing councellor to ensure your latch is perfect here are the contact details ;

The Breastfeeding Network (BFN) - Supporter Line 0870 900 8787 - The service operates from 9.30am to 9.30pm every day of the year.

La Leche League Great Britain - 0845 120 2918

National Childbirth Trust - 0870 444 8708 - 9am to 6pm, seven days a week.

Association of Breastfeeding Mothers' - 0870 401 7711 - Open every day from 9.30am to 10.30pm

www.lcgb.org - For info about lactation consultants, including some in private practice.

i would recommend silverette to heal the nipples.

you should register at tipslimited to become a parent tester and u might get something to heal u for free!

Mossie,a lot of people swear by Lansinoh for sore nipples.Also keeping your clothes off and allowing them to air helps.Soggy bras and breast pads don't help with soreness.
In more serious cases,I have heard great things about silver (Silverlon??) breastpads.Silver aids healing miraculously it seems.

When they are this little,general consensus seems to be to let them suck as and when they want to.

How is your MW or HV?
Are they b/f counsellors? Ask them (don't assume they are.)
Is there a b/feeding drop in place near you wher you could go to have your latch checked?

You could also talk to a b/f counsellor onn Assoc. for Breastfeeding Mothers helpline 0870 401 7711

A lot of people say that the kellymom website offers great advice.
Also,look over the rest of the threads in this topic.Loads of useful info.
B/feeding can be tricky to start with (I speak form experience!) but with the right support and confidence in your body you should be able to do it.
Hang in there!

Ouch! Definitely sounds like the latch isn't quite there. Is there someone you can go and see at the hospital for expert breastfeeding advice?

The best way to get this fixed is for someone who knows what they're talking about/looking for to watch you feed him. If the hospital is no use/too far then try phoning one of the helplines (I'm sure someone will be on with the numbers!).

As far as feeding time goes - sounds pretty normal to me! If he comes off by himself then that's good. Maybe wind him and then see if he's interested in the other side? I fed one side at a time for quite a while as I had a very abundant supply and one side seemed enough per feed.

You're doing well! Hopefully you can get your latch adjusted and it'll all be good.

Have a look at \link{www.kellymom.com/Kellymom} which is an absolute mine of breastfeeding advice and info.

Hi there and congratulations. I am not an expert and don't really know the answers to a lot of your questions but I found breastfeeding quite painful with both my sons from a few days in up to about 3 weeks when it started to wear off. And there didn't seem to be much I could do re changing the position etc. And they both grew manically so I knew they were feeding enough. So if you are like me then the bad news is it may just hurt but the good news is that it will wear off.

Kellymom

sweety, you sound all flussded, i'm a first time mum and bf till dd was 16 months, i remember the first month and all the unanswered questions, books read and the beating myself up about doing the right thing. Are you still in contact with midwife? did you have good relations with her/him?

all kinds of people will give you all kinds of advice but i found emailing NCT and chating to one of their bf advice ladies big help.

I will say try not to worry about time spent on boob at these early stages as baby is just getting used to it as well as you.

If nipple is sore it could be latching is not quite right but with out looking i could not say for certain.

Do you know if there is a Bf support group near you as these can be of great support.

Chin up

All the good advice has already been done but congratulations!
Lansinoh is fab but be warned you'll faint dead away when you see the price - if you can get a small tube, do, you won't need much (wish I hadn't chucked my old tube out - you cold have had that one!)
Does your hospital run a b/f counciller drop in service? Might be helpful to get someone to see the latch, as well as advice by phone...?

IME, once nipples get sore, they don't heal overnight, so be prepared for it to take a few days, even once you're got everything perfectly 'on track'

mossie my sweet

I got a really badly cracked nipple because Elliot's latch was rubbish (he doesn't open his mouth very wide) and despite advice and watching videos I still couldn't get it quite right. One hour at the bf clinic run by my hospital and the pain has gone, LO is feeding much faster and we're both happier. There must be one near you I'm sure - it was a complete life (and nipple) saver for me - I was on the point of giving up and I just wish I'd gone earlier on.

