Baby won’t latch - so much milk! Help!

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I have a week old baby who won’t latch at all. I therefore have milk pouring out of my poor old boobs. We are now exclusively pumping and have been for the past two days. It means I’m pumping and sterilising after every fecking feed.

We are off to breastfeeding clinic later. Has anyone else had this? How did you resolve it? I stink of milk!

Well done. Do keep going to the clinic. It's all practice practice practice. You really do have to pretty much give yourself over to it ok the early days and weeks. I think that's why a lot of mothers give up, because no-one told them that it would be so time-consuming at first and when baby wants to be fed for hours in the evening they assume they're doing something wrong when it's entirely normal.

It gets easier and much, much quicker eventually. Once you're into your stride you'll be so glad you persevered because it removes all the faff and planning and you can just feed baby whenever and wherever.
Good luck!

thanks for my 🏅😊

Glad you've had done support, think your plan is a good one.

I'm bracing myself for all this again with DC2 😭

Thank you .

We’ve just managed another decent feed and didn’t need to top up with EBM. Hurrah!

Op that's great news!

I've never sent a private msg on MN (yes I'm an idiot ha ha) but here's a few tips if you do end up exclusively pumping

1. Invest in a good pump, I had a double hands free pump by Medela that would empty both boobs simultaneously. I wore this weird fabric bra with peepholes in it and you can attach the pump to you (it's rechargeable batteries) and move about- make a cup of tea or comfort baby.
2. Get spare pump parts for going out and about
3. Draw up a good pump schedule. I pumped every three hours in the day and four hours at night.
4. Get some zip lock bags. I only cleaned/sterilised my pump parts once a day, and stored them in the fridge in between. If you're going out just bring your spare kit with you.

It basically involves a lot of organisation, I guess similar to formula feeding but with even more faff! But I was determined to get breastmilk down her neck.

I hope breastfeeding continues to get better for you, I really wish it would have worked for me first time round. I'm currently Breast feeding my 4 month old and it's been so easy compared to my first, I was in crippling pain. I can see it's totally to do with the baby.

That pump sounds amazing @cheeky! Mine is an enormous, hospital grade, single pump, which I’ve rented from NCT. Definitely NOT portable! Depending on how things go before my 2 weeks rent is up on it, I will have to start looking for a double pump to buy / hire.

Ds has just had another good feed! I possibly celebrated the ‘no top up needed’ a bit too soon earlier, as he quickly woke up wanting more and wouldn’t latch on to my other side, (he’s a right boob only kind of guy atm). We had to give him a bottle of EBM, which he scoffed down...

I do really feel as if we’re getting somewhere now though. Thanks so much for all the support and handholding. What a lovely nest of vipers !

I thought it would be tongue tie before you mentioned it.

FWIW I really think you should get the tongue tie divided, it’s such a simple and straightforward procedure. It might really help and if it doesn’t make a difference, it won’t have done any harm.

Why make things harder for your baby and yourself if you don’t have to?

(Context: my son had “mild” “posterior” tongue tie and division made a huge difference.)

Thanks @namechange.

They’re keeping an eye on it. So, if we’re still having problems on Monday, I can be referred to the Wednesday clinic again and tongue snipped the following Friday. If he keeps needing top ups of EBM, I’ll definitely try and get it snipped.

Hello, registered just to say we had this exact problem with our first (the hospital used syringes but let her suck the milk out and she had mild TT.) We used nipple shields to 'trick' her, and it worked. She sometimes got cross and it sometimes really really hurt.. I never thought I could keep at it. My wonderful health visitor said if I could get to 6 weeks, her mouth would be that much bigger and Id be able to BF as long as I wanted... Am now tandem feeding her aged 3 and her little sister aged 5 months (who also took 6 weeks before she got the hang of it!)

Thanks @10th. I’m glad it all worked out for you .

We have just had our first bottle-free night. DS woke more frequently, but it wasn’t any more tiring as I wasn’t having to trot up and down the stairs , pumping, getting bottles in and out of the fridge and washing pump parts.

I think he is getting enough from me, as we did a big feed, on each side, in the night, which gave him hiccups. Also have had dirty nappies. If feels and looks to me like he’s feeding properly, so I hope I’m right! He also settles well after feeds.

I feel like I’m taking a bit of a gamble with my supply, by not pumping as much, but I’m hopeful it will pay off.

Brilliant! You've got this . Your supply will sort itself out. Xx

Get some nipple shields!! I had this problem with my first two, my let down was too forceful when my milk came in. The shield really helped for 2 to 3 weeks until the babies could handle it. Oddly my 3rd had no issues. I BF all 3 for a year each, so don’t despair!!!

I’m definitely going to invest in some nipple shields and a double pump.

Yesterday went... hmmmm so so... He was great in the night, (before last), but just randomly stopped latching properly during the day. I had no breast milk stored as I’d stopped pumping, so he ended up having two (mainly) formula feeds, which is a bit annoying, as we’d been managing without before he started latching.

I don’t think his latch is quite right - maybe nipple feeding. We are persevering though. Dh took ds yesterday evening, while I slept and just fed him the teeny bit of breast milk I could get out, plus formula. I think the rest helped me, as I managed to get out a lot of milk in the night. I think we need to make the move from pumping to breastfeeding a bit more slowly and keep up the pumping in the meantime.

Also, I think I might have an overactive let down as milk Keith coming out ds’s nose when I fed him yesterday. Good to know nipple shields might help!

It sounds like you're doing great! I know it can get disheartening at times and you never know if they're getting enough. It just takes time to establish unfortunately.

Did you say you could get the TT sorted soon? Probably worth it just to rule it out as an issue.

Thanks @ner (and everyone for lovely comments).

We went to the clinic for TT, but they said not severe enough to refer to ENT. They will review at BF clinic on Monday, which would mean possible TT clinic on Wednesday for referral to ENT for snipping next Friday.

Very very pleased to hear it's going well, you're doing brilliantly