feel such a bloody failure.

[ruty]

I haven't felt this low in a long time. Baby started breastfeeding so beautifully in hospital, everything went so well for first week, then as some of you might know she started to get very sleepy and midwife suggested we go to doc. He suggested i feed her expressed milk in a bottle every 3 hours to check she was getting enough, so out came the express machine. then gradually she seemed to show a preference for the bottle, over a period of about 2 weeks, and her willingness to go to the breast got less. I've posted here before, and I've rung LLL counsellor twice - first time got a nice lady but didn;t really know what to suggest except lots of skin to skin, second time got quite a bored lady who didn't really know what to suggest. Tried breastfeeding network endlessly and no reply. Tried a breastfeeding bus, nice lady, said she was confused by my baby, my latch ok but she just didn't want to latch on. Breastfeeding clinic at local hospital closed for 3 weeks.

I feel totally alone. Baby just now cried for half an hour, fighting me at the breast, after feeding at 6pm for 4 mins on the breast. I just gave her a bottle of expressed milk which she glugged down. I have cried so much today, i feel so rejected by her and miss the breastfeeding so much. I breastfed my son for nearly 3 years and my baby is 6 weeks and she won't breastfeed.
Don't know if anyone can help, but please if you have any ideas, please let me know.

oh i can't offer any words of wisdom but wanted