As you know, I'm a first timer too so feel free to ignore this but I take him off if he's just hanging around nuzzling and not feeding at all. Sometimes he dozes off/loses concentraion so I jiggle his shoulder to wake him up. Mine never actually lets go unless he falls asleep and I don't want to encourage him to hang around using my boobs as comfort (makes sore nipples worse). I don't always offer the other boob every feed now but did earlier on till about 3/4 weeks - I think it helped get my supply up. Now I only give him both if he's really hungry or if I'm cluster feeding early evening. I can tell when he's had enough nowadays (milk running out the corner of his mouth is a good sign )

Oh and there is no way my entire areola or however you spell it fits in his mouth!

Thank you very much everyone!!

My mw is coming around again tomorrow, to check my stitches and the like so I'll make her my first port of call and ask her if she is well versed in the subject. If not, thanks so much for those numbers and I will give them a call!

I ordered some Lanisoh online, hasn't arrived yet but hopefully it will shortly. I have been using something called PureLan 100 that I got free, but it's not done much! So hopefully the Lanisoh will arrive.

Will have a look at the silver shields if the cream doesn't work, they are quite expensive but will be worth a go!!

Thank you all for your encouragement, it is good to know there is lots of help out there!!

Mossie, can you ask your midwife if she can prescribe Jelonet dressings - they are like a gauze covered with a vaseline-like gel, you cut a square off and put it over your nipple to keep it moist between feeds. I got terribly cracked nipples but this did help.

I'd give someone a call today, if I was you - won't do any harm to speak to someone and they might be able to give you some tips to help your nips

Glad to hear you sounding so positive!

Mossie I can't tell you how glad I am to find this thread - my ds (whoa - first time I've written that!) is 6 days old today and I have been to local MLU for bf support twice already. And blubbed to two different community midwives about how it wasn't going right.

I was going mental because everyone who's looked has congratulated me on his latch and suck, but my nipples are blistered causing me to jump like a scalded cat when he latches. Plus, around once a day we go through this horrendous 4-hr period where we both seem to have forgotten everything we ever learned: he latches, then immediately (or within 5 mins) slips/chomps, I holler, detach, try again - he either repeats the process, or decides it's all too hard and he'd rather sleep. For 15 minutes. Until he realises he's still hungry. Or something.

Every single MW, nurse, etc., has a different opinion about how long he should feed for, when/how often to swap breasts, etc. Most of them just said the same things I'd heard before (only one suggested trying a 'rugby' position on my right-hand side.) Someone even told me to hand express - like spending the whole morning blubbing was a good mental state for learning a new and difficult skill!

Meanwhile, my nipples were absolutely excruciating, the blisters scabbing and starting to peel, and sometimes in the night I was feeding so frequently I lost track of whether we did left or right side last. No wonder I got kinda desperate for advice - if someone had said bfing in the nuddy down at tesco would've sorted it, I would've gone!

So FWIW, what I've decided (this morning, after a whopping 3hrs sleep) is this:

1. he has to learn as much as I do. He doesn't necessarily link breast, sucking, and food (a MW said this to me). He may just suck for comfort.

2. like the rest of us, sometimes he may want a 3-course meal, sometimes he may just want a biscuit. No point getting fussed if he only does a 6-minute feed - no point trying to force him to (just like I wouldn't order DH to eat more than he wanted.) He is a whole separate person.

3. I realised that I was being very Type A about it (who, me? ), expecting that if we seemed to get it right whenever a MW was looking, then it should be perfect every time - but then this morning I had a reality check. It took me longer than this to learn to ride a bike, to type, to swim, etc., and those were physical skills that did not involve pain, buckets of rioting hormones, sleepless nights, or a gumpy little partner with no voluntary muscle control.

So - looks like gritting my teeth and accepting the 2-week learning curve. Also, like any learning curve, it's two steps forward, one back, so while we may feed brilliantly all day I guess we're entitled to fuck things up once or twice. A day. Or more if necessary.

I dunno if that helps - getting it off my enormous chest certainly helped me . And now, since DS is sleeping off his last meal, so will I! Good luck....

Phdlife, fab post! Congrats on your DS too!

