Improving an older baby's feeding

[BellaeCandelae]

Is it possible to re-educate a 12mo breastfed baby to improve his latch?

Ds2's latch has always been rather lazy - a quick snatch and suckle, so he rarely takes enough of the boob into his mouth. It seems to work for him, and is (was) tolerable for me. But, since he started sprouting top teeth, it is now causing me pain.

Can I do anything about this?

I think you can. My ds2 was a bit older when his teeth started coming through ~ 15mths but I used to break his latch on as soon as it started hurting with my little finger, and ask him to open his mouth, whilst squeezing my breast so that when his mouth opened, I could place as much as possible in. If that makes any sense. My dh informs me that I used to make lots of dentist like hmmm..noises with my mouth open just I would settle to feed, which he used to copy.

You could check other aspects of your positioning as I used to (and still am) very lazy. They used to end up lying across my lap on their back, sorting of twisting their neck, which meant the latch on was quite uncomfortable.

There are loads of fab Mnetters giving out wonderful information and support and I'm certain others will have done this as well. Our babies and toddlers are constantly changing and B/F changes with it.

Perhaps going back to basics, and getting the hold 'correct' would help? I know I don't hold DS2 properly now. Is it just painful whilst feeding, or is it causing damage/painful afterwards as well?

something laura said reminded me of when ds1 was teething and I was experiencing really sore nipples I changed his position from lying across my lap to the rugby, underarm hold, which meant his teeth were on a different part of my nipple and i then spent more time ensuring that he was properly latched on, and I would remove him if it started to hurt, which helped my sore nipples recover.

Good idea to vary the position I switch from lap, to lying down tummy to tummy. I've recently got some silverettes, and they're helping a lot with the pain caused by teeth marks (got a crack a while ago due to a week long feedathon!).

What are sliverettes?

I don't think it's the teeth themselves that are cusing the trouble, as they leave no marks but i have a dried-up blister on the nipple itself. it's also only a problem on one side, the left, and IIRC from those fuzzy early days, it was generally the left side that was troublesome.

I also don't understand how to do the tummy-to-mummy hold with an older baby. This is the second child I've fed for more than a year (or soon will be , but dd used to feed more-or-less sitting up on my lap, so I rarely cradled her in my arms at this age. Ds2 will not feed sitting up, though. Always either in bed or in my arms. If I try to tummy-to-mummy him with his head tilted back, then his bum is off my lap and it feels unwieldy and awkward, and he is difficult to hold.

More on silverettes here. Will post more after I've given a grumpy DS2 his tea!

Silverettes and the silver pads sound fantastic! I wish I'd known about them when I was begining bfing. I don't think I need them now.

I've been trying ymmybunnymummy's idea of squeezing the boob into ds2's mouth, and there's already an improvement in how my boob feels, but I don't think it's doing much to re-educate him.