6 month old STILL struggles to breastfeed.

[JustMePlus3]

I emphasise the still because this has been a consistent problem since birth, nothing new. Every feed while she’s awake is a battle, she latches on and off, cries, arches her back, rolls on and off the boob, she will only feed in side laying position while doing all the above things, any other position and she will scream and refuse completely,

we’ve done elimination diets, no caffeine, no soy, no milk, no wheat, no gassy foods, the job lot and it made no difference.
shes on liquid omeprazole for reflux, hasn’t made a difference.
all the burping and gas elimating things we can think off, no success.

im just at a total loss on what to do now, im not even looking for advice at this point because everything people have suggested we’ve tried and nothing helps, im just wondering if anyone else has been through the same, and if so did it get better or am i wasting my sanity on this? I wanted to nurse her into toddlerhood but i dont think she’s going to want to 💔 it just seems to cause her so much discomfort.

im ordering a electric pump next week and going to try introducing some bottles to try save my sanity but even that breaks my heart to do, i just want to nurse my baby without her getting upset I don’t understand why something so natural just isn’t working even after all this time 😢

we’ve been to see a paediatrician the only response you get is ‘colic’ but at 6 months I’d of expected to see at least some improvement and just nothing, absolutely nothing, we’re in the same position we was months ago I just don’t know what’s going on 😣

Did you get properly checked for tongue tie? It sounds like you’ve tried everything but you haven’t mentioned this in OP

I'm sorry you're having such a hard time. I couldn't bf mine at all so at least you've got to 6 months. Gently, would it not be better to introduce bottles and see if she does better on those. Surely her happily taking a bottle is more important than your wish to bf? I don't mean that nastily, I just think you've probably put so much importance on it in your head that it's clouding your view a bit. Hopefully someone better placed comes along with some advice. Hope you find a solution

@Whiteflowerscreedwe’ve mentioned tongue to the doctors and paediatrician but because her weights fine there not interested, they didn’t even bother looking and said it’s not something they really do anything about and even if I push for a second opinion it will take me months to be seen, took us five months after two referrals to see them the first time around 🤦🏻‍♀️ and not in a position to go private

@Devilsmommyiv thought this many times that I should just make the switch but truth be told I don’t know how, and iv just hoped and prayed that at some point things would just click but they haven’t 😞 that on top of the fact she won’t take a bottle, ordered some new ones to try her with for next week (nuk perfect match ones) as there meant to be closest to the nipple, but when we’ve tried her with bottles when she was younger to see if it helped we actually found she didn’t react much differently to how she did on the breast so it was another reason I thought I should perserver as the outcome was no different, yet to try her again as of recently though

Have you started solids yet?
How does she react to them?
Are you offering water in a cup with each meal? Perhaps try milk in a cup in the same way?

@Seeline yes we started a couple of weeks ago under advise from the paediatrician and dietitian as they said they thought it could help, so far no difference, started well but she has now came up with a slight rash on her face so just trying to figure out what’s caused that, we offer water in a sippy cup, and also tried a bottle but she’s just pushing it away so just persevering until she gets it

I second pp that a tongue tie assessment would be worthwhile, have you had any input from an infant feeding specialist/lactation consultant?

My 2nd had a posterior tongue tie and high palate which meant she struggled to hold a latch even after the tongue tie was snipped. I used to have to hold my breast and push it upwards so she could stay latched. We are still BF now (and don't have to hold my breast like that anymore) and she's over 2.

@Where2GoNextlactation consultant yes, infant feeding specialist no, truth be told the lactation consultant wasn’t very helpful, I asked her to come round months ago due to her ‘clicking’ when she fed, we went through lots of different positions with no success to stop the clicking and basically that was it, she sort of just gave up 🥴 so I currently have to do what you just mentioned, holding my breast and pushing it into her mouth and holding it, thing is I only have to do this while she’s awake, when she’s asleep she latches just fine for the most part and feeds much better, so I’m baffled, how would I go about getting someone to check her for tongue tie? As like I mentioned above it took 5 months to get to see the paediatrician in the first place and I don’t want to be waiting that long again and she’d be nearly 1 by then 😳

I would look privately, I'm NE so Milk Matters is within a couple of hours of me but there'll be others round the country. I managed to get my daughter's looked at by the hospital infant feeding team when she was 8 weeks, but that was through maternity services and not paediatrics. I'd say the vast majority of paeds are not trained in tongue tie/oral function. It's a shame the lactation consultant wasn't helpful. I would have thought she would be able to assess oral function, the one I saw with my eldest was able to do this.

