BF problems with by shiny two day old newborn

[EnglishRain]

Hi

Wondered if anyone could offer any advice or suggestions. Bit overwhelmed at the minute and know MN can be such an amazing source of info for things like this.

My baby was born Tuesday. Did loads of skin to skin, she's interested in feeding but I can't get a proper latch where she has a big mouthful for long. When I get her on, she will do two or three sucks or so, then pull a face, and if I try to encourage her to keep going she will pull back and squeal. We've not had any improvement despite trying loads of skin to skin.

I asked about tongue tie and when they did her top to toe check they said she doesn't have it. I just feel like it must be a specific problem because of how she pulls back. I've been told my positioning etc is great, and that a) she's lazy and cba to work for food or 2) that she just doesn't understand what to do and maybe it will click over the next few days. She has a great sucking action with my finger in her mouth, it just doesn't seem to work on my boob

I've already given her some formula because my boobs have given up on giving me much colostrum, but I don't want to give up on the idea of BF. Does anyone have any advice or suggestions of what I could try, or what it could be? She was born at 39+2 by c section, and is a decent size (7lbs 1).

What happens when you put her on again a after she’s come off? At this stage I would just keep putting her to the breast as often as possible - be careful with formula as she needs to feed lots to bring your milk in. I wouldn’t top up with more than 20ml formula at a time. If you’re topping up and want to also preserve breast feeding little bit frequently is better than replacing feeds.

Normally pulling back is due to fast flow of milk but it’s probably too early for that. What positions have you tried, some babies ding the rugby ball hold more comfortable. Or have you tried biological nurturing/breast crawl? Lie her skin to skin on you lying flat and let her latch on herself?

I had exactly the same with my DD and I expressed for the first few weeks before moving on to nipple shields (which I wish I'd used earlier), then at about 10 weeks she started latching without them. Looking back at videos of her feeding from bottles, she wouldn't even open her mouth wide for them so it's no wonder she couldn't/ wouldn't latch.

Book an appointment with a proper BF counsellor / La Leche re tongue tie as it is notoriously hard to spot.

Definitely stay away from formula at this stage if you are very keen to BF as it will upset your supply quite quickly.

Set up camp in bed / on sofa and don't do anything apart from skin to skin and cuddles.

Do you have a breast pump?

Something that worked for us early days was to get a few pumps going first to stimulate let down / get my nipple nice and 'out' and then latch baby after that so it was an immediate result for them - maybe try that?

Congratulations on your new baby!!

Probably not this - but worth checking- you're not squashing her nose so she can't breathe? Sounds silly but I did this on one side and my baby kept popping off after a few seconds, to get some air!

Hope you get it resolved quickly. The first few weeks of breastfeeding can be pretty challenging but once you get over that, it's such a convenience, or it was for me anyway. Best of luck!

Hi, had similar problems and we never managed to resolve them due to lack of support. Would highly recommend getting in touch with your local La Leche League. Contact details con be found on their website, you can give them a call. Best to get help ASAP before they find your little one has lost too much weight on day 5 (or 3 if you're still in hospital) and recommend you start supplementing as things get more difficult from there. Best of luck and congratulations on your lovely baby x

Thanks so much for the posts so far.

The hospital showed me how to cup feed but then made me give her a bottle before I cold be discharged despite the fact I wanted to carry on cup feeding colostrum for a bit longer in case things clicked.

She's had a couple bottles of formula today, purely because she literally gets nothing from me, I have to express to give it to her and whilst I had kids right after having her, it's already gone down. I'm expressing every few hours and although I'm getting very little I'm still trying. Got a pump coming tomorrow which I hope will help with supply. I have also got some nipple shields and may try those tonight in case they help. She also doesn't open her mouth very wide, but maybe shields will help, I know people can be quite divided.

Can I still salvage this when we are on day 2? I'm more worried now that I've started on the formula when I want to bf. hospital made me feel like I was starving her. I had harvested colostrum but they made me give her my last 15ml before we left, and wouldn't let me give her 5ml and save the other 10 for night feeds

*had kids should be expressed! Such a weird autocorrect.

We have the same problem with the rugby position and her lying on me. If I put her back on after she pulls off she just does the same and gets more and more upset

She had 15ml of colostrum in one go? That's loads.

I don't really have anything to suggest above what's already been said - keep putting her to the breast and seek professional support. She might be happier once your milk comes in now she's used to formula, although she might get frustrated that she has to work for it, so you could try expressing a little to stimulate your let down and then popping her on. Are you doing paced bottle feeding?

It's so hard when their mouths are teeny, but they get bigger quickly! I had to constantly remind myself 'nose to nipple' to make sure he was low enough that he'd open his mouth really wide.

@Spam88 yes, they made me give it all to her. And they forgot to put 10ml I expressed in the fridge yesterday so that got binned, and now I can get bigger all out, but I am trying to persevere.

I was made to feel that if she wasn't eating something every three hours she would starve, and I had brought in frozen syringes but when cup feeding started they were using at least 7-10ml in one go. And then my DH had brought some more for visiting and that was what they made me use in one go, the 15ml. And now my freezer is empty too!

