Help! 4 day old baby not latching on

[skidoodle]

Hi there,

I've sometimes lurked around here while pregnant so I know how knowledgeable you guys are. I really could do with some advice.

My baby is only days old but breastfeeding is not going well. She didn't find it easy to latch on initially but we figured it out by day 2. Then my milk came in and we were pretty much back to square one. Or square minus one maybe. My breasts are engorged and according to the midwives in the hospital this means it is really hard for her to latch on as my nipples are too flat and the breasts are too hard.

I just got out of hospital today and although the midwives were very keen to help, I found a lot of their advice totally contradictory (e.g. told to wake her up, even by undressing her and putting her feet in cold water, every 3 hours to feed THEN when the shift changed a new midwife insisted I feed her every time she cried no matter what I thought the problem might be).

Anyway, over the last 2 days I've started expressing just so I can give her some milk as I've only occasionally managed to get her to feed and that has always been with a lot of physical help from a midwife. Now I'm home since earlier this evening. I've fed her expressed milk twice and tried her on the breast for a bit. She did her usual - sucked a little, seemed to latch on, then immediately broke the latch and started trying to chew on my nipple (did I mention how my nipples are all cracked and bleeding?)

So basically I'm really confused about what's going on with her, how I can get her feeding normally, why she's finding it so hard to latch on properly. The saddest thing is that when she does manage it, she's a great little feeder. It's breaking my heart seeing her constantly do little sucking motions with her mouth but when I put her on my breast she keeps pulling away from my nipple.

that's brilliant! well done!

skidoodle - i ahve been watching this thread and what great news.

take it easy and i hope it continues to improve. no doubt it will. so glad you have been able to get support on this and well done on yr aunt for helping out!

very envious of yr babymooning and skin to skin contact! if only dd woudl sit still long enough for that!!

yay for baby doodle!

Learning to breastfeed does take a while, but now you both know how it works, I'm sure you'll manage again and again until it becomes second nature..

Thank you all so much for your kind words It's really touching to feel there are people out there rooting for you when you're working through something like this.

We've had 2 more feeds since this morning and one expressed/cup feed. She's fed from both breasts and right now has me totally tapped out!

I'm a little worried that I don't have enough milk for her and that possibly I'm slightly behind where she needs me to be because of expressing for a few days. When we finished the last feed I think she would have liked more but there was none to be had. But we gave her a bath and she was awake for a while but happy and has now dozed off, so I don't think she's really hungry or anything. Hopefully in an hour or so I'll have more milk to give her.

WOOHOO,

What fantastic news well done both of you, we all knew you's could do it.

You will have more milk, just keep putting her to the breast and having special skin to skin time - the hormones will kick in and you will have enough for her.

Eat some porridge for an extra boost on your supply

thanks determination

but porridge? oh no. do I have to? I'm generally against all foods of that particular consistency.

Just remember, its supply and demand.. The more you feed the more you make. It might take a few days but you'll catch up to her. Make sure you let her feed til she comes off on her own, and then offer the second side (don't push it if she doesn't want it, from bitter experience I can tell you that feeding a full baby ends in getting covered in much baby sick). This should get your supply sorted. And also, even if you feel tapped out, you probably aren't, you are always making milk and the "emptier" you are, the faster you make it..

Re porridge - I think its the oatmeal that supposedly does the trick, though I don't know that theres any actual science in it.. How about oatmeal and raisin cookies? Or flapjacks?

Actually I have a batch of flapjacks a friend of mine baked for me. Yum, I'll go have one right now. DH will be sad because he is a little obsessed with flapjacks and thinks they're really his and was counting on me forgetting about them (which I had)

OK, so I should be offering the other side each time now? Right I'll do that. Whenever I feed her from my right breast the left one goes crazy and leaks everywhere. I'm assuming this isn't really "waste" and won't mean my left boob will also be empty by the time she's emptied my right.

skidoodle - if you are leaking when feeding - how about catching that in breast shells. i used to be gobsmacked at how much i woud get each feed. i have some ones here that i no longer use and happy to send them to you for free, if you want them!
also - your supply will catch up so quickly so dont fret. just let her on as much as possible and you will make what she needs.

