Does anyone have experience of successful BF after having to feed EBM in the early days?

[BellaBear]

My baby was born on Friday and doesn't seem to be able to feed from me. The MW saw him yesterday morning (so 2 1/2 days old) and said he was jaundiced and after watching me try to feed him said he wasn't getting anything (I suspected as much) and that he probably hadn't had more than a few drops since birth. We expressed some of my milk and he took it very quickly. Since then he has had five feeds of EBM which is now yellow rather than white and his poos have changed to yellowy green rather than black/green.
I am desperate to breastfeed. Will he learn? We keep trying him on the breast before expressing and he has a couple of sucks and then cries or lets go.
The MW will be back this morning. He doesn't seem as yellow-skinned anymore.

That is good enough though, that time cuddling and having her next to your breast is good preperation for her to bfed.

The fact that she knows that the milk comes out of the nipple and that she licks it when it is dripping out is good on its own.

You should be extremely proud of yourself. Bfing WILL work for you. It will just take that little bit longer. Just ensure that she does not get bottles and things should work themselves out.

You should create your own thread about this for more support though.

Lots of good advice here but just wanted to add my voice of support.

Ds began to refuse the breast totally around day 3 and continued to do so for a month. We cup fed him expressed breast milk during that time. All of a sudden,with no warning he latched on and was b/f then until he was almost 15 months old.

opps sorry I've hijacked this thread haven't I

Thanks Determination x

Bellabear

Seems like you've got lots of good advice here but just to add my experience!

My daughter was ventouse and this caused her palate to be too high meaning she found it difficult to latch on. For the first two weeks she was bottle fed EBM with constant attempts at BF. Fortunately we have a breastfeeding drop in clinic and we religiously went there to get support. One midwife suggested nipple shields and for me they were a godsend - if a bit messy!

It meant I could feed my daughter, we could bond and both of us could start getting the hang of BF. We would always try to latch her on first and if that didn't work would pop a shield on. Meanwhile we took her to cranial osteopath for treatment on her ventouse head, after another couple of weeks she just suddenly latched on one day and we haven't looked back. She is now 6 months and I love feeding her.

Perserve, get as much support as you can, you will always get differing opinions on nipple shields, BF, botle feeding etc but try to find out what works for you. Our little one has never had nipple confusion and happily takes a bottle for her dream feed from her Dad.

Good luck! x

thanks for more encouragement, re nipple shields, i tried it once and he did seem to have a better go at it, but still not much, better than without, but then i read on kellymom that you absolutely shoukdhn't use them in the first week, plus it was so big!

i think we have two main problems, which are related:P
1 my nipple do not seem to be the right shape
2 he hasn't got the idea of mouth wide open, tongue down(even with a teat, but at least that is the right shape and resistance to work it's way in!)

plus i HATE expressing,

Others have posted excellent sources of advice to help you.

Just wanted to add another positive story of encouragement.

Dd left hospital on a bottle of formula (for various reasons including not latching, rubbish advice, sheer exhaustion) and I was desperate to breastfeed. By day 4 I had managed to feed her a bottle of EBM. I persevered with feeding, after getting some decent advice, but it took about 3 weeks to get her fully on breastfeeds and phase out of the EBM.

It was exhausting, painful and emotional but very very worth keeping on trying. I went on to feed her for 20 months and it was so easy after that first 6 weeks.

Good luck - keep letting us know how you are getting on.

bellabear, just wondering how your feeding is going, i have the exact same problems as you (naughty tongue/funny nipples!!!), and finding it quite stressfull as fed ds1 for seven months with no problems, after jaundice/green poo have had to resort to feeding from bottles and putting to breast inbetween to try to teach him to feed.

also have you heard of the breastflow bottles, they are exclusive to mothercare and a bit pricey but i'm finding them excellant and seem to have helped my lo a bit! they have a double teat that baby has to simulate breastfeeding on to get milk out

noticed last post was a couple of weeks ago so hope you've sorted it now, i really feel for you i know exactly how hard and upsetting it is.