Worried about my wife.......

[BritishBeef]

Hi there,
My son is only 2 weeks old and we are already at our limits. I guess that sounds pathetic and both my wife and I feel failures to be feeling this way so early on.

My wife had a lot of problems breastfeeding in during the first week due to our son having a very strong suction and also managing to 'click' whilst sucking which caused my wife so much pain that she cried whilst feeding. We had 3 different midwives confirm that he was latched on perfectly and couldn't work out what was going wrong. Things got better a few days ago and breastfeeding was bearable. In the last few days however, our son has been wanting feeding every 2 hours and his feeding time has lengthened to an hour or more meaning that my wife is feeding as much as she's not including 3 times during the night and again her nipples are getting painful. The rest of the time he is really grisly and won't settle meaning we are getting no rest. We tried winding etc. but no use. We take him out in the afternoon for an hour (he will usually sleep then). Yesterday he was awake for the best part of 16 hours out of 24 and most of that was grisly or crying.

Today, he's doing his feeding cues straight after an hour long feed. The feed is not constant and by the end it's as if he's just comfort sucking but like I said, as soon as he's removed from the breast he makes out that he wants feeding again. My wife changes breasts half way through but still no joy.

His weight is fine and when we discuss these sorts of things with the MW's they just say there's no problem because his weight is fine.

My real concern however is the strain on my wife. She's very tearful lately and says she can't cope anymore with the constant feeding and no rest. I'm finding it nearly as stressful and as I have suffered the last 5 years with mental illness (anxiety, stress, OCD, health anxiety) I am worried about myself too. I don't want to become depressed like I have in the past and I really don't want my wife to go down that route either.

We are considering switching to formula but that makes us feel total failures and guilty especially as the MW's have rammed it down our necks that not to breastfeed is wrong.

I really don't know what to do and would appreciate some advice.

If baby's hungry, he needs to be fed right? Mummy can't feed at the moment. Go get some formula, not to give you a night's sleep or to give mum a rest, but for baby because baby's hungry.

Sorry but I've been there. I'm not advocating ff because quite frankly washing bottles is such a hassle, given the choice I would bf, but I had to ff out of necessity. It was fine.

I do think it's very easy in the early days to take all cues/restlessness/crying for hunger. FWIW, I think it is reasonable if you feel that your baby has had a decent feed, to not feed any more if it is sore and try other methods of distraction such as rocking, walking the floor, finger to suck, swaddling, winding etc etc.

I fed ds on a schedule in the early weeks due to nipple damage. It was the only way I could continue and yes, sometimes it was difficult to soothe him but eventually he would settle using the above methods. He may not be hungry so don't feel like you're starving him by not feeding constantly.

Having said that, demand feeding is the best way to establish feeding. If things had been different that's what I intended to do, and what I was able to work towards when things became easier.

One of the things that helped me get some sleep was lying in bed propped up with a few pillows with ds sleeping on my chest on his stomach. He would only rarely sleep any other way for the first 4 weeks or so.

Also, I used to feed him and then go to bed with him while he was asleep during the day, feed him when he woke up and then take him back to bed again. Working on a 24hr day until he got his night/day sorted out really helped me.

Bb, my first was like this too: I always assumed she was hungry when she cried & had terribly sore nipples because of constant feeding, but in retrospect I think I misread the signs. I still have memories of when she was 3-4 weeks old & had been "feeding" most of the night; it got to about 4.30 am & I nearly lost it, feeling that I could have gladly strangled her, & that still haunts me. As with lisalisa, I was much more confident with my second & it just didn't happen like that at all. The only thing that kept me going was the mantra that each stage only lasts for a very short time.

here is a method to stop baby crying and soothe him to sleep that does work. you can buy this guy's book or read more online, if you google him.

please try it, it does work.

I also recommend dr harvey karp. he saved my sanity in the early days.

also do contact a bf counsellor asap. despite what the midwives have said, the clicking is not normal and if they did not observe a whole feed and are not specifically trained to check latch and (and most know too little about bf) then they are giving advice without adequate knowledge which can be dangerous.

Skin to skin contact is vital to encourage newborns to feed so make sure that dw is also wearing as little as possible on top. As others have said, cosleeping is also very good way of promoting breastfeeding and promoting sleep.

here is a link for safe cosleeping

however, without having her latch investigated for something like tongue tie makes it all irrelevant as if the underlying problem is not fixed then everything else is so much harder.

