Wanting to help SIL who is expressing and then bottlefeeding

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Hi there! I am an experienced bfeeder, still bfeeding dd at nearly 24 months, but want to help my SIL, who has shifted to expressing and bottlefeeding ds the expressed milk as she had badly bleeding nipples.
How can she best get back to bfeeding directly? I remember my nipples bled a little at first and I experienced some discomfort, mainly as dd was not latching on properly, but not to such an extent. I am not particularly close to SIL, do not have much spare time to visit her, and do not want to preach but to give her all the support I can. I have already given her the LLL helpline number but I am not sure she has phoned it. I was surprised and annoyed when she told me her midwife had advised her to only offer olnly one breast at a time for one feed, and the other for the next without providing any reason.

As experienced bfeeders know, babies should be offered as many feeds from both sides as they wish. SILs own mother has bfed all her dds - her last until she was 2 1/2, and has given her the same advice as I have.

I imagine SIL should take baby to bed and try to feed constantly to establish latching on etc, but I also guess that bottlefeeding him breastmilk will have made him a lazy sucker!

All advice welcome!

I too was only advised to feed one breast at a time by my HV - in restrospect, LOTS of things went wrong for me... another story.

But, I also had REALLY sore, bleeding, scabby, unbel-iiieeevably painful nipples. I just kept going though, got the nipples protectors, tiny bit of relief, but then started just bottle-feeding my DS(2) expressed milk. I think your slight discomfort may be nothing like what she is experiencing. I can say quite definitively, the pain I felt was not discomfort.

But, my reasons for expressing and bottle feeding as well were that it gave me some sense of control. Mine was failing to thrive (whatever that is!), and I was panicking he was getting no milk etc etc... plus with a toddler in the house I just felt 'trapped', unable to do anything for my eldest as all I was doing was sitting there with tears in my eyes (from pain and stress). The expressed bottle milk made the feed faster, less painful, and therefore far less stressful.

I felt like me. Maybe your SIL is not actually enjoying the whole process? She is very lucky to have someone like you to be so supportive helping her. I had noone, and gave up at 6weeks. Stupid really, because by about a month in the pain stopped and all the 'elasticity' of my nipples kicked in... I think the stress of it all had got too much by then, and there were too many people around me just saying "oh, just FF if you're so upset". Again, in restrospect, - with myself.

Definitely, if your SIL has the time, or inclination, going to bed for 24hrs with the baby will help. But, I would suggest checking to see how she is feeling generally.

My mind was strong enough to get through the pain, and it being my second (BF til4mths with DS1) I knew the pain would go away eventually), but I think I stopped BFing because of stresses from everything else. The pain was a bit of an excuse to hide all that.

Having said that, when I stopped BF, and switched to FF, my mood changed instantly. I really think it helped for me, stopped baby blues turning into PND. Had I had the right support BF-wise, like you are for your SIL, maybe that would have had the same effect.

But yeah, how is she generally feeling about the whole thing?

biological nurturing and this video for self latching. it takes advantage of a baby's innate reflexes to get them to latch.

this article is also well hidden on the first site.