I underfed my baby for about 4 weeks, can't belive or forgive myself

[Miha17]

I have an almost 5 month old baby girl whom I underfed from about 8 weeks to 12. She was mixedfed from birth due to low milk supply and I was working on increasing my milk supply. Once it got to a level where I had about 70% breastmilk (by expressing roung the clock) I was told to drop the formula and give the baby the breast instead as this would increase my supply. This didn't seem to go according to plan and my baby was constantly crying which we put down to colic (she was very colicky from 1 week old) or silent reflux. She didn't gain any weight for about 3 weeks and then only 100g for 2 weeks when we realised she was starving. Since then I have been feeding her between 30 and 35 oz per day and she put on 2 lb in 4 weeks and she is now the happiest baby ever. Very good sleeper too. However i cannot get over the fact that I was almost starving my beautiful, healthy baby. It is killing me day and night :((( Has anyone had a similar experience? Did babies catch up and did well both physically and mentally when growing up?

How much did she weigh before you gave her formula, OP?

Don’t worry OP you didn’t starve your baby. You’d know if she was ‘starving’. Hungry occasionally maybe, but breast fed babies tend to have way more formula. MIght be an age thing too. Don’t beat yourself up.

Happened with my nephew, pretty much exactly as you've written. He's now a healthy, intelligent, precocious 10 yo.

Yes, another here who starved her baby.

As a 1st time mum, I had read the books but had no idea what breastfeeding actually looked or felt like. 2 nights in hospital, all the midwife's told me her latch looked perfect so home we went. Night 3 she screamed and screamed and screamed for 16 hours. We had no idea what to do.

Called the midwife, who wasn't my normal one, I'd never met her before, she came out and just said try formula. So we gave her a few ounces and she gulped them down in seconds. In newborn fug, she hadn't said to keep giving formula so we didn't, just went back to bf as had been told it was all hunky dory.

Day 5 she'd lost 15% and we were sent back to hospital. At hospital was told she was told she was too weak and dehydrated to even try sucking, we just needed to get milk in to her pronto. Luckily my milk had come in and I expressed gallons in minutes and baby was finally properly fed on day 5. She'd been starving for 5 days and I didn't know. That's made me well up and it was 11 years ago. It was her birthday yesterday so exactly 11yrs ago!

Those few ounces of formula probably saved her life. I ended up expressing for 12 weeks before she finally learned to breastfeed directly. It was a horrible horrible time and definitely affected my bonding with her.

DD was born prem and had 4 illnesses in the first 6 months where she was nil by mouth for a days so just on drip, in each then gradually building up on reduced feeds.
She was tiny until 8 months old (5 months corrected) and then she seemed to double in size and grow a pot belly out of nowhere!
A couple of weeks of slightly reduced feeds will do no harm at all.

Pearl87...she had formula from day 2 as she was jaundiced and my milk hasn't come in. Then I xarried on with formula but giving her less and less until my milk supply got to a decent level. This is when everything started to go wrong. She was born 7 lb 5 oz and at 3 months she was 10 lb, most of which was gained in the first 8 weeks. She didn't gain any weight between 8 and 11 weeks. She is now 13 lb

She now has between 7 and 10 oz of formula, 70% breastmilk, mostly expressed to keep an eye on her intake

Thanks for all your messages, it's very sad to realise how little support first time mums get and if you don't have much family around (my mum lives abroad and husband's parents have passed) it can be very overwhelming. When I went to antenatal classes no one ever pointed out things that could go wrong. I ended up with a c-section despite planning a natural birth and bf was a mess.

I'm all for Safe bf as opposed to exclussive bf which means top up if your baby needs it.

I look at the pics of my baby in the 3rd month and she was always upset, unwell and had her fist in her mouth. It breaks my heart, how could I not see that she was hungry? She was seen by health professionals and everyone failed to see it. It took a very expensive private pediatrician to tell us to up her feeds, even if that means formula. From then on she is bursting with life.

