Trouble with Breast Feeding

[Belly19]

My wife and I have just had our little girl all healthy and Good, she was born 5/11/19 weighing 7.3lb.
My wife suffers with Depression and Breastfeeding was going great, up until 2 days ago when little lady is now finding it hard to suckle, my wife has big breasts and now there bigger.... we have expressed to try and help bring them down, so now my wife gets all upset and cry's thinking she's failing and a "bad person" and now it's affecting her sleep, some friends who have never breastfeed say formula is a lot easier and will give both of us more time for sleeps etc.
Family and I have been saying why not stop breastfeeding and move over to Formula but again she says people will judge and it makes her feel sad and just a failure, so my question is has anyone had any problems with breastfeeding and had to move to formula?

With my first DC I really struggled to get to grips with breastfeeding at first. We ended up combi feeding her and it actually helped so much.
I also felt like I had failed. I hadn't, not in the slightest, it's just that there is so much pressure to do things perfectly.
Tell your wife that she should do whatever she is comfortable with, yes maybe ff would help. Maybe that's not what she wants.
Really though, parenting is all about doing what works best for you and DC. It doesn't need to be what Susan over the road is doing, or that amazing got it all together mum at baby group. Everyone is winging it.

I have large breasts and I now realise two things about breast feeding

• front hold did not work, rugby ball hold is a life saver and started me feeding again
• pumps don't work as the cup isn't big enough to stimulate the ducts in large breasts

Get her to speak to her health visitor they will advise on different holds and techniques for breastfeeding it will make everything easier

I have experience with both combo and purely breastfeeding.I have big breasts and thus it can be tricky to get them to feed.

My first daughter i learnt is whilst breastfeeding press the top of your breast down gently so it does not cover her nose.I found it easier to feed if my breast was not covering her nose.My daughter fed well for nearly a year.

But i also have experience when this fails to work.My second daughter now by this time i was a very experienced breast feeder.I knew all the positions and knew how to make it work.But for some bizarre reasons she could not latch.I waited a month before combo feeding.I gave it plenty of time for her to try to learn.But to no avail she could not latch.I was exhausted as she was feeding all the time to try eat.She never ate every few hours as she was always hungry.

So at first i expressed milk ,i had to do this 3 times a day with a electric pump.I used a avent pump but as i have large breasts i had to hand massage wile pumping to release the milk.30 mins one side then 30 mins another side then back to the first for 20mins.The same time each day 7 am ,1pm and 9pm .Once she was used to a bottle of breast milk.I could slip in some formula what i did was add a little ready made formula to her breastmilk to give her a taste for it.Adding more formula than breastmilk. Eventually i could juggle breast or formula

Then when i wanted to drop my supply i dropped the middle of the day pump.Pumping twice and a day and giving more formula to breastmilk.Now shes on breastmilk every other bottle when i am ready i will drop another pumping session.I used kendamil i find its the best i have tried so far and my daughter is happy to juggle between the two

I second what rosydreams says about using a finger to make an indent so the nose isn't covered.

It's really early days - try out different holds, when DD was really tiny and boobs were huge I could sort of lay her in my lap and dangle, not the most elegant, but once latched you can sort of rearrange. I could only do rugby on one side.

Depending on area you may be able to see a bf adviser in the nhs before 6 weeks - I stuck it out until the deadline, saw her on the last day, wish I'd done it much sooner. Look out for breastfeeding drop in groups in your area.

What does baby weigh now? That and nappies will tell you if it's working.

DD fed in 5 to 10 min bursts, 20 times a day at least - not the usual pattern and I was totally stressed by her not getting longer feeds, but she was totally fine.

Has the baby been checked for tongue tie? X

BF is hard to start with, whatever anyone says

I'm not sure your wife is actually having problems that can't be sorted with a face to face assessment of positions that will work for her etc

Baby is only a week old, the boobs will settle soon

And it is actually a falsehood re FF and more sleep