Yes doodle,

Onion is right, i used breastshells too and would get approx 2oz a time . Thats an outstanding amount if your collecting at each feed throughout the day...

Skidoodle - I found I leaked loads too. In my experience, if you want to keep leaking so you can collect the milk, then use shells - just be careful you put them in your bra the right way up . If you want to stop the leaking, push back on your boob when it starts and after day or so, your boob will stop going off when the other one does.
I found it a real pain with my first two dc's - I was using two breast pads at a time and was still getting wet clothes. With dc3 I did the pressing thing and it was all a bit more under control lol!
How are things today?

Hi guys

what a day today has been - we went for our first walk! It was so nice to be out of the house. I got a virus right at the end of pregnancy, so I had been kind of housebound for what seemed like forever. So great to get out and wheeling a pram made me feel very maternal for some reason. Oh and a huge truck stopped to let us cross the road at a place that wasn't even a crossing this big truck driver just gave me a big smile and a wave. So sweet.

I'm a little bit worried about whether she's getting enough food. It seems I've become a neurotic parent in the space of one week.

I'm not sure I get the whole demand feeding thing. What if she's not demanding enough? Is that possible?

If anyone is super bored, here is how feeding has been today:
she had two feeds last night. one at around 2.30 or so. She fed for around 20 mins (which was starting to seem like her normal amount) then went back to sleep.

Then she woke again at around 5.20 and fed on for over an hour. I kept dropping off to sleep and so did she but any time I tried to take her off the breast she started getting upset. The longer the feed went on the more upset she was getting - fretting and coming off the nipple but trying to sort of chew on it and getting most put off when I wouldn't let her.

After around 1.5 hours I asked DH to get her up and change her and give us both some time out as I felt we were both getting all stressy. Instead of calming her down, that made her more upset and she was doing all the mouth things as though maybe she was hungry So we tried some more feeding but she was so wound up she couldn't seem to suck for very long and then would get frustrated. It seemed as though she was just totally overtired, but I couldn't calm her down.

Eventually after another hour or so I was practically fainting with hunger so I went downstairs to have some breakfast (need to eat to keep supply up) and by the time I had finished DH had managed to get her to sleep.

Since then all day she hasn't been waking for feeds. I've been waking her (this is what I've been doing since yesterday as it means I can start the feed before she gets frantic) but she won't really wake and she's been only taking about 5 minutes or so, maybe 10.

She's asleep right now after maybe 25 minutes feed in two bits, with a bath in between as she feel asleep on the boob again. I tried to give her the other one too but she was not having it.

I know I'm lucky to be even having these worries, but I'm scared she's not feeding enough, or that maybe I don't have enough milk and that's why she could feed for about 2.5 hours and still want more. Or was that even about food at all? By the end it seemed maybe it wasn't.

weeonion that's a really kind offer I think it may be redundant now as the leaking seems to have calmed down already. Things seem to change hour to hour with this whole new baby thing. When the midwife came today I was telling her all about the night time issues and she was still wondering about the latching.

Firstly here is a link on supply and demand this will help you to understand it more clearly, hopefully!

Also, is baby getting enough milk?

and
baby cries or fusses during nursing

You seem to be doing just fine, all babies have fussy times during the day - maybe it her fussy time is in the morning? She will stimulate your breasts more when she is having a growth spurt and this is the natural way for her to tell your breasts that she wants them to make more milk. With re. to the length of time she is at the breast.. if you can hear her sucking and swallowing for that full 5 - 10 minutes then she falls asleep or unlatches then she has probably had enough milk. My dd2 rarely fed for more than 5-10mins.

Always believe in your own instinct as a mum, you instinct should never let you down.

Hello skidoodle.. I love reading your posts, because a) Its so great to see how well you are both doing and b) it really takes me back, because your experiences are soo similar to mine.

