Still struggling at eight weeks... sorry but I need some more advice please... again!

[Mossie]

Ds is eight weeks old today and I am trying my hardest to bf him.

He only very occasionally opens his mouth wide enough to get a good mouthful of breast (my areola are absolutely huge which doesn't help) and even then he often falls asleep after just a few minutes feeding... I have to tickle his ears, strip him down to his nappy etc just to keep him awake. Still he never comes off by himself, and even if I feed both sides he's certainly not a contented baby.

I got to the point where I would feed as much as I can and then express the rest (only ever an oz or less each time) and feed it him in a bottle so I could be sure he was getting enough. This exhausted me. I have now resigned myself to just constantly feeding during the day.

At night he latches on even less well and basically sucks the nipple. I have tried everything to encourage him to open wider, it just doesn't happen. So I'm sat there for almost an hour, never sure whether or not he's had enough, as he's not proper sucking really.

He produces plenty of wet nappies but poos only about once a week. His weight gain is slow - only a few oz each week (except last week where he put on eight oz but this week we're back to two).

He is never settled between feeds for more than about ten minutes... he then starts crying again, sucking his fingers etc. like he is hungry.

I went to a LLL support group a few times, the woman there checked my latch, said it was fine, said that if he wasn't opening wide enough "he probably wasn't hungry". Which can't be the case in the middle of the night.

I have rung the NCT helpline and got advised to switch feed, which occasionally works in the day, but again, not at night.

What I want to know is, is the above normal behaviour for an eight week old? If not, has anyone else had this experience and if so how did you solve it?

Also if all else fails where can I get someone to actually come and have a look at what I'm doing and explain to me how to do it right? I don't mind paying as if I can't get this sorted soon I'm going to have to pay out for formula milk which is expensive anyway.

Clever MNer .

I'm having a nice day today!

Hope you have a better night tonight Mossy.

hey lulu - was wondering if you
had any knowledge of cranial osteopath type ppl for mossie? (bf so typing minimal)

Dear Mossy, listening to your problems is like a mirror image of the trouble I had while Jordi was in hospital. I've got large nipples which at the time were larger than Jordi's mouth in resting position, which made latching on extremely difficult and painful. As you know, for a variety of reasons I couldn't continue fully bfing once he came home but I just wanted to give you some moral support and say how much I admire you for persevering.

It's impossible to say "stop worrying" when it's your baby in the frame but if I were you I really wouldn't be bothered about Bertie's weight gain atm. He is gaining some and that's all that matters. I had the opposite worry to you: i was afraid Jordi was gaining too much weight because he was ff and would be obese as a result... particularly as they say a too rapid gain in the first few months can lead to it, so you can reassure yourself on that score. As he's weeing regularly, you know he is not dehydrating and that's the main thing. I remember Foxy saying one of hers didn't poo for three weeks and they were ok! Can I just say also that although Jordi was ff, he cried pretty constantly for weeks and I knew how much food he was getting - some babies are just like that it seems. It has calmed down loads now he's older.

I had some advice from a bf counsellor which I never got the chance to do but which sounded wise. she said to have a bed day, where for 24 hours you sleep or rest and the only thing you do is feed the baby. have food either brought to you or made in advance next to the bed, and if you cant sleep for all of it watch tv or read, but don't get up. she said it really helps with milk production.

that thing about drinking milk to make milk is absolute bollocks by the way. If that were the case no women in most of Asia would be able to bf cos they don't drink cow's milk by and large.

i don;t but will ask my lovely doula friends in the northwest for any recommendations, norma, and pass them on x

DD didn't poo for three weeks.

DS2 hasn't pooed for several days either, just wee.

BTW BF babies weight gain is different to FF babies. I've been told off by HVs about all of mine for being "slow to gain weight" - but their Dad is very skinny so its natural for them to be small froamed. As a result, I just don't get my babies weighed anymore - it stresses me out too much.

As long as he is alert, and producing wees and the occassional poo, he should be healthy.

I have to get DH to take DS2 every evening BTW, as he'd be attached to me otherwise. Its the only way I can space out evening feeds (I can't sit and cluster feed all evening as I have to get the other two fed, homeworked, bathed, bed and pack lunches done etc). DH spends about 2 hours walking DS2 or rocking him in the buggy!!!

norma have emailed you a recommendation for osteo as lost mossie;s addy !

