Breastfeeding disaster

[PurpleSunflower99]

Hi all,
I’m a first time mum looking for advice/consolation on my unsuccessful breastfeeding journey. Some context...

I struggled to get my son (now 6 weeks old) to latch so I was offered a pump at 48 hours postpartum. I used this for a few days in hospital and purchased a pump for home use. I hoped to establish latching but didn’t manage it. Day 9 I had a pph and spent three days in hospital. I continued to express but volume was lower due to illness and difficulty expressing on the ward I was placed on.

When my son was two weeks old we’d been discharged and my pump broke. At such a low ebb, I gave up expressing and began formula feeding but I came to regret it. I sort advice from the NCT feeding line and hired a pump from my hospital to facilitate relactation. Over two weeks I expressed 5 times a day and produced 400ml per day and combined fed.

I’d been advised to pump 8-12 times but found this unmanageable with bottle feeding and skin to skin/practising latching. I felt I was feeding him 3 times and never had a minute. When we did manage to practise latching we used shields and I am not sure he took much/it was a good latch as he’d be on 10-20 mins each side and still ate a full bottle.

I had an appointment with my local hospital feeding team on Wednesday 14th but I didn’t meet a midwife, just a peer supporter. She didn’t seem to understand my history or the fact I’d not succeeded with breastfeeding. She wasn’t much help with latching - I still don’t know how to spot a good latch as from my angle I couldn’t see what she described and when I asked for clarification she just repeated herself. She made me feel it was hopeless and told me to go away and express more which I didn’t feel I could do.

I gave up entirely later that day but i’ve been so low ever since. I’d love to hear other experiences. Has anyone overcome a similar struggle? Any advice for things to try? Or any advice from someone who has made peace with bottle feeding and overcome grief/guilt?

Hello, I’m sorry to hear you’ve been having such a hard time - it’s totally normal to struggle with bf, almost no one I know had it go smoothly.
It sounds like you need some top notch expert advice and guidance from a bf counsellor, not just a peer supporter. I don’t know the extent to which this is being done face to face at the moment but if you can afford it even a zoom appointment may make a big difference. Where are you based? I can probably dig out some recommendations in NW London including someone I saw who was a total guru.
I know she wasn’t a fan of nipple shields as they made latching harder. I don’t have much other advice I’m afraid as while I had issues too they were different from yours.

www.blossomantenatal.com/cordelia.php
This is the guru I mentioned, I would email or call her even if you’re not local and see what you can set up. She’s an absolute expert and has seen it all before.

I’m sorry to hear it’s been so tough.

I’ve had a similar ish experience. Baby was in the icu for ten days. I bottle fed for probably two months, a combo of breast milk and formula. It was exhausting. Baby had tongue tie too.

I persevered and from three months or so I’ve been ebf. I don’t have many tips apart from keeping at it but I would say 8-12 times a day sounds exhausting. Can you do that for a couple of days to get your supply up and then drop it a bit?

I also found breastfeeding followed by bottle at each feed helpful. And don’t get too stressed about mixing breast milk and formula - it’s not the end of the world.

Good Luck!

I’m a made peace with the guilt person!I had a really difficult time BF my first and gave up completely around 6 weeks too. I had a very traumatic birth ending up with a forceps delivery and it was quite an emergency to get baby out. Unfortunately this lead to the forceps causing a temporary facial nerve paralysis so baby couldn’t latch properly. They also had to go straight to special care following resus at birth. I then had a PPH and developed sepsis. Initially baby was tube/IV fed and attempted BF although latch was rubbish. I pumped/BF/formula top ups it is a brutal cycle so you have my sympathies! After 6 weeks I had to stop it was just too much and went to full formula feeding. I contacted my health visitor (I know that’s easier said than done in covid times) and she did an extra visit and it was really helpful talking through the issues I had. Slightly different for me but I also went back to my maternity unit and had a birth reflections session to understand what happened and why this may have lead to some difficulties. My HV also helped me recognise I was suffering from a bit more than the ‘baby blues’ and sign posted me to the GP who then referred me for taking therapy and some meds for PND for a brief time.
It’s easy for me to say 4 years later but it does get easier. Look at tour baby and how they are growing and developing that’s because you are feeding them (it doesn’t matter how) loving and nurturing them. Also you have had a PPH it is much harder for your body to make milk when you are anaemic and healing but nobody really talks about this. Be kind to yourself. I was a much better mum when I stopped trying to fight the BF stuff in all honesty for the first 6 week I was just existing between trying to get a latch, pumping, feeding a bottle then cleaning pump parts and bottles. When I stopped I could just enjoy feeding snuggles and also have some time for myself not watching the clock and dreading the next attempted feed! Happier mum=happier baby. My little one is 4 now and you certainly don’t look around the nursery and know which have been BF/FF, in the long term it makes such a small difference. It gets better it just takes time and a bit of kindness to yourself.

