Breastfeeding not going well

[HereIgoagainonmyown237]

Hi all. Managed to BF my first DC for a year no problem.

Had my second DC a few weeks ago and it’s a completely different story. She was prem and jaundiced so had to give her the bottle straight away, now she just will not latch on to the breast.

I’ve tried everything - nipple shield, skin to skin, etc. I’m expressing but it’s brutal - there doesn’t seem to be enough time in the day. Paid for a lactation consultant who wasn’t much use.

Any advice very welcome.

I had to combination feed my daughter due to low supply, and there were times when it was very tough to keep boob and bottle both going. In no particular order these were things that helped. I had good support from lactation consultants at a local charity.

Premie baby extra slow flow teats on the bottles. Making sure to use baby paced feeding techniques strictly. Tilting the bottle so that the baby doesn't get milk as soon as they start sucking, but only after they've done a few suck, like it would be on breast when the milk let's down. This was all about trying to make bottle feeding as much like boob as possible, and not obviously easier for the baby. I also constantly switched teats and bottle type, at first to help avoid her getting too much preference to one.

Skin to skin time, letting her crawl up my tummy and play with the boobs. She used to get enormously frustrated, as she wasn't actually strong enough to get into position to latch without my help - but it did improve her rooting instinct and latch over time. I made sure to do it often with no expectation that she'd latch and feed, mainly to take the stress out and ensure she wasn't picking up on it.

Pumping sucks. Make sure you're using the right size cup as it can affect yield.

Hope any of this helps. We did manage to get a good rhythm of feeding going in the end, and I'm still breastfeeding past 1 year. Seems unbelievable when I think back to those early weeks of fighting to get her to latch!

Thanks so much @Mistralli that’s super useful! Can I please ask how long it took to get her to latch in the end?

This is random, but have you tried taking a bath together? I struggled to BF in the beginning with my son. I read some small studies that showed that bathing together can mimic birth, and almost 'reset' the baby.

I ran myself a lovely hot bath and relaxed for a while. When it was cool enough for baby, my husband brought him up to me. He lay on my belly for a while, then I turned him over so we were belly-to-belly. He started to try to move up me and latch on.

I know this sounds bizarre, but it worked for me. Worth a try?

Good luck. 🩷

@HereIgoagainonmyown237 I think it was about week 5 or 6 that it felt like latching became something she did for herself when presented with boob. To me, it felt like she lost the rooting instinct (much as @CannotBelieveImAskingThis has mentioned) and needed it retriggered. This was what the time flailing around on my tummy and chest helped with. (And with hindsight, that was also good tummy time.)

In the early days it felt like the only way to get boob into mouth was to wait until she was crying and shove it in. Which obviously, led to bad latches and was rather stressful for both of us. However, she was so weak that she really couldn't get her head into position to do it for herself. I think sometimes less expert breastfeeding advice can overlook that some babies get utterly exhausted trying to do any form of head control and that latching isn't magic that just happens for them: my daughter was born at 36 weeks and really acted like she needed another month inside. She slept 23h a day for weeks!

It was also around 5 or 6 weeks that she started smiling - and the only thing she smiled at was my breasts. That made it seem worthwhile persisting- they clearly were her happy place, even if the nutrition was coming from a bottle.

Oh, and on the bright side - if you can stick with it, you'll have a baby that is happy with breast or bottle, which is ever so handy in the long term!

This is so helpful, thank you both - I really appreciate you taking the time to reply ☺️