PS i second breast crawl, it allows a baby to latch on by instinct. There is another thread here on MN where women have(and a real life friend with a preemie) tried it and found that their babies can latch on better alone than when they were helping them latch.

I so so feel for you, and can really relate to what you are going through. Similar to my experience with my first, it really was one of the hardest things I have ever done. Part of it was due to my own stubbornness and determination to stick to BFeeding whatever it took. It is horses for courses, but in the end, the thing that I found helped me was to use Gina Ford's Contented Little Baby Book. This is very contentious on here, and many people find her difficult, but for us it really truly helped because it got us on a predictable schedule, I felt like I knew where I was at, the baby settled, I wasn't bf constantly etc. Also, I used a very good electric pump (medela - sometimes you can rent them through NHS or NCT) that expressed an entire feed, so we were in the silly situation of my dh feeding babe with bottle of expressed, and me expressing at the same time for next feed. Labour intensive, but at the time it hurt less than bfeeding and gave my breasts a chance to heal.
Talking with other mothers in a similar situation helped too. I felt so alone and guilty and angry. It really was hard. But it did get better and we ended up feeding happily to a year (and second was fine).
By the way, what a lovely dh you are to post looking to help your wife.

BB so sorry to hear about your rough night. FWIW it really does remind me of my early days with ds. Crappy crappy latch... got the latch sorted and it was much better.

I really can't recommend feeding lying down enough. Basically, your baby feeds while your dw lies down on her side, you can use cushions to keep her lying down at about a forty five degree angle.

Switch the radio on or invest in a few good audio books and she can lie there and rest - and more than likely she will gradually drift off to sleep.

If baby sleeps sometimes he will "fall" off the nipple by himself and your dw won't notice until he wakes for another feed... she puts him back to the breast and drifts back off to sleep.

You too can crawl into the bed, behind her is best so the baby is on her side rather than inbetween you, and get some much needed sleep too.

However this only really works once you have his latch fixed. I would genuinely ignore the mw's who say it's okay. If it's hurting as much as it sounds (I ended up with scabs on my nipples, sorry if tmi but just wanted to let her know she is not alone) then the latch isn't right.

I would recommend phoning all of the helplines ... I personally found the NCT one most use but I think it depends what area you're in ... and seeing if you can get someone to help your dw face to face.

I would also recommend phoning your local hospital maternity ward but don't just speak to any old mw, some of them are worse than useless when it comes to bfing. Ask for the infant feeding specialist / co-ordinator / midwife, and don't be fobbed off with just anyone. "Thump some tables" as a very wise mner once said to me.

There's no chance you live in St Helens / Knowsley / North West Merseyside is there? If so I will be happy to come over today with my ds and get on with some chores for you so you can both get a bit of rest, and you can have one of my slings too for your ds if you want.

I think nipple shields for the sore nipples
Use a dummy to try and space out feeds - I think they do overfeed sometimes - is he being sick a lot
I would be very tempted to use a bottle of formula at night/expressed breast milk.

I found breastfeeding a real nightmare at the start - constant like you say, my ds would puke a lot and then want feeding again straight away. It took him weeks to latch on properly. The dummy and ebm were my saviours.

Take heart - it does get easier. Nipples get used to it; as they get stronger, babies feeds get quicker and latch improves. My midwife told me to count to 10 and drop my shoulders and breath out a long exhalation before I fed. This helped both me and dh during stressful moments.

You are not failures. I remember thinking there is a huge conspiracy about how hard childbirth, breastfeeding and looking after a baby is - a myth that is is easy and natural and second nature that only serves to mess up our expectations.

You'll be fine and before you know it your ds will be stomping up the stairs, slamming the door, refusing to do his homework etc!!!!!

One thing I would say about formula BB is that if your dw does want to continue to bf, it is best to do at least one night feed as the feed/s between 2am and 6am is particularly important for keeping supply going. Something to do with the hormone prolactin.

(I'm sure if you want to know technicalities one of the experts on here will be able to explain!)

So if you want to give your ds formula to give your dw a break, best thing might be for your dw to feed about eight o'clock, then you to take ds while your dw goes to bed, then give the ff about ten / eleven so your dw is still asleep and then she wakes up and does the night feed.

This is only if she does want to keep on bf, if she doesn't then it doesn't matter which feed you give as formula.