Lulu - I Luuuuuurrrrrrvvveeeeee You

i aim to please x

An article in the New Scientist one month ago showed:
The weight gain charts used here in the UK are based on ff babies from Ohio who were fed high protein formula.
Therefore it is very inaccurate to use these charts as a basis for bf babies.
There are plans to update the charts shortly.

mossie-just wanted to add my support and admiration for you still bf.

also,i do want to say that ff isn't necesarily the easy option.even at 3 months,dd3 is still having about 8 feeds a day,still waking in the night,sometimes wont take the bottle atall cos shes hot/bunged up/has decided she wants a new style/flow rate teat.if i go out for longer than 1.5 hours i have to take bottle,powder and a flask of very hot water to warm the feed up the the required temperature.....anyway,what im saying is you are doing great,and i'm sure it will all work out great soon(you dont strike me as somebody who gives up easily).

anyway,you have norma and lulu looking after you,they'll sort you out

Mossie - that's what I thought - surely someone would have noticed. How wrong was I? Have you noticed anything though, because I had wondered myself before? For example, he never lifted his tongue up towards the top of his mouth when he was crying and it appeared to be a little heart-shaped. Check out this link which gives a lot of useful information, and describes many of the problems you mention.

Simsy, the info you have read is incorrect. It refers to charts used in the US. UK charts are different. There are no immediate plans to change the charts used in the UK, though there are discussions about when this might happen.

Nothing wrong with the UK charts for the first months - the results are pretty much the same as the WHO charts based on bf babies. The problem is how charts are used.

Mossie - when he does feed do you get the impression that he's getting as much as he wants? Or is he constantly wanting to feed again so soon after because he isn't really getting filled up? If you've any doubts about whether your supply might be (at least part of) the problem it might be worth you trying to boost it. Fenugreek is good for that, or Mears can probably give you info about an over the counter medication called Domperidone which works to boost your supply. I doubt that using these to increase your supply - even if it's only short term to eliminate that as the problem - would do any harm.

Thank you all again for your recommendations and advice.

Last night was the usual, I'm afraid - I tried the clutch hold (not sure I was doing it right, though, looking at that picture, so will try again), light on, waiting until he was 100% wide awake, opened the windows, stripped him to his nappy...

...still the usual half asleep suck on the nipple. ARRGH! I ended up going to the freezer for my teeny milk stash (I had been trying to build up for when I finally go out one day, fat chance!) and giving him two oz of expressed to try and top up his little tummy. It bought me an extra half hour of sleep. Big wow but it's better than nothing.

He slept for no more than about half an hour in the night...

Diva what you said about ff in the night makes me think, as I was thinking about swapping one of his night feeds for ff, as he just doesn't seem to be happy with what he gets from me at night, but if you don't think it would make a difference... I suppose the one thing would be that dh could do one of the feeds and give me some extra sleep. Will have to think about it.

I've been online and bought some of that fenugreek stuff... I'll try anything!

Mears, breast compression, I do that, saw it on a different web site, again, sometimes it works, and he will start sucking, but sometimes nothing will get him to suck & swallow, he just "nibbles".

It's the night that's the killer - I don't mind sitting around doing nothing but bfing in the day, dh is finally being more supportive and understands that the house just isn't going to be tidy with ds the way he is! But it's the night time....

...Anyway I had better go I hear wailing again!

Mossie, have you already bought the fenugreek?

Yes I ordered it yesterday (you're gonna tell me you have some now, aren't you? )

Oh balls thought he was being quiet gotta go

Mossie - a lot of BF mums use FF for the last feed a night. I did that with all of mine too for short periods to give me and my nipples some respite. It might be worth a try. He may even sleep for a few hours, so it'll give you a rest.

Sometimes its worth compromising in the short term, to acheive extended BFing i.e. making it managable.

yes
can get it in 1st clkass post today if that would be quicker

Mossie - was just thinking about you this morning. What do you do while your BFing?

I've put a TV by my bed, so at least in the middle of the night I can watch crap TV while feeding (DS2 still feeds 3 times during night). Just makes it seem a bit more bearable somehow.

I had similar probs I tried

• switch feeding
• insisting on proper latch, if dd wasn't on right I took her off and started again, she soon learned that effort was required on her part.
• let her go up to 4 hrs between feeds, then woke her up if she hadn't shown interest.
• pumped, pumped and pumped, fed one side rugby style and expressed the other at every opportunity. This gets your supply up and gives you that vital reserve for when you're shattered, low on milk and would cut your arm off for a bottle of formula.
• sleep and drink and eat, as much sleep as you can, 2litres+ a day and snack before bed and in the night if you can.
• if you have to give 1 ff so that you can go to bed and meet the next feed with new vigor it won't make any difference to your supply or your baby - it won't do you any good to wear yourself to a frazzle. I bought some of those ready made cartons for "emergency" that way I wasn't buying a tub and slipping into ff, but it made me feel better to know that it was there if I needed it.
• Take the advice that makes sense to you and ignore what doesn't, not everything works for everyone!

and my favourite

• get someone to massage your shoulders while you feed! it was like opening floodgates for me!