Anyway congratulations on getting the feeding going well.. Just so you know, everything you've said above is pretty usual, both the way you are feeling (worried she's getting enough) and the mixed signals she's sending out about what she wants.

I found with my dds that they both had pretty similar signals for a variety of needs - for needing food, for when they had wind or were too full, and for when they just wanted a good suck. Obviously this can lead to some interesting misinterpretations - ie feeding a baby who needs to burp can end in getting covered in regurgitated milk!

All I can say is, that you will with time and trial and error learn what your dd wants and when. As long as she is feeding pretty regularly then she is most likely getting enough to eat. Meanwhile, as a general rule, if you've fed her recently and it doesn't seem like she should be hungry, then try winding her. If getting a burp up doesn't settle her then she might be hungry or want a comfort suck. Its up to you really if you want to let her comfort suck. Sometimes it can be just the thing to settle them to sleep. Other times - and maybe this is what happened at 5.30? - they can overfeed while comfort sucking and this gives them a sore belly, which they try to fix by - yes, comfort sucking. Thus cross baby who bobs on and off - i want some, oh it hurts, but i want some.. etc etc.. In this situation all you can do is settle them some other way until they digest what they've taken. I find DH very useful at this point.

Re the sleeping through feeds thing - this isn't something I've really got direct experience of so maybe Tiktok or someone will have good advice for you.. I suspect though that if she's putting on weight well and having plenty of wet and dirty nappies then you can probably let her dictate when she gets fed..

im not sure if anyone has mentioned this but what i found to help sore and cracked nipples was 'lansinoh'~quite expensive for a small tube but so soothing(it does actually work) and baby does not mind the taste like so many other creams i really hope it does start to work out for you~hang on in there xx

Hi There

Wow, this breastfeeding malarky really takes up a lot of time, huh?

I guess when you see women breastfeeding they're normally really good at it so you don't realise that it takes practise or that while you're practising it's pretty much your main activity.

determination thanks for those links. I haven't had a chance to look through them properly yet but I will.

taliac - thanks for the support. what you describe happening with your LO sounds really familiar. On that basis I decided to try taking myself out of the equation last night after the middle of the night feed. Once she had fed until she seemed full (nearly an hour, which seems a long feed to me) I left the room and had DH settle her. This took a while, but she didn't cry and get all hysterical for him, she just took a while to settle. Sometimes she was fussing a bit, other times just staring at the lights. I was sitting next door ready to run in, boob in hand, if she seemed hungry or distressed but she didn't.

So we had no sleep but she didn't get all upset and eventually slept. She seemed much happier today than after the previous night - feeding better, more alert when not asleep. My fears about her not getting any food have been allayed

I do seem to produce a lot more milk in my left breast than my right. I think this because I'm still expressing a bit so I always have a backup feed in the fridge in case things go wrong again. [I'm also doing this to make sure there really is milk. I know, I know, it's stupid. But "proof" is reassuring]. Anyway I barely seem to get anything out of my right breast. And also, when she feeds from the right she seems to give up much more quickly and be more hungry than when on the left.

MamaMia - thanks for the suggestion. I'm already on it if not for the Lansinoh I don't know how I'd manage. It's worth every penny. Nipples still sore but still functional.

OK need to sleep. Baby asleep.

I can't believe we lose an hour of potential sleep tonight . Then again, night and day are kind of redundant concepts at our house right now...

Hey - I suffer from wonky boobs too, though in my case I have a rather forceful letdown on the right that DD at times has found a bit too much to cope with. I think most people have some quirk or another with their supply.. You can adjust it gradually the same way you'd adjust your overall supply - ie keep the breast that seems to have less milk as empty as possible - by feeding or expressing. Your body should respond by upping the production on that side.

This link helped me: www.kellymom.com/bf/concerns/mom/lopsided.html but you might find you don't need to do anything, it will adjust on its own.

Meanwhile, I'm sure you know this but expressing isnt a good indicator of how much milk you are producing.. Your baby can pretty much always get more when feeding than you can express in a pumping session.. So dont let not being able to pump much bother you..

