Breastfeeding is destroying me

[Sayshesheshe]

We have a 2 week old and feeding / latching has been rubbish from the beginning so we’ve combi fed.

She’s lost weight and not regained so now we’re in the danger window for needing more support or being admitted to hospital which I’m desperate to avoid.

But trying to feed her is wrecking my mental health, I’ve cried so much over her latch / lack of latch / no suction / falling asleep on the boob as soon as she latches. I’ve paid for a lactation consultant, gone to breast feeding cafes and spoken to midwives, started pumping to increase supply and nothing is making a difference.

I feel like I’m massively failing her and it’s ruined our newborn bubble bonding.

Does it get easier? Is it worth persevering with a baby who just doesn’t seem to latch (no one has identified a tongue tie) or should I just accept that I should give up and move to solely formula?

In your shoes if no diagnosis of anything (tongue tie? Poor supply? (Rare) any issues with baby?) I’d relax and take the pressure off. Do next 24 hours skin to skin, relaxing with baby, deep breathing, watching tv. If baby doesn’t latch at each feed within 10 mins, give a bottle and try again the following time. Do 5 mins breast massage / hand expressing if she doesn’t feed without any concern for how much milk comes out. Your oxytocin levels will increase with a day or two of relaxation / skin to skin and you can rethink when you feel more up to it. I imagine you’re doing much better than you think you are (maternity worker here).

I had latching issues and baby lost weight. A lovely midwife suggested trying nipple shields and the difference was incredible. Latched to them so easily straight away, it must have been a nipple shape/size issue. If you haven’t tried them I would recommend, they are cheap and easy to get hold of. Good luck!

And yes. It gets much easier. Hang in there :)

It might get easier, no one can really know.
Ultimately, milk seems hugely important now when you have a newborn but it really doesn't make that much difference long term. So do whatever will make you happier - all your baby cares about is being fed!

I'm not going to belittle you. You've done fantastically. Don't feel bad about anything. Sometimes it just doesn't happen.

A happy mum = a happy baby. Formula is not the devil and if you can find the mental space by stopping you might start feeling better and bonding better

My baby couldn’t latch either. I pumped every 3 hours for weeks, I couldn’t ever make enough so she always got some formula. I stopped pumping when she was 8 months and the relief was huge! Breastfeeding massively impacted my mental health.

For some people, it does get easier. My friend had similar issues to you and got to the point of failure to thrive but she was able to work her way back to exclusively breastfeeding. It seemed to really affect her badly mentally when she was struggling though.

So if you want to keep going and see what happens, then good for you and I hope you get better results soon.

But I’m also going to say, it’s ok to formula feed, you’re not giving up, your baby will be fine and if it means you enjoy them more and improves your mental health then that is really important and a valid choice.

You're hating it, baby isn't putting on weight, baby is already used to taking a bottle happily - this sounds like an absolute no brainier to me.

Feeding can be hyped up into this enormous thing when babies are tiny because pretty much all they do is feed! (well, and sleep, or not, which is the other thing people beat new mums over the head with). Babies don't stay tiny for long, and feeding very quickly becomes insignificant xx

I've had one baby bottle fed from the get go and one baby EBF for 21 months so no agenda. I found it excruciatingly painfully and a mind fuck at first but I promise it gets much easier quickly once you both get the hang of it. Equally, if you don't want to keep going, you don't have to. There is nothing wrong with formula. There's also nothing wrong with combination feeding to take some pressure off.

It doesn’t always get easier. My DS was tiny when born, he couldn’t latch at all. I struggled for 6 weeks trying to express to keep my supply up whilst seeing lactation consultants, midwives, health visitors. He had a tongue tie cut and it made no difference. Couldn’t understand nipple shields. We combi fed as once DH went back to work I found it impossible to pump the 10 times per day recommended.

When he was about 6 weeks old we both had a cold and I couldn’t face getting up in the night to pump, my supply dwindled to the point I was only getting an oz or two per day so I stopped. The relief was so immense and I felt so much better. My supply gradually dwindled to nothing over a few weeks when my period came back. He is 6 months old now, healthy and fine. I wouldn’t hesitate to try bf again with another baby but couldn’t carry on for my own sanity.

I really believe there are some babies that just can’t latch, I don’t think my DS ever latched properly.

I was in a very similar situation to you when my DD was born about a year ago - not latching, falling asleep on the breast, static weight. I was so desperately wanting to breastfeed that I got myself in a real state about it.

I found advice from professionals completely mixed and contradictory, until I was eventually referred to a breastfeeding specialist midwife who diagnosed tongue tie that others had missed. We got a hospital appointment for it to be cut when she was around 5 weeks old, and in the meantime had improved her latch somewhat with exercises (my memory is a little blurry but I think the video was called Olivia lactation consultant on instagram).

In those 5 weeks I did the whole triple feeding routine of breastfeeding, expressing and formula top ups if needed. It was honestly the most stressful and exhausting thing I have ever done in my life.

Once the tongue tie was cut her latch improved and we went on to breastfeed for 11 months (with some combi feeding when needed so I could go out). I’m really glad I had that experience, but honestly the mental strain I went through at the beginning was intense so I would say do whatever works best for you if the stress of breastfeeding is becoming too much.

I couldn't with first due to complications.
I tried and tried with my second similar to how you have described.
I gave up, I was exhausted, down, snappy. I handed baby to partner at 16 days old and went to bed slept for 14hrs straight. Put baby on the bottle, she gained weight started sleeping and was happily all round. Plus others could feed her, like my mum when she came for 4 hours and sent me to bed for 3 of them. DD is 13 now she is happy and healthy and doesn't seem to catch anymore bugs than the rest of the children we know.