Good luck and try not to pay much attention to charts dd has always been a ditherer! wobbles about between 2nd and 25th line. I even went away for a weekend and she was fed 5-6oz ebm every 2-3 hours and she still gained her normal 4 oz per fortnight.

I know what tiktok says but even if they are based on a mixture of babies from the 90s - bearing in mind how low bf rates are, how many of them really are bf?

Sorry for the rambling post but I am passionate about this and I believe that you can overcome any bf prob with the right advice (for you!) and support.

Hi Mossie

Haven't read through all of your replies, but can totally sympathise with where you are right now.

It took me and DS2 until he was 10 weeks old to completely crack BF - and our problem was latching on/positioning and his gape - or lack of it! Middle of the night feeds were always horrible for us too, and at every night feed for weeks I was at the point of completely giving up.

The only thing that helped me was to see a LLL BFC at a local Baby Cafe - we first went when DS2 was 3 weeks old, my nipples were agony and DS2 was a very unhappy baby. I thought we'd cracked it after that 1st visit, but then he went back to nipple feeding again, so we went back week after week to see the BFC until he was 7 weeks old. It was only the persistence of seeing the same BFC every week, making slight adjustments to our positioning and latch and then finally at 10 weeks I realised that there was no pain and I was really enjoying it. We still go to the Baby Cafe every week, but now it's so that I can chat and have copious cups of tea and biscuits

What I'm trying to say is that there is no substitute for seeing someone regularly, not just once, to get this sorted, and you can get it sorted if you want to. I had read every BF book, watched countless videos, BF in front of a mirror, used different chairs, cushions etc etc and like you I knew exactly what the problem was but could not fix it on my own.

In the end our latching/gape problem was all down to his position at the breast - he was way too far over, so I had to remember to start with his head almost in the middle of my breasts so that he would gape to reach the nipple - it was always much, much further away from my nipple than I thought it should be - but with constant support we cracked it.

DS2 is now 20 weeks old and we BF like it's the easiest thing in the world now. I never ever thought we would get here, but we have, and I know that if I had carried on blindly trying to sort it myself without the BFC constantly correcting me every week we wouldn't have got here.

Please do get back in touch with a BFC or a support group that you like and keep going back until it's sorted. Any good BFC will not mind seeing or talking to you week after week until you're happy and comfortable. I felt really stupid going back each time and saying "sorry, me again, lost it, can't do it, want to give up" but I am so so glad we persisted, without the BFC I know I would have given up a long time ago.

Gosh, that was a long post! I just wanted to to let you know that with some good 1-2-1 suppport it is possible to happily BF, with no pain. You sound determined so please pick up the phone and find someone to help you.

Hi tiktok,

You're right, the charts don't differ much in the first few weeks.
My health visitor told me the charts are to be updated soon, though she's not necessarily right.
The article I read is New Scientist April 28 2007,if anyone wants to read more.

i dont think theres anyhting wrong with
your dh giving a bottle of formula in the night so you can get some sleep.i just wanted to point out that fully ff can be a PITA as well(i have had a screaming with hunger baby refusing to take her bottle today).

DebsCee - I loved your post it made me want to cry Feeding is such an emotive subject and the desire to nuture your baby so deep rooted.

Mossie I really hope you can get the advice you need to help you keep going if that's what you want, or to be happy giving up if that's what you choose.

Well, mil's kindly offered to take me over to her house and cook my lunch and tea today so I can do little else but feed him and rest up. Last night was the usual nightmare night but there you go. I'm muddling through.

DebsCee your situation sounds very similar to mine... I am going to seek out another bfc, there is one at the local hosi but she's not there until next Fri. So it's soldier on until then...

Foxy I've moved a DVD player upstairs and watch endless Dr Who DVDs whilst feeding!!

Diva I think that is one of the things that keeps me going, the thought that even if I do swap to ff him, it might just be out of the frying pan into the fire!!

Twinklemegan I'm going to ask the HV about tongue tie when I see her next.