EBF baby really bad at drinking from a bottle

[Summersun91]

My baby is 5 weeks old and EBF. We introduced a bottle of expressed milk a day at 2 weeks. But she is really bad at drinking from it. Half of it dribbles out, her latch is shallow, and she screams a lot. But I don’t want to EBF, I want to combi feed (can’t introduce formula right now as I am trialling dairy free but I don’t think she has CMPA so hoping to try formula soon).

I feel trapped with EBF. She is also bad at breast feeding (shallow latch, takes in a lot of air), but she is putting on weight fine I assume this is compensated by my strong supply which just squirts into her mouth.

I’ve been to a private lactation consultant who confirmed a posterior tongue tie (presumably the reason for the shallow latch), but I couldn’t get it snipped as it was surrounded too closely by muscle. They advised going to an osteo to release tension to see if they could get the muscle to move out of the way. I’ve had one session with the osteo so far. I asked the lactation consultant for help with the bottle and she tried a few different positions then said not to bother as she’s terrible at it.

But I’m stressed out - if I can’t get the tongue tie snipped then she’ll never be able to drink from the bottle properly. Or is it something she’ll grow out of and her latch will improve?

I should also add that she cries most of the time she’s awake (partially due to wind she gulps down whilst feeding, don’t know if there are also other reasons ), so there is extra stress for me, and I can’t tell if she doesn’t like the bottle or she’s just screaming anyway.

Does anybody have any similar experiences or advice on how to improve her bottle feeding?

Many thanks

Can you get a referral to a doctor for the tongue tie? If it's causing feeding problems then it will likely cause other problems later too.

Very generic answer, but have you tried some different teats? She might find some easier than others. Lanisoh was always recommended for little ones in my breast feeding group. Does she take a dummy? That might get her better at sucking

Thanks, I asked the midwife and she said I couldn’t get a referral as baby was putting on weight just fine. That’s why I went to a private consultant. However I could try the health visitor and see what they say.

This is a fair question, I actually do need to try this, and I will start with Lansinoh, thanks for the suggestion.

Ive tried a couple of dummies but she just spits them out.

Realistically I'm not sure you will get better advice online than from the lactation consultant who could actually see unless you felt the assessment wasn't thorough. It might end up being a waste of energy and money trying different options which are just further stress at an already stressful time

What positions have you tried bottle feeding in? Elevated side lying can help refluxy babies who are struggling with flow. Are you pacing the bottle feed?

I feel your pain! I was in the same situation
one of the many things I tried was to offer the bottle at the same angle as the boob, rather than lying baby on his back. So lie them on their side and try and get them in the same position - your baby has learnt to drink from a nipple lying on her side, so see if you have any success trying that with a bottle. Good luck!

Mine was too angry to latch for weeks. Nurses fed him from a tiny cup or syringe.

Speech and language (SALT) help with feeding as well and recommend side-lying feeding when there’s issues. This is a good position to feed babies in. I would go back to private consultant to get the tongue tie snipped as well though.

I recommend lansinoh, they worked really well for our combo fed dd. Sound silly but try gently tapping the dummy when it’s in her mouth to encourage her to keep it in. I don’t think most babies naturally love a dummy, some parents just encourage it (us included with both DD’s who weren’t initially dummy girls)

We ended up using a slanted open cup - a doidy cup.

Medela calma teats, baby has to work for it the same as the titty - works fab for expressed milk for my DS

I would keep on the pressure regarding the tongue tie, both my kids had it and I was told with my oldest that she wouldn’t be able to lick an ice cream it was that bad, so god knows how it would have affected her speech. We paid privately for both, but on the NHS if they dont do it before 12 weeks old it would be under general aesthetic, which is maybe what you need with the muscle issue. Definitely get a second opinion, I’m so glad I did with mine and much happier babies afterwards.

Join breastfeeding yummy mummy's on Facebook the ladies there are amazing and may have an alternative they can suggest

Funny, we tried them for months because we fell for the marketing. We gave up after nursery begged us to get some normal teats and we saw how much easier DS found them. Bottles stopped being a fight. They have to suck the Calma ones really hard, much harder than the breast I think. We do use slower flow teats though to not make it too easy.

We found changing the bottle type (and therefore the teat shape) made a massive difference. Tommee tippee didn't work for us at all, mam was fine and nuk were the best.

We also tried different teat size (slow flow, variable flow etc) until we found what worked best

Try different bottles and teats but I have to say, after spending hundreds of £££ on them, mine never drank properly from a bottle either. He also had a slight tongue tie and CMPA and formula for CMPA is terrible (tastes terrible and has a lot of other side effects) and she's unlikely to take it if she has tasted breastmilk.

Psychologically, I felt better once I drew a line under it, accepted EBF was the way to go and there was no other option. I went back to work at 8 months and I made that work between open cups and working from home.