Also if she does want to keep bf it might be better to buy those little cartons of ready made formula you can get... get a big tub and it could be just too tempting to give up all together. And if that isn't what she wants really then it could be upsetting if she finds herself doing it anyway.

Again this is only if your dw does want to continue bf but wants a bit of a break. This is not me trying to talk you into carrying on bf if you don't want to.

Hi BB, I saw your message yesterday and have been thinking of you all. I've hardly ever posted here but I wanted to say congratulations on your baby and on being such a lovely dad. You and your wife are doing so well.
Did you all manage to get some good rest in the end last night? I'll keep thinking of you and hope this very hard phase passes quickly. Think phoning someone (NCT/LLL/?) locally who would come and listen and perhaps offer some advice sounds like a good bet. Hang in there!

BB, many congratulations to you both and sorry to here about the difficulties you're having.

Just after 2 weeks was the lowest point for me and I didn't know how I was going to carry on with BF as I was sore and exhausted and the feeding was constant. For me, I was saved by the dummy and it was like a miracle. I could finally put her down without her crying. I had seen recommendation for "cherry" dummy on here somewhere and tried that - cherry shape means less easily falls out of the mouth I believe. Sometimes she was tired rather than hungry but a very "sucky" baby.

This gave me respite and then a couple of weeks later we introduced a night bottle at about 11pm, EBM if I had some, but formula on a couple of occasions when I didn't. This worked for me as she then slept until 5 or 6 am but I'm aware it wouldn't be the favoured approach for all.

We're now at 14 weeks and things have settled down nicely.
Good luck and rest assured, as others have said repeatedly, it will get better......

BB, I hope both you and your wife, and of course your lovely DS are doing OK this morning, and that you all managed to get some rest.

I hope things seem a bit brighter in the daylight as well. The nighttimes are the pits really in the early days .

Take it easy on yourselves, shut the door to visitors and have a "babymoon" (retire to bed with lots of skin to skin contact, all three of you). We did this with our DD and it was lovely and I think helped a lot with the early problems.

Take Care xx

My word, look at all those new replies! You are all amazing. Thank you!

Some more responses:

tiktok:

MW checked for tongue tie and said he was fine. He has since learnt to poke his tongue right out so I think he's fine.

Re. blowing/tickling him to wake him at the breast - that's interesting as every midwife we've seen advised us to do that.

silverettes / nipple shields - Will these interfere with let down reflex or inhibit milk supply at all?

harpsicorpsecarrier:

We have tried swaddling him but he does a Houdini every time because he likes to have his arms free!

chipmonkey:

We have tried a dummy but it only settles him for aout 2 minutes (we have to hold it in too) and then he spits it out. As someone suggested we will try a cherry soother to see if that helps.

ruddynorah:

We have been trying to put him down in his cot at night. During the day we have been using our Quinny Dreami pram as a moses type basket and have him with us in the living room. We may give co-sleeping a go once I've researched more on it.

spookthief:

We've tried rocking, walking the floor, finger to suck, swaddling, winding etc etc. We try it every time but invariably it doesn't help.

Egypt :

Thanks for the link - will read up on it.

kiskidee:

Thanks for the co-sleeping link, we may give co-sleeping a go once I've researched more on it

Mossy:

We will call the NCT today (if they are available on a Sunday, if not, tomorrow).

Thanks so much for your kind offer. Unfortunately we live in the south west!

Thanks for the advice re. supplementary FF. We may try this if all else fails but we really want BF to work although how much longer we can keep trying is a concern right now.

Update on last night.
He managed to settle not long after I posted (about 12.30am). However he woke for a feed at about 3am but fed until 4.30am! Then all over again at 6am so we're really exhausted.

the links at the bottom of the co-sleeping article are all written on evidence-based research. i recommend them heartily.

re nipple shields...i had terrible trouble bf my DD1...she had tongue tie, and i had flat nipples so the whole thing was a very stressful experience! I was about to give up after weeks of pain and tears, and DD1 was aways hungry due to the fact I wasn't relaxed and my milk supply didn't increase, and she wasn't drinking much at all...sucking for hours but not actually getting anything out.
Nipple shields saved my life! I had one midwife who was standing in for my regular midwife, who said I should give them a go. It was instant relief. They helped pull my nipple into the right shape, and because I was more relaxed (i.e..not in toe curling pain every time) my milk supply came quickly soon after. I used them until my nipples were not painful anymore, and my milk was flowing well, then we were able to bf properly without them

(I actually carried on bf then until she was 19 months!)

p.s... I have 3 children ...all bf and each one co-slept with me. It was the easiest option for all of us by far.