You sound like you have a good approach to it. Good luck - and do keep asking for help if things aren't going right.

phdlife, some bf counsellors may shoot me here, but my personal theory is that the baby doesn't care about how perfect its latch is, if it's getting the milk out well enough, that's all it cares about. So there's a good enough latch for the baby - which you probably have - and a good enough latch for your nipples - which you probably don't. Whether you want to try bf counsellors / La Leche league etc to correct this or not is up to you. But I too suffered with excruciating blistered and cracked and bleeding nipples; but they got better eventually, so there is light at the end of the tunnel even if you do nothing. As below, I recommend Jelonet dressing to help the healing.

mossie - just congrats. on the baby and hope things begin to get better soon, just lots of patience, etc. and before you know it you will be enjoying bf !

best advice anyone ever gave me (a hippie midwife !) was feed whenever he wants it and ENJOY YOUR BABY !

bloody tough when you have not slept for days, weeks, (months in my case !), but it does get better

Me too with the cracked and bleeding nipple with DS1 for 6 weeks.

Everyone is right about working on the latch and getting support from those organisations set up to help.

However, before your nipple heal they'll give you a fair amount of pain. I read a wonderful article given to me by an LLL lady which says that nipple skin is very like lip skin. Keep it supple with something like Lansinoh (which worked wonders for me) like you'd use chapstick on your lips. Don't let your nipples get waterlogged with soggy bras and pads. What worked for me was breast shells inside my bra so that I wasn't naked and could go out. They caught the drips and could be easily and discretely emptied. Otherwise I sterilised them before use and froze the milk in case I had need of it in the future. The advantage is that nothing is touching your sore nipples; you can keep them covered in Lansinoh without it coming off on your clothes; you get to go out without baring your all to the populace; spare frosen milk may come in handy; your nipple have a chance to heal.

Give it a whirl. My breast shells came from Boots (don't forget to point the spout upwards). I looked at Avent ones but they seemed to have lots of holes in them all over. This was 4 years ago so things may have changed.

In the end, after 6 weeks of agony, DS1 got bigger and his latch improved and I healed.

Good luck and do talk to one of the specialists too. They can be a great help. If one isn't, move on to the next. It may just be one personal way of explaining/showing you that makes all the difference.

Let us know how it goes, Mossie
(Oh, and top post phdlife )

Mossie, I have a couple of spare breast shells if you want to try them, email me at Olihan 1 @ hotmail dot co dot uk and I'l pop them in the post for you.

Good luck, you've had loads of good advice here, all I will add is to take it one day at a time, get a bf expert to check your latch and if he wants to feed - let him. Even if he doesn't actually want or need food, he will be craving the closeness to you, there's nothing wrong with comfort sucking or sucking himself to sleep at this age. He's much too young to develop bad habits.

Great post PHdlife.
Nodded emphatically all the way through it.
Keep at it.
Oh,and congratulations.

i never ever wore breastpads, even with leaking boobs ! used lansinoh after most feeds, amazing stuff.

Congratulations Mossie.

I have had trouble with DD not opening her mouth wide enough and latching badly (I also have 34Gs and there is usually some areola visible above). Advice I was given was to express a little first to soften up the breast if it is engorged, that enables them to get a better latch. Also to use a warm flannel before a feed and a cool flannel after a feed to get the milk flowing and then to slow it down again. All very well when you have a newborn shouting to be fed I know but worth a try. I had really sore and cracked nips at first and the Lansinoh definitely helped me. Jelonet also good. Ask MW/HV for some.

I found that blowing on the DD's face or stroking along the chin line or cheek roused her from her happy breastnuzzling slumber and she started feeding a bit more again. You will get used to knowing when they are feeding as you will see them swallowing, or hear a gulp, or you will see the jaw working more when they are really feeding.

I also found that alternating positions does drain different areas of the breast and with DD at 7 months I still use a mixture of cradle and rugby, maybe swapping from feed to feed or in the middle of a feed if there is a natural break.

It really does get better!

Mossie, have emailed you back, will try & post today if you email me your address.

Olihan I have got your email and replied, thank you very much xxx

Midwife came over this morning and reassured me no end, said the amount he was feeding and the way he did it was perfectly normal, talked about growth spurts and the like, and that I shouldn't worry, my nipples are feeling a bit better too with the Lansinoh, and after a good mooch on Kellymom his latch is better too!

I have made a note of all the numbers though just in case and they are by the phone!!

PhD life - I know exactly what you mean - oh yes - how strange does it feel to write about your "ds"?!