@Where2GoNextthank you, il look into it, was gonna splash out some money on a decent pump and the feeding accessories for out and about ect next week so I may put the money into getting it assessed for her first and see if that gets me anywhere 🤞

I will say though, I have just looked under her tongue myself and it doesn’t seem like she is at all tongue tied

Clicking can be indicative of tongue tie. As can straining her whole body while drinking. Drinking with a tongue tie takes a lot of strength... for us it was also the cause of reflux as she took in too much air while drinking. The reflux hurt, she drank more, took in more air...

Can she actually stick her tongue out?
You can also have a combination of tongue tie and lip band tie.
Does she ball her hands into fists when drinking?

You need to find a lactation consultant (IBCLC) who specialises in tongue ties...

@StarsandStonesim gonna give the health visitor a ring tomorrow and see if she can point me in the direction of someone who can help, i see her tongue lift up but I can’t seem to encourage her to bring it past her lips, my best bets obviously going to get someone professional to assess it and at this point we’ve eliminated everything else so I may as well find out for sure before I make the switch to expressing & bottles

Switch to bottles. What ‘you want’ and what ‘she needs’ are two different matters. You prioritizing the kudos of breastfeeding when she probably just isn’t suited to it is selfish. Not all babies take to it, some for no reason at all.

And what if the switch to bottles doesn't help?

A baby with tongue or oral issues can also struggle to drink from a bottle, then you're just kicking the problem down the road rather than addressing it.

But you at least try.

@Readytohealnowi can understand why you’ve said that, but some people also throw in the towel to easily, and as a mother of three expressing is going to take up a lot of my time which takes away from the children, so in actual fact I was doing what I believe to be the less-selfish option and trying to give my baby the best start possible, I’m not against bottle or formula feeding, my other daughter had no choice but to be bottle fed due to failure to thrive and I was more than happy with that, but iv been advised over and over again that this was a phase and it would pass, and done everything possible to try fix the problem before making the switch, as iv mentioned above I am now investing in pumping/expressing equipment to see if this makes things easier for her. Just because I didn’t throw in the towel at the first hurdle does now make me selfish, it makes me resilient, but thanks anyway 😊

@Readytohealnow and as also mentioned above, we have tried bottles in the past with the same outcome, so switching to bottles is not always the better option.

Also private tongue tie practitioners can be quite flexible in cost if you ask. I do ‘pay what you can’ slots so families can access the service regardless of income. There might also be a specialist health visitor eho can assess.

You can get the tongue tie checked out and dealt with by a private midwife. It cost us £200 (Midlands) and she assessed and performed the procedure in our home literally days after we contacted her. Our son essentially had a 100% tongue tie and was hardly feeding, but the NHS weren't interested in bumping him up the list and I wasn't prepared to wait 6 weeks when we could afford to sort it ourselves. Better to rule it out sooner than later as it doesn't hurt when they're small but does when they are older.

This does sound like a TT to me, the problem with tongue ties is it isn’t just about early instant feeding the tongue is so important for eating food and talking.

Sorry that was meant to say infant not instant! Yes even if baby is bottle fed it can be issue

I going to contact the health visitor tomorrow as see if she can help with getting it assessed, I’m investing in pumping equipment next week and taking the children on holiday for a week so our disposal funds are spoken for this month but come the end of June if the health advisor hasn’t been able to help it looks like the best option would be to go private and have it looked at, someone mentioned above they paid £200 which is a lot less than I expected it to be so it’s a decent investment for piece of mind that we tried everything we could before making the switch.

I think you are wise to continue to see what can be done. Tongue tie can (note can..) affect teeth position, jaw development, digestion and be linked to recurrent head aches.

A cranial osteopath might also be able to help. .. the Children's Centre in London offer low cost and sometimes free treatment.

https://www.occ-fpo.org.uk/treatment-costs/