Please don't put pressure on yourself to do this - wet nurses existed for a reason pre formula.
You have tried your best, keeping going if you wish and try some suggestions from PP if you haven't already.
I wish out the best of look and no judgment if you use the bottle.
All baby wants is feeding, they don't care as long ss they get cuddles as well.
Hugs 🤗 and no pressure OP

If it makes you feel better.

Loads of sympathy from here. It is so hard knowing the early days. I am going to second the advice of Tinging about nipple shields. My baby was struggling to feed at first. She would latch beautifully but then just lie there confused doing nothing and fall asleep. She got supplemented with expressed and formula at first. Via a feeding tube in the end as she would not accept formula even cup fed. Then a lovely nurse checked her and found that her suck reflex wasn't fully developed (she was slightly early). So it was too far back in her mouth and she would suddenly start sucking on objects if there moved further back in her mouth. She brought me a nipple shield and baby suddenly fed like a champ. Once she reached about 12 weeks I weaned her off the shields and we continued happily without.

Having said that it really doesn't matter how baby is fed in the long term. If it doesn't work out and is making you miserable, formula is not poison. Whatever happens do not allow anyone to guilt you into thinking you could have tried harder/done something differently. I still vividly remember going to a group with a breastfeeding consultant when DD was a few weeks old and she told me off for using the nipple shields and told me we would never manage to breastfeed for long because they interfere in the natural process. I had a moment of shame for using them, then realised that DD would not have been breastfeeding at all without them and was also briefly very angry with her. She was passing herself off as an expert without asking for the full story and giving false information - nipple shields do not necessarily equal a shorting of the length of time you feed for. In the end DD fed for 4.5 years and I was already donating milk I had so much extra by the time she came out with that crap.

Best of luck to you. You are a great mum and you have got this.

If it's really making you miserable lovely just stop.

There is a lot of pressure to carry on but at the end of the day it is your happiness which will make the baby happy which will make your future happy.

I absolutely hated feeding my second I lasted about five weeks and then went onto Aptamil. He is now 14 the same height as me and absolutely animal healthy!

Promise, there is absolutely no room for guilt in this decision that you make with your child. I fed a lot longer the first time because of pressure and to be honest with you hated every single six months of it.

I used shields for one year with ds and 10months with ds. Good latch isn't needed and you get the convenience of breastfeeding when you need to with less stress. You don't even need to clean them everytime as bmilk is antibacterial! I bought clear medala ones in the yellow case.

I also expressed to maintain supply. Most pumps aren't great and the only one that is the equivalent (apparently) to nursing is a medical grade one that you get in hospital. You can hire them. We used the yellow one from medala.

I also know two mothers who exclusively pumped and bottlefed and never fed direct from the boob.

Finally, topping up or exclusively formula feeding is a perfectly viable option. You and your health are important too.

You have lots of options.

Based on MY experience (not universal, not yours) I’d say STOP. I had the same as you and it drove me mad. I kept going for 2 months before finally giving up and my life improved overnight. Everything about it. Now my baby is 14 months and on mostly solids I cannot believe I worried so much about what type of milk she had. Can’t believe I let it destroy my mental health when it ultimately did not matter.

It’s ok to stop if you want to. Be kind to yourself x

I will be called wimp but the first time I ever tried, I found it incredibly painful and thought : how this can be, it is meant to be natural not painful....

There is little point continuing if it’s making you so unhappy. Formula is amazing - my DC’s had it solely from day one and thrived. Happy and healthy babies = happy parents. Using formula has zero impact on having an amazing bond with your baby.

You’ve done so well to have persevered, I still wince thinking of the letdown feeling, it’s really, really tough. And equally tough to give yourself permission to stop but you really, really can. And your baby will be just as perfect and you will still be just as brilliant and caring a mum as you are now.

OP take the pressure off yourself. Baby won’t go hungry as you have formula. As PP have said, rule out any physical reason and try nipple
shields if you haven’t already. It’s really hard work and I didn’t really get payoff until about 8 weeks in. It hurt and I was sore and wanted to give up, I kept going a day at a time. A good nipple cream helped. DC was always combo fed, and had a bedtime bottle every day so Dad could feed her too. We ended up feeding for just shy of a year.

If you want to carry on, then great, but do stop if you want to. The early days are so tough and you have done amazingly well to get this far, baby won’t care how they are fed. Please don’t worry about your bond either, it will be fine, baby is just trying to figure out how the world works and they get pretty upset about it a lot of the time. That’s no reflection on you ❤️

Nipple shields are a godsend, as are silver nipple cups (to help sore nips).

I expressed using a pump too to take the pressure off feeding now and again, which might help

You are doing incredibly well to persevere, I gave up trying to breastfeed after 48hours or so and I have absolutely no regrets, doesn’t make me a bad mum. You have tried so hard by the sounds of it and I think if you decided now that you can’t carry on trying to breastfeed then you can absolutely say you tried your best. Breastfeeding doesn’t suit every mum or every baby, there’s no shame in that and it’s not worth the stress and anxiety in my opinion, be kind to yourself op.

Thank you for such lovely kind comments, it’s set me off crying again.

I was using nipple shields and then was told by one of the professionals that they might stop her latching well so I stopped. It’s such a minefield!

My husband had a bit of an intervention with me this evening and said that we should make a decision soon because he’s seeing me being broken and wants to make sure that me and the baby are as happy and healthy as possible.

Another one here saved by nipple shields.

I think they’re worth another try. After all, if baby gains weight on them, he gains weight. Stuff the latch - in a couple of months he’ll have more neck strength and a stronger suck and you can try without them. I did this with both mine