My son is 4 weeks and exclusively breastfed. For the first few weeks I had no pain at all but the last few days I've been having a slight burning pain in my nipples after feeds. I called up the health visitors as they'd said they can provide breastfeeding support, but basically they just sent me to a mum and baby group for breastfeeding mothers, which was a nice meeting but I didn't really get anything from it I hadn't already read online.
I think my son's latch it pretty shallow. He does get quite a bit of the areola in his mouth, but he doesn't open very wide so I'm sure he should be getting more.
The group suggested trying different positions, which is what I wanted help with, but there wasn't a HCP at the meeting or anything to actually help me out. We currently use the cradle hold, and I think with his head being a bit restricted this is affecting his latch. But I need someone to physically help be with other positions because I just can't seem to do them.
Here's my issues, just wondered if anyone has any advice on what I can do for these specific problems.
My son is huge, over 9lb and very long. I'm tiny so I just can't hold him at the right angle and support his body and get his head at the right angle. I managed to get him latched deeply once yesterday but my body was so tense there's no way I could sustain it for long periods.
Similar to cross cradle he's just too big for me to get him in position with one arm and make sure everything is supported.
I've had some limited success with this position this morning, but he's still not latched very deeply. Most of the time when I lay him on my stomach/chest he won't wiggle to my nip, he just face plants in my breasts and I'm worried he's going to suffocate. If I place him so he's basically almost directly on the nip, he will eventually latch on after a bit of struggling, but his latch is about as deep as it is when I have him in cradle anyway, and his head ends up twisted sideways, so I don't think it's very comfortable for him.
I managed to get him latched like this yesterday but he didn't stay latched for very long. When I tried again I can't seem to get the angle right, he comes up taller than where my nipple falls when he's sat on my thigh so I'm not sure how to get him latched without lifting my breast up, but then surely it'd drop down on his face once I let go if he did latch?
I should add, he's gaining weight and having plenty of wet and dirty nappies, so I'm not concerned about him getting enough milk, it's more just to try to improve my comfort, and maybe he'll also see some benefits of an improved latch.
Anyone got any suggestions?