I'm sorry you were told your baby is lazy 😢. Your baby's had a busy 2 days so probably is knackered! I would reiterate get a breast feeding consultant. www.lcgb.org/find-an-ibclc/

My advice would be your milk takes a couple of days to come in whether it's a c section of vag birth. Give you and baby time to rest and recover and practice. Eat well, rest as much as you can and persevere. We have my DS a bottle and nasal feed( whilst in special care) but he went on to exclusively breast feed for 6 months and stopped at 11 months.
I pursued for ages and he was diagnosed with a tongue tie at 5 weeks. Which made such a big difference and then had a lactation consultant at 8 weeks. Which just changed my bf journey completely.

Wishing you loads of luck.
Be kind to yourself and be patient. Also fed is best. Whether it's breast or formula. So please don't beat yourself up xx

You need to drink loads and eat loads too make sure you stay fuelled up. Keep expressing to stimulate milk and keep trying to latch.

I remember being surprised at just how forcefully I needed to push DCs face onto my boob at the key 'opening mouth' moment to make sure the nipple ends up right at the back of their throat.

I was also shown a 'burger' squash technique where you squash your boob between thumb and fingers like you are eating a burger. There's a good YouTube vid I'll try to find it.

Oh FFs I copied that from a message I sent my SIL when she was feeding - they've removed it as it, surprise surprise, shows a lot of naked breasts.

This one has some good latch shots

Definitely pursue a second opinion on the tongue tie - DD had one (it's genetic as DH had one), was told in hospital there wasn't, but pushed for a referral to tongue tie specialist & they found one, had it snipped & it then grew back & had to be cut again.

I'd say, from the sounds of it, your milk hasn't come it yet (understandably) & your baby is being impatient - lazy isn't nice, but she wants the milk now.
Before you try to latch her, try some hand compressions to soften the breast up & encourage the let down. Then when she is latched, as another person said, sandwich your breast she she has it quite flat in her mouth & compress more whilst she's latched. This was what I was advised to do from our lactation expert.

Also don't worry too much about the formula, many people including me have successfully combi-fed - breastfeeding & formula feeding. It is possible & very workable. Obviously if you're set on EBF it won't be, but for my two DC it worked well - no nipple confusion at all, & one BF till 21mths & the other till 14months - both self-weaned & we'd stopped the formula by 1yr.

Give the shields a try, they absolutely saved me with my DS!

Used them for about 2 months and yes, they did make it a bit more of a faff when feeding, especially out and about, but it actually meant I felt I could go out because I knew he was getting a good feed without getting upset. Also far less of a faff than formula was.

Breast shields and get second opinion on tongue tie. Ask your midwife if they have any breastfeeding specialists- I had them come to my house pre lockdown. Get yourself some floradix not sure if that or timing but my milk came in very soon after taking it

Lots of good advice, but just wanted to encourage you to keep going, if that's what you want. We had to top up a lot with formula at the start, but baby is mainly BF now. It can be confusing knowing what to do with bf, information overload and it can be so stressful. Keep expressing and putting baby to breast as much as possible. If you are removing colostrum/milk then you can keep your body making some whilst you work out a plan. It took 3 or 4 weeks to get my supply up and several more weeks before we dropped the top ups. We found the Nct helpline useful and Le Leche league on Facebook. I think it can be easiest to find one person to go to for advice, such as your local Le Leche leader and stick with that or you can get overwhelmed. Good luck and remember, formula is not that end of the world.

Just wanted to update this in case anyone comes across it and might find it helpful. Thank you so much to everyone for the posts, I think you saved us from switching to formula.

I had bought some nipple shields when pregnant because a friend found them useful and it seemed like a sensible idea. I had forgotten about them, but posts on here reminded me and I dug them out. They are Mam ones, really soft and flexible and my baby was latching and feeding with them when she had not managed to before. It felt like a miracle, I had gotten to a point where I thought I would never be able to feed her the way I wanted to.

I also pressed re the tongue tie, as suggested on here. My baby was then diagnosed with a posterior tie, but in order to get a referral with the NHS, they have to lose so much weight for a prolonged period, that we decided to find a private specialist instead. She had lost 9% body weight by day 3, and there was no real improvement by day 5. We had the tie snipped when she was eight days old, by a wonderful lady (Wendy Birtall, in case anyone is in the east of England and unfortunately finds themselves in a similar position to us) I contacted her on a Saturday and sent photos and videos, we had a phone appt a few days later and she came and did the assessment and subsequent division on the Wednesday morning.

My baby was distraught after the division, it was like going back to square one with the frustration and upset of being unable to feed a couple of times I had to give her to DH and go away because I seemed to upset her so much. She was so desperate to feed, and probably in pain, but just couldn't figure out how to get her little mouth to work. She had fed successfully immediately after the division, but we seemed to go backwards after that, she was just so upset it was really hard to position her well etc.

It took a good couple of days for us to get through that, but she is now breastfed and having no formula, hurrah! I am still using nipple shields. I've dreaded feeding so much, and her frustration upsets me so much that I am finding it very hard to want to upset feeding again right now. I don't think it is affecting my milk, as she is now gaining well. She was 7lbs 1oz when born, and by day 17 had made it to 7lbs 3oz. The weigh ins have been very anxiety inducing too, so I'm trying to be kind to myself and not rush into changing things again right now when the balance seems to be the best it has been.

Again, thank you so much for all the posts. I felt lost, and there were so many pointers and ideas on here that have been really helpful, including the burger hold 😁

Also, have a squishy newborn pic for good measure 🥰

Aww, she's lovely. It does get so much easier after a couple of months or so. Be prepared for cluster feeding which may still be to come and I remember things being quite tough around 6 weeks. But it gets easier and easier, good luck!