Good luck with it all xx

pps...(sorry)
my middle child sucked excessively and to give myself a break I introduced a dummy...he would only take to a cherry soother. it worked very well.

BritishBeef

You must be nearish to me.

Do you have a sling?

If not I suggest you get one.

Put your baby in it after a feed and take him out so that your wife can sleep. he may struggle for a minute or so but once you are on the move and he is warm and snug against you he will sleep.

And with him out of the house your wife can sleep.

The biggest lesson Learnt with my 4 was not to offer the breast straight away. They were all breastfed until they were at least a year. However, after baby number 2 I tried to distract as long as possible before offering the breast. Jiggling, finger.

A good hold is> facing out with hand around tummy, putting slight pressure on it.

Congratulations on the birth of your baby.

Your wife is a very lucky woman....this is the time when a really great husband is worth his weight in gold. Just the fact that you are there for her, thinking of her, sharing this with her, doing the practical things for her etc, will mean so much and although you might not be able to see it, is making things easier. That support you give is invaluable.

Re the breast feeding, you've had some great advice. I can't add to it because, well, there's nothing much to add - but mainly because it's years since I was there and I've forgotten all about it now except that when my kids were crying I always wanted to solve it (ie shut them up ) ds1 was superglued to the breast for the first 3 months. I thought he was sooooo hungry, but really, he just wanted to suckle. It felt nice, it felt safe, it felt comforting. When I tried to put him down he screamed his head off - I thought he wanted more food, put him back to the breast, he shut up. It's not that he was hungry, it's just where he wanted to be and when I didn't co-operate with that, he made his feelings known! I wonder if your baby is the same. Have you tried swaddling in a worn jumper that your dw has also rubbed some of her milk into?

I ended up mixed feeding, thinking my milk wasn't enough for him and then my supply started to dry up (obviously) so eventually he was fully on formula. Same with ds2. I wish I had understood more about bf, because I would have known to carry on. I think it's good that you have all this info so that you can make an informed choice, be it bf or ff.

I remember that utter exhaustion. I've never in my life felt anything like it (and I've worked 12 hr night shifts in the past, gone to all night parties....) I feel for you both.

You will get through this. You might not feel it now, but you will. Continue to take good care of each other.

Oh just some final suggestions to help you get some rest.

... your dw's milk supply is not really affected by anything she eats, so for a few days it's really okay to just get takeaways, or buy frozen ready meals / pizzas etc. Saves you time too if you are doing the cooking and gives you a break.

(Nigella Lawson will understand.)

... also if you are using cloth nappies, it isn't going to kill you to get a packet of disposables for a few weeks until things improve. The cloth nappies will still be there when things get better. And it will make changing times faster and you'll not have to do as much washing.

(Greenpeace will not be making a home visit, I promise.)

... and as for baby clothes, your ds will be perfectly happy in sleep suits with press studs for a while... again fewer items to wash and makes changing time much faster.

(I've locked Trinny and Susanna in the basement for you.)

Oh and in all of this forgot to say congratulations and you sound absolutely lovely.

awwwww mytwopenceworth you really summed it up well there...all three of mine just weren't happy unless they were suckling at the breast...and like you..I just let them!

Not practical/possible/bareable for everyone I know.

And you simply must see this video.

ooooh and I actually didn't find this until my 3rd child, but helping to make b/f time comfortable and relaxed as possible, I invested in a "corner cushion" wish to god I'd had one with the other two! They are really very cumfortable and help with posture and all that

BB, glad the night wasn't too bad.

Can I suugest that you forget about 'night' and 'day' for the next few days and just work on 24 hour time. I found that if i focussed on how much sleep I hadn't had then I felt awful. Once I slept when the baby did, whether that was 10am or 4pm, I realised that through the 24 hours I was actually notching up a reasonable amount of sleep.

I agree with Mossy's most recent post too, leave EVERYTHING that isn't feeding you and dw or absolutely ESSENTIAL for your day to day survival for the time being. Your priority is SLEEP, SLEEP asnd SLEEP as often as you can.

NCT is open today, ask for RUTH's number, she is near to you and may be able to visit you (or you go to her) and sort out the attachment issues.