Miha, try not to worry. You've done an awesome job and followed advice from the people you trusted to look out for your baby's health. I'm sure your baby will be just fine and maybe the paediatrician can reassure you as well about the future. Good you have found someone to support a practical solution for you all.

But if it's ok to ask ... who suggested you drop the formula in the first place? Not asking name, but what was their professional qualification..????!

miha I know exactly how it goes, you start with some top ups but at the back of your mind you become focused on returning to exclusive breastfeeding. It feels like you are doing something you are going to be so so proud of, and the best thing for your baby....until that day when you suddenly realise your principles have outstripped the most obvious thing, that you only ever wanted your baby's happiness and health, and breastfeeding was part of that, but not more important than that.

Once I had realised that the pain I was experiencing breastfeeding was the reason why he wasn't getting enough (his latch was terrible) I lost my confidence in the whole process. It took the kind words of a mum who genuinely had had no milk at all (and been through the starving baby scenario) to realise I did have a supply, and I could enjoy the supply I had, and top up with formula. I began to relax, I had seen an independent breastfeeding counsellor who corrected the latch but pointed out the baby was actually hungry - this made me despair, but seeing how happy the baby was once he was satiated, with breast and formula, and getting a little rest for the first time (he suddenly had naps) made all the difference to my milk supply and I began to focus on baby not feeding methods.

So mixed feeding can work really well. If you know why supply was low in the first place. If you are not getting any rest, recovering from a bad delivery, and feel constantly anxious and possibly in pain from a faulty latch, poor patterns of feeding (restricted feeds for example) can also follow from misinterpretation of the usually differing advice that HCPs and well intentioned friends give. A 48 hour baby moon also helped me get my supply up. Going to bed with the baby, and feeding every two or three hours in a restful situation, skin to skin. Feels odd when they are that old but it worked for me at 10 weeks.

This happened to my Mum who was a neonatal nurse... I stopped gaining weight at 5 months. And at 6 months I'd lost weight. Further loss at 7 months and they started medical investigations. They told my mum they thought I had cystic fibrosis. It turned out I was hungry. My Mum fed me 4 hourly and I never cried.

I soon caught up and am pretty bright. I've got 3 degrees and I'm great at puzzles. Seriously, my Mum was a flipping nurse and she followed advice. She still feels bad but I'm just fine.

you probably never want to speak to another breastfeeding HCP in your life, but it might be worth talking through some options for how you plan to continue. Expressing can be very time consuming and quite detached from the baby; is it possibly to try and see whether someone could check the latch and possibly baby is tongue tied? This affects how they suck and draw the milk down, which in turn affects supply. I've had a tongue tied baby that learnt to suck properly 3 months in (second baby one of twins, and slightly prem) if my supply had been dependent on him, I would have had very little milk! But twins are a different matter and can boost your supply if one is good "milker"

Parenthood is a long journey of feeling guilty; every time your child is sick or doesn't get invited to a playdate you will blame yourself, and FEEL it in your soul that they suffer. However, your baby wants you to be happy and confident, so that is what you must be, it will make all the difference to her little life that you enjoy your time with her and feel confidence in yourself.

But truly at the time, I felt soo angry and sad for what felt at least a month afterwards and to a lesser extent for the rest of the year still feeling like the Ancient Mariner with a tale to tell. Longing to talk it through, and everyone saying, its all in the past etc etc blah blah, but just couldn't process what had happened until I talked to kind friend as I say, who had suffered same. Then I began to come to terms with it and move forward. And baby was so so sweet and jolly and chubby, I began to feel more stable about it. He is 17 now, and about 6ft 3 in!

