Reintroducing breast feeding

[cazinge]

My DS is 10.5 weeks old. He is exclusively breast fed but on expressed milk from a bottle and has been since he was 3 days old as he never latched. He finally had tongue tie diagnosed and cut on Monday.

I am no thinking about trying to directly breastfeed him. Supply is not an issue as he has never needed a formula top up & I have 28 6oz bags in the freezer.

How do I do this? Nipple shields were suggested but any other tips? Would a lactation consultant be able to help?

Hello! I did this - my little one wouldn't latch after she she was born and so I pumped round the clock and bottle fed EBM and formula until she was about 2 months old and then gradually worked on moving to breastfeeding her directly. Tongue tie wasn't our difficulty, she just wouldn't latch at first and then when she would, using shields, she would suck a couple of times and then give up. Basically I just kept trying, I think starting just one feed a day for a week or so and then gradually upped it. I always offered a top up bottle after and still pumped after initially too (I was horribly prone to blocked ducts and mastitis and she didn't feed well at first so I didn't want to risk any problems). It was really time consuming but it eventually worked. We finally dropped the bottles at 21 weeks and she has been exclusively breastfed ever since - She's now 7m old and you'd never know she'd had such a boob aversion for so long. At some point we stopped using the shields - I think she just got impatient one day and latched on without and I found feeds were so much quicker after that.

I had a lot of support from a lactation consultant at a local bf group so would definitely recommend speaking to someone in real life, especially after TT cut. LLL were also really helpful with advice on reducing the bottles. I went very slowly as I was worried about her losing weight and had to gain the confidence that she was taking enough milk in when she did feed. Good luck!