posterior tongue tie causing issues again at 5 months

[soontobeamum1982]

What to do?

My LO has posterior tongue tie. By the time it was diagnosed feeding was very comfortable so we decided not to have it corrected (she'd had a lot of hospitalisation in the first month and I didn't want to put her through it).

Now she's cut her first tooth and feeding is uncomfortable again and wrecking my nipples. She's not pulling her tongue fully over the tooth, though she can do that - she pokes it out all the time now, and my LC had noted her range of movement was improving well.

I'm working so hard on the latch but I'm starting to think seriously about moving on from BF.

Has anyone else either
a) Had similar issues and found they settled as baby got used to having a tooth? Or that their nipple just toughed it out like before?
b) Decided to have a very late tt operation, at around six months? Was it worth it or really traumatic?

I'll get through to six months as I've come this far, and I was planning to combi feed a bit once we start solids anyway. I just don't know whether the stress of making her learn to latch after the op is worth it at all at this late stage.

It don’t fit either of those criteria but just wanted to tell you what happened to us. DS was very late to be diagnosed, in fact it wasn’t picked up by a HCP, I only realised what was going on after joining MN when I was due with DC2. We haven’t had it divided but regret that decision.

Weaning was a awful, he would only have smooth purees with some finger food until he was over one.

Although he talked early, he has been under SLT for years.

And don’t mention Sleep!

In your situation, I’m not entirely sure that giving formula is the solution as tt affects so many aspects of their life, including bottle feeding.

My son first had his tongue tie repaired at 9 days of age.

At 4 months old things started to go downhill again with his feeding and weight so I had him reassessed and his tongue tie had reattached and at 5 months old I had the procedure done again.

I won't lie, he didn't particularly like it and there was a lot of crying but within 30 minutes or so he was fine, had a feed and went to sleep

One of mine had tt that wasn’t cut, no issues feeding but speech problems likely related to tt.

One of my other DC had tt cut twice but reattached. Feeding at nearly 2 but latch still rubbish!

I know a few babies who’ve had problems with solids and drinking from cup/bottle due to tt.

If you’re going to look into getting it done, be quick as some practitioners won’t cut after 6 months and some won’t cut if there are teeth.

To improve feeding for now, try going right back to basics - nose to nipple before latching, wait for big wide mouth, careful with positioning, etc.

Babies can struggle with latch when they get a new tooth even if no tt but the tt will probably make it worse.

My dd finally had hers under done under general anaesthetic at 2yr old . I wish I had sorted it earlier but was fobbed off by gp and midwife and it was only when it was clear she couldn't handle solid food normally as a toddler that they did the op.

So I would strongly recommend doing it now (I believe can be done without anaesthetic until around 9 months). Needless to say I pushed hard for dd2 to have hers done as a newborn!