Shhhh. Your baby won't remember any of this. Your baby will remember:

Love
Their favourite dinners
Their first goal
Their first big real swimming stroke
Their first graze and big hug from mummy
Their favourite dinners
That little shit in their class that made them cry
Passing their first exam
Breaking up with their first partner
Mum always being there
Their home and support
Love
Love
Fun family holidays
Love

I was so exhausted after a long painful labour, lack of sleep and EMCS, I went to sleep and didn't even attempt to feed DS until the following day. None of the hospital staff suggested putting him to the breast and as a new mum I had no idea you were supposed to do that to establish your supply (I thought your breasts had to be engorged with milk before you could even attempt to feed). I also had no idea about the frequency of breastfeeding so when I started attempting to feed I only put baby to the breast once every 4-5 hours. Unsurprisingly I had no milk at all for the first two days and when I suggested giving DS formula the midwives treated me like a silly new mum and said it wasn't necessary, even though I was obviously producing nothing and was worried he hadn't been fed since birth.

DS lost 12% weight in 3 days and was sent back to hospital, where an experienced older midwife set me straight about how often I should be putting him to the breast and what signs to look for. Imo he was hungry for at least the first week. With hindsight the lack of information was staggering - the NHS pushes breastfeeding but doesn't provide adequate education and support to help you do it correctly.

bellamuerte indeed.

bows

the NHS pushes breastfeeding but doesn't provide adequate education and support to help you do it correctly.

THIS. With bells and whistles.

bigmamapeach...it was the midwives that visited me after I came home from the hospital and ultimately the HV, who at her last visit when LO was 6 weeks seemed to think that 12-14 oz of breastmilk that I was expressing at the time in 24 hours was plenty to feed a 6 week old baby. And to quote her, formula was like 'concrete'.
When I started expressing, shortly after my milk came in, I was only getting about 3 oz in 24 hours, so I was pleased that things were getting better and went along with the advice. I was so brainwashed about the formula's potential risks that I was crying when I was still feeding her it. Also I had a friend who ebf her first son for 18 months and now was ebf her second son. She was feeding the baby and expressing between feeds and freezing, she aslo suggested that dropping he formula will increase my milk supply. I got a better pump, started on fenugreek, started pumping every 3-4 hours, feeding the baby from the breast etc. LO has a good latch however she uses the breast as a comfort mostly and falls asleep. Which means my breasts never get empty, I have to express after feeding to ensure supply doesn't drop, which means double the work.

I would love to carry on with providing breast milk, plan is to drop the formula once she is established on solids and she needs less milk, but I am so so tired. It's 4:20 in the morning and I'm expressing...not sure how long I can sustain this.

Also when I was in the hospital after the birth I was getting conflicting advice from different midwives. Some were saying to mixfeed the baby, some were totally against formula and suggested to drop it once milk came in. I was very confused to say the least. I'm glad I mixfed for the first several weeks at least, reading about some of the experiences that you shared I think now formula was a saviour.

You sound exhausted. Babies get most of their nutrition from milk until they are about 12 months old. A baby at 6 months at the start of weaning will still need as much milk until at least 12 months. A happy mummy is far more important than a breast fed baby.

I managed to feed but some of the people I met on my nct course did not. I had an independent midwife and she was amazing and could help with any issues but I was also lucky and dd took to feeding very well but I didn’t have an excess of milk and looking back it was often very hard. At just over 5 months, I got the health visitor to come. She told me to wean immediately, I also felt I’d failed dd. But it was the right choice. The children are now almost 10. No one can look at a child and see whether or not they were fed. Breast isn’t best when mummy is absolutely exhausted.

You always need to do what is best for you. I don’t think I could go through what I went through again to feed dd.

Just adding my voice to the others. Please don’t feel bad. You were doing the best you could with the advice you were given. Your baby is fine. She will thrive.

I had a very similar experience with my DD1. I was encouraged to persist with exclusive BFing even when it should have been clear it wasn’t working. My baby took more than 4 weeks to regain her birthweight and still I was told I was doing a good job and that I didn’t need to top up. I finally did after sobbing to my mum that i’d been feeding her all day and she was still crying. My mum got me bottles, a steriliser and formula and I gave her 3oz. I will never forget how she gulped down that bottle or the contented sleep she fell into straight afterwards. I think that was probably the first time she hadn’t been hungry in her life. She was 6 weeks old.

She isn’t now a fantastic, healthy 8 year old. She doesn’t remember any of that. She loves gymnastics and running and gives the best cuddles. Your DD will be absolutely fine.