Hi taliac maybe we are bf "twins" or something because I think maybe it is too much, rather than too little milk that's making her refuses that breast

Even though I've been trying to keep it even, overnight I got weak and just gave in and fed more from the left breast as I just became more and more convinced the right one was empty. After the last feed I found that my nightie was drenched with milk. I figured maybe the breast was too full so I expressed a bit and got 70mls in 10 minutes. So then I put her on the right breast and she latched on like a dream and fed happily for 20 minutes or so.

She's been a right cranky madam all morning. Weirdly it seems as though the hour change has affected her, although I can't see how. Her usual nighttime antics of lots of crying and nothing really seeming to calm her shifted a few hours into morning.

Thanks for the link, will have a look.

God I smell so gross of milk all over me. I must shower after my rasher sandwich.

at bf twins.

I promise it really all does get straightforward! We're now at 4m with dd2, and now all the early niggly problems are out of the way she's a happy, efficient feeder..

Meanwhile, I'm so pleased its going well for you! Although when you're in it these early few weeks seem very hard - no sleep, tons of stuff to figure out about your baby, etc - looking back it really is a magical time..

thanks for your kind words

I definitely have my eye on the prize of this all getting easier and being able to whip the boob out anytime, anyplace and feed on the hoof.

There's always talk on here about women not having lots of examples of older women breastfeeding, but I grew up surrounded by BFing women and it's always seemed the normal thing to me.

I was just talking to one of my aunts, who's in the LLL and was saying how my aunties all seemed to find BFing so easy and she was laughing saying that of course they did, because by the time I saw them they'd already been through the bit I'm in at the moment. It turns out two of them had latching-on issues with their first babies and I've had lots of sympathy on the cracked nipple front.

Apparently they have a theory that my mother has the "perfect breastfeeding nipples" and thus she had a very easy time of it, so I never really heard many stories of it being hard from her.

Weirdly the main person who cautioned me in advance that there was lots to learn about this was my Dad. I guess he remembers the early days of us being babies without the haze of lactation hormones my Mum sees it through. She just always talks about sitting there with a feeding baby and feeling like all is well with the world

Happily I've had that feeling myself despite it not being quite the dream I (extremely naively ignorantly) thought it would be.

Family and bfing, I so know where you're coming from. The way my Mum talked, it sounded soo easy, and the same with MIL ("and I had so much milk I donated it!" type stuff). I really, really thought it would be a breeze.

Then I had DD1 and went through miseries galore, all the usual stuff - midwives shoving her on the breast and thereby putting her off it, being pushed to ff when she was hungry before milk came in, then struggling to establish breastfeeding with a nipple confused baby, etc.. You know, all the problems you get as a result of bad or inconsistent advice from people who sound like they know what they're talking about but actually don't.

It was only when I was struggling that the real stories came out from my family. Turned out my Mum only bfed each of us for a month or so before giving up because she was told she didnt have enough milk. My MIL only fed on one side due to an inverted nipple. My SIL suffered dreadfully from cracked nipples and engorgement.

I don't know why they didn't tell me any of it before hand. Maybe they forgot the difficult stuff in favour of the good bits? Maybe they didn't want to put me off? Maybe theres a culture of trying to seem like the perfect mother that stops you talking about problems? I don't know. But I am so pleased for us that we all have mumsnet, because my eventual bfing success was really dependent on seeing that problems in bfing are quite normal and with some support you can get past them..

"But I am so pleased for us that we all have mumsnet"

Me too, it's been an absolute lifeline for me this past week or so. The support is overwhelming on the B&B Feeding boards and it really helps to know what other people have been through. While I was still in hospital I thought we were having this BIG problem and coming here made me realise it was all very run of the mill and had been surmounted by many women before me.

Even though I'm spending most of my time feeding right now, I keep checking on here. I'm not yet at the one-handed typing phase but it's so nice to read all the threads and see how other people are managing while she feeds. Hopefully one day I'll be in a position, both literally and figuratively, to give such support in my turn.