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Infant feeding

Get advice and support with infant feeding from other users here.

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Original poster

Fussing before eating - help!

19 replies

chocodrops · 14/02/2019 19:33

I have a 9 day old bubba girl and I'm struggling with breast feeding. She is a sleepy baby at the moment so we have to wake her up for feeds and keep her awake during feeds or she won't finish.

Every feed she will cry for at least 20 minutes before I can get her to latch and it's killing me.

I don't want to drip feed so here's some background, it was a long back labor 93hrs from first contraction and 7hrs dilated. She had some bruising from a ventouse delivery which seems to have gone down. She had a severe tongue tie which has been cut twice. She had jaundice on day 3 which has now cleared but meant we didn't get first latch till day 4 so we got off to a late start with feeding.

Things I've tried:

tones of skin to skin
nipple shields (too fiddly)
hand expressing before feeding as I have quite a strong let down
lots of different positions

I really want to keep breast feeding but it's got to the point I don't want to feed her because of the distress we go through. 😞 any help?

OP posts:

Original poster

chocodrops · 15/02/2019 17:11

Bump

OP posts:

JiltedJohnsJulie · 15/02/2019 20:58

Congratulations on your new LO choco

It sounds as if you are both having a tough start, are you getting any RL support?

Have you called one of the BFing Helplines? Have you got the numbers?

MotherDucker115 · 15/02/2019 21:54

I'd recommend taking to a cranial osteopath. My DD struggled with feeding initially after birth and a lactation consultant recommended it. Best thing we did.

Turned out she was struggling due to tight jaw and neck after delivery and after one session was much better, after 2 she was discharged.

Original poster

chocodrops · 15/02/2019 22:46

Hi, thanks for the tips. She saw a cranial osteopath on day 7, diagnosed a tight jaw which does seem to have improved.

I don't have a number for a bf helpline, any links or signposts would be welcome!

She saw the midwife today and had lost more weight at 10 days, only 7% under birth weight but heading in the wrong direction. She had a mega feed at 7.15 for about an hour and a half and has then been feeding on/off (like a minute or less at a time) 8.30-10.30. She's asleep now and we can't trust her to wake up for a feed but we're really unsure when to wake her again, any ideas?

OP posts:

littleleeleanne · 16/02/2019 00:13

Her jaundice levels could still be high? That makes babies really sleepy.

MotherDucker115 · 16/02/2019 00:14

The cluster feeding (although exhausting) is a good sign. If she's only lost 7% of her body weight that's not too bad at this stage. We were 10% and it did take a while to improve and for us to be signed off by the midwife, but we got there and not she's a little fattypuss

Our lactation consultant gave us a plan to ensure we had 8 feeds in 24 hours, and if we wanted her to do a little longer stretch of sleep overnight, to feed her 2 hourly during the day. As she's been cluster feeding, maybe set an alarm for 4 hours since she last fed and then wake then? At least then you'll have been able to get a bit of rest, it's not easy when their firstborn and take forever to feed.

MotherDucker115 · 16/02/2019 00:16

Also, meant to say have a look for a La Leche League group local to you. They'll have regular meetings and a leader will be able to give you support by phone/text in the meantime.

Here's a link to the main La Leche League helpline too www.laleche.org.uk/telephone-helpline/

JiltedJohnsJulie · 16/02/2019 07:36

The BFing Helplines are here and are all staffed by women who have BF and are fully trained

A pp mentioned Lactation Consultants, you can find the details for them here.

Kellymom has some useful advice on feeding sleepy babies here OP.

And has she been checked for tongue tie? Have a read of the symptoms and see if any sound familiar.

Cocopops2010 · 16/02/2019 09:10

Fully recommend paying for lactation consultant. Best £50 I spent in first weeks!

Original poster

chocodrops · 16/02/2019 11:28

Hi all, thank you so much, I will give the helplines a go.

She's had a tongue tie snipped twice! (Sorry for not mentioning originally)

Since the midwife visit feeds have gone from 20min or fussing before eating to an hour and a half before she'll eat at all. I don't know why I'm putting my baby through all this stress 😢

OP posts:

Hotterthanahotthing · 16/02/2019 11:33

What exactly do you mean by fussing?

Original poster

chocodrops · 16/02/2019 11:54

We have to wake her to feed so we do stressful things like undressing her, changing her nappy, toe tickling, if she falls asleep again after that we wipe her with a wet wipe which wakes her up. She hates all these things and I hate doing them but we've not found a gentler way to rouse her.

Then she realizes she's hungry and groggy so goes into meltdown crying every time I put her near the boob. I raise her to soothe her and she goes back to sleep 😔

Often she'll go on the boob and suck for a few seconds before stopping and staring into space or falling asleep again and the whole thing starts again 😢

OP posts:

Original poster

chocodrops · 16/02/2019 11:56

Also all the helplines seem to be shut today, none could take my call 😟

OP posts:

MotherDucker115 · 16/02/2019 12:13

Our local La Leche League has a Facebook group. If you're on Facebook maybe have a search?

The group should answer any questions if you post to it, which may help before you can get through on a helpline or visit a meeting?

Original poster

chocodrops · 16/02/2019 12:14

Sorry more info, midwife yesterday afternoon insisted we top up which I've been able to express but we have to give via a bottle (we really can't get a cup to work). I think that's made her even harder to latch overnight.

OP posts:

Cocopops2010 · 16/02/2019 14:42

Is she putting on weight? I have a 9 week old and I stopped waking him up to feed as I found it just stressed him out. If she's putting on weight then perhaps listen to her - she will wake up if she's hungry.

Original poster

chocodrops · 16/02/2019 18:06

No she lost weight day 5-10 and went from a 5% loss to 6.9% loss.

We ended up at A&E today to get her seen as we just couldn't wake her up to feed. We are now giving her bottles of expressed and formula 😔 not at all where I wanted to be and if there's a way back to breastfeeding from here I'll explore it but we just had to get her fed and reduce the stress on all of us.

Thank you for your help everyone xx

OP posts:

MotherDucker115 · 17/02/2019 02:55

Sounds like you're going through such a stressful time OP

As you say though, the main thing is to get her fed so just do whatever you need to do. I'm sure you'll be able to get back to breastfeeding if that's what you want. Once she's not so sleepy that will definitely help.

It's so tricky in the early days when they haven't got the hang of it yet. Well done on doing the best for you baby, I hope it all goes well from here for you.

Cocopops2010 · 17/02/2019 10:50

I’m sorry it’s so difficult OP. I had a very tricky time establishing bfing and this forum was so helpful.
You will be able to go back to it if you want to - keep pumping especially at night (I know that’s hard) to keep your supply up. Lol xx

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