Has anyone overcome a similar struggle? Any advice for things to try?

What are you hoping for OP? To be happy with your decision to stop breastfeeding? Or advice to try again?

Sorry you’ve had such a tough time. PPH sounds really scary and pumping that many times a day must have been totally physically and mentally draining.

Your post echoes my feelings at the time I had my two newborns. I was so desperate to breastfeed. We had trouble with the latch to start with, and I went to a BF counsellor who diagnosed tongue tie, so we got it snipped and got the latch perfect but DS1 was still unfortunately falling asleep immediately at the breast then waking up crying then falling asleep... repeat x100. So after unwelcome advice from the GP we went to combined breast/bottle (and after 3 months just bottle). Lots of pumping too (but not much milk). Exactly the same thing with DS2...I drove him to BF counsellor the day after he was born and yet again tongue tie. And the rest was the same. But I got so upset about it, begged the GP for milk stimulating tablets (no) and even tried this complicated set up of tubes with a pouch for formula so they are sucking on the tube and your nipple at the same time (did t work). I felt so defeated after going all out formula, but looking back I really wish I'd said sod it, I tried, baby is happy and sleeping better on formula, all is good and just done formula from the start and enjoyed those feeding cuddles more. So I would say, if you are not happy and have tried then move on and just enjoy those precious moments.

Sounds like you're not quite ready to give up entirely, OP? If that's the case, you'll want to seek help from an IBCLC (international board certified lactation consultant). NHS support for breastfeeding is, as you've unfortunately discovered, patchy and generally lower quality. Whatever you do, don't feel guilty. You've had a very tough start and tried your best. Breastfeeding success is often dependent on support and unfortunately the NHS model is based on getting as many women as possible to try breastfeeding- the ones who find it easy are likely to continue, but those who don't tend to be unsupported and end up feeling guilty. Don't feel like you're at fault here- the system has failed you.

Big hugs

If you want to find an IBCLC:

lcgb.org/find-an-ibclc/

Another 'made peace with it' Mum here.

I had a very similar experience with DS1. Discharged six hours after giving birth, with a cursory glance from a midwife who ticked the 'feeding established' box. Awful first few days with him completely refusing to latch and rapidly losing weight. Re-admitted to hospital at 4 days old with jaundice, advised to hand express and syringe feed. Struggled to express anything. Found a private lactation consultant who diagnosed tongue tie, hospital agreed to refer him for a snip. He was still losing weight. Then I collapsed in the bath 9 days postpartum with a sort of pph - turned out I had retained products and a massive infection, which had prevented my milk from coming in properly. Advised to introduce formula/mix feed as I wasn't expressing enough but to keep offering him boob. TT meant he was still unable to latch and I was in agony if he tried. I got thrush in my nipples from the antibiotics. Found out at 4 weeks that hospital had never made the tt referral, so we paid privately, but by that point he was starving, still losing weight and desperate for a proper meal so the bottle was always going to be his preferred option. I officially quit trying at 6 wks old and he was FF from there on in.

Giving up bfeeding (or attempting to bfeed!) was one of the hardest things I've ever done. I felt like the worst mother in the world at the time, the guilt was awful and I judged myself hugely (even if no one else did!). I felt very low (with hindsight I think I had a bit of PND) and like I'd never get over it.

But I did. Once we settled into the new routine and he started putting on weight and I wasn't in pain all the time, I realised I had done my very very best, and that that's all anyone could ask. Ultimately he was fed and loved, and that's what mattered.

When he turned one I made a formal complaint via PALS about the care we'd recieved, which led to the hospital changing their policy on tt, and that helped give me some closure. I would recommend speaking to someone about it in due course, whether that's a HV or GP or midwife, it really does help to talk it through.

DS2 came along two years later, also tongue tied, and while it wasn't an easy breastfeeding journey by far (and I nearly quit twice in the early weeks) we did manage to crack it second time around, and I exclusively bfed him until his 1st bday. That also helped me see that my experience with DS1 had been genuinely unsurmountable.

DS1 is ten years old now (10!), and how I fed him (or his brother) as a baby barely registers. And there have been plenty of other parenting dilemmas to feel guilty about in the last ten years, believe me Please be kind to yourself, you're doing a fab job and you deserve to enjoy it xx