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Infant feeding

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

Help with breastfeeding!!

6 replies

CorrimaC92 · 11/01/2020 12:38

This is quite a long story so sorry in advance! Just had so much advice from health visitors, midwifes, doctors and lactation consultants that I feel I just need some straight forward advice from people whove done it before.
Basically, my son is now 3 months old. Up until now we've gone through different phases of giving him expressed bm and direct from the breast. We were in a routine of bf during the day and expressed milk through the night but when I tried to switch to mostly bf he started having lots of green, dodgy nappies. I was told this was because he wasn't staying on long enough. At birth, we didn't have skin to skin straight away for several reasons and I was advised that giving him some formula would be better than nothing. That started off the whole bottle issue.
I have been told his latch is great and a lc has told me that there are no issues re tongue tie. I think he's probably just getting bored and thinking give me the bottle when he has to work for high fat milk. I've tried breast compressions etc but once he's decided he's not interested the game is a bogey. I don't want to let him go hungry and everything I read suggests that is not the thing to do but I feel continually giving him the bottle when he's fed up is keeping us stuck in this cycle. I'd like to get back to half and half (Half expressed /half bf) but I just don't know if it will ever be possible. Has anybody else had success with breast feeding after the 3 month point or is it pretty much set in stone at this point?
Thanks for reading my very long post!

OP posts:
teebosnic · 11/01/2020 14:52

I had a very similar story and didn’t successfully breastfeed without pain until the 4 month mark. He rejected the breast at 3 months and I reached out to a lactation consultant to help. She put me on a plan of no breastfeeding for 1 week and lots of cuddles and skin to skin in the bath until the breast was a ‘happy place’ again. I was told not to force him to latch and just lots of cuddles and comfort. And Silverstein nursing cups saved me when he did eventually latch and nipples were damaged again. This worked for me! Hope it works for you! the lactation consultant was Heidi’s Milk Practice and she was AMAZING. Good luck to you mama xx

CorrimaC92 · 11/01/2020 21:52

Ahh, that's a great idea!! Just take the pressure off and focus on bonding :) thanks so much for your reply, I'm so glad to hear that it was successful after 3 months! Thanks again! Xx

OP posts:
HB2019 · 11/01/2020 21:55

Well done for getting this far! I'm only a couple of months ahead of you, huge problems at the start but now we're cruising. Are you pacing the bottles? Maybe if you made bottle feeding as "slow" as breastfeeding he'd stop preferring them?

stophuggingme · 11/01/2020 22:01

How long has it been since you fed expressed milk?

Have you tired expressing a small amount before breastfeeding?

stophuggingme · 11/01/2020 22:05

Also the longer the gap in between direct feeds the more foremilk a breast produces hence engorgement. If you were feeding eoxfessed feeds then this might explain this

While there is some evidence to suggest breast feeding can be re established - and a week or so is not long - it can be an uphill struggle

Honestly I would just keep skin to skin and try to persist in breastfeeding and not expressing if you want to continue that is

fluffyjumper · 12/01/2020 00:48

Have you tried nipple shields?

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