I have been where you are and have felt a complete failure as a mother due to breastfeeding. Like the poster above once my baby switched to formula the change was remarkable.

That breast deprived baby is now a strapping 23 year old who played prop and took a first.

It's a great shame that the mantra around breastfeeding isn't supported with effective knowledge and advice from hcps.

In the first world where there are plentiful supplies of fresh water and excellent hygiene formula is a huge benefit when breastfeeding doesn't go to plan. For millions of women it doesn't despite the mantra and it hasn't since eternity. That's why it was invented.

I found BFing my first child so difficult .Nobody showed me what to do. I ended up with sore and cracked nipples and it was agony. Baby cried all the time. My midwife found me on my hands and knees in floods of tears. She sent DH to buy bottles and formula and told me to give DS a bottle and never let myself get in such a state again. I felt guilty but DS thrived and is now in his 30s. I still get teary if I think about his early days but all was fine. Be kind to yourself OP.

OP, I just wanted to echo what everyone else has said. Its OK. It wasn't your fault. You did what you thought was best at the time, and when you received professional advice to do something different - you also adapted right away and were not dogmatic about it. The same thing happened to me - I also unwittingly underfed my son for about a month in a bid to get my milk supply to increase. I still wince when I look at his photos from that time because I see now how skinny he was. The good news, he is now nine years old, perfectly healthy, plays several sports at school and eats me out of house and home. You and your baby will be fine. Do not beat yourself up. She is loved and you are a good mother.

You must not blame yourself. You have done SO MUCH to give her the best start and to look after her. You are doing SO MUCH more than what exclusively ff or bf mothers have to do. Expressing, bf'ing and topping up is a KILLER and no one knows that until they have done it themselves.

I have done it twice. The first time I got to day 3 before giving DD formula when she was jaundiced. She had screamed for at least 12 hours before she settled having had formula. I had tried so hard. The following weeks were spent topping up with formula and expressed milk. I gradually increased my supply and by 5 months I was able to exclusively breastfeed her. It was a real battle and her weight struggled throughout. I stopped at 6 months because despite my efforts I was too exhausted and overwhelmed to carry on. It had all taken its toll and was just too much emotionally.

The second time did not go so well. I bought a really good electric breast pump "just in case". Night 2 we gave formula because we recognised that she needed it. I spent weeks and weeks on minimal sleep from my round the clock pumping. I recall one week sleeping no more than about 5 hours. I was hallucinating and with 2 children to look after it was not sustainable. By 3 months I accepted defeat and moved to formula. The relief was instant.

I'm pregnant again and terrified. I desperately want to breastfeed but I struggle with it so much. I don't understand why. I have always wondered about my supply (getting 4oz in 24hrs) but health visitors have always told me that babies are more efficient at feeding than pumps and that what I express is no reflection of what the baby gets. I get the fear that what if I ebf and then the baby doesn't gain weight, what if I cause harm. What if my persistence and determination is only detrimental because no matter what I do, my supply or something is just not good enough and I'm doomed to fail. Why do I care so much? Well because I want what every mother does, what's best for their baby and the NHS says ebf is best. When you see other women doing so well at it and finding it so easy you just feel hopeless and while you have lovely people on forums who assure you that it can be hard and having a happy mother is more important...it's always that one post where someone has said "breastfeeding is great and so good for baby, I don't understand why all mothers wouldn't want to give their baby the best" that sticks in your head. There is far too much pressure to succeed at breastfeeding.

You tried SO hard and you are still trying hard. You are obviously full of regret. So am I. For me the way to move on was to switch to ff an start enjoying my babies. I knew that one day they would be older and it would not matter. My first who definitely had more breastmilk than my second, gets I'll equally as much as her sister. I'm not saying there aren't benefits to bf, because there are. I'm saying that I personally don't feel the benefits don't outweigh the negatives in the situation where the mother is running herself into the ground.

I really hope you can make some peace with this. You did everything you were told to and more.