Need advice please finally breastfeeding late preterm

7 replies

RogueV · 03/02/2019 21:38

DD was born at 35+6 and due to low sugars and low birth weight had formula in a bottle at hospital and has been having EBM at home. She is 11 days old and I have been putting her on the breast at each feed which she hasn’t really been taking and then having the bottle.

However tonight we may have turned a corner! She has been on my breast for around 30 minutes. My question is do I leave her now or give her some EBM in a bottle? We pretty much wake her up for each feed so not even sure she’s gonna wake.

OP posts:

GookledyGobb · 03/02/2019 21:53

Difficult to answer - my instinct says leave her and wake her for the next feed but I suspect a HV would say keep topping up until she’s reliably waking for feeds and her weight gain is steadier. It’s a catch 22 as while you keep topping up they won’t feed as much at the breast and while they’re not feeding as much you need to keep topping up

No help I’m afraid but well done on the persevering and getting to this point

Lancs84 · 03/02/2019 21:58

My son was reluctant to latch and we had all sorts of issues in the early days. I was advised to feed as much from the breast as I could but whilst my son was still underweight, to express after each feed and give it to him (my husband would give it so I could sleep in between feeds). When he started going back on the breast, I stopped doing this as I was so excited that things seemed to be going well, which wasn’t right as he was still learning and so wasn’t feeding efficiently. If I went back, I would have continued topping up with expressed milk until his weight was stable. Are you getting any additional breastfeeding support? Can you go to a clinic? It’s so tough to know what to do, and you get so much conflicting advice. X

Original poster

RogueV · 03/02/2019 22:07

Well she’s on my right boob now and has been for 20 minutes! This is the time I have to really look out for wet and dirty nappies! I’ll see what she is like after this free and will probably top up,
Midwife is coming tomorrow so will see what the advise

OP posts:

JiltedJohnsJulie · 05/02/2019 08:23

Midwife is coming tomorrow so will see what the advise. Let us know how you get on

Original poster

RogueV · 07/02/2019 09:22

Well it’s been a bit hit and miss.
Sometimes she goes on breast and attempts a feed, latches on great other times she’s not going on at all.

It’s actually harder work as I’m not only breastfeeding but then topping up with a bottle then pumping.
I’m exhausted but I need to persevere don’t I?

Seriously considering nipple shields

OP posts:

le42 · 07/02/2019 11:21

@roguev - hi from the other thread 😊 maybe the nipple shields could be good in this case as your little one has got used to the plastic of the bottle.... but you run the risk (as I have) that it will be hard to come off nipple shields further down the line. But judging by the other thread lots of women used them long term successfully ... it’s so tricky!!!

Paranormalbouquet · 07/02/2019 11:22

I was in this situation not long ago (DD is now 9 weeks, was born at 37w and had significant feeding issues). She was tube fed initially then EBM. The whole trying to feed, expressing and bottle feeding cycle was awful.

What helped us:

Proper hands on help. I paid for a private lactation consultant who came to house, diagnosed a severe tongue tie and went through latching as well as using shields.
Having tongue tie snipped (10 days old)- within 48 hours she was able to consistently latch with shields having been unable to latch at all prior.
Nipple shields really helped with transition from bottle to breast. We managed to wean off them after around 2 weeks or so.
Paced bottle feeding.
Using the exaggerated latch technique- google “flipple”.
Lastly, setting myself dates where I would review my decision to keep going helped immensely psychologically as I knew the cycle wasn’t sustainable long term.

When you say she latches great sometimes have you observed swallowing? Has anyone trained observed the feed? The time when it comes to weaning off top ups is stressful and it can be hard to be confident when you’ve been watching volumes before so having someone to call on is really useful then. You’ll also be in for some epic cluster feeding most likely so recognising signs of swallowing will help you know when baby has had enough.

I found this helpful to read. Also this.

It’s really hard but it can turn around quickly- my baby first latched at 11 days old, was off top ups by 13 days and off nipple shields by 4 weeks. Get all the support in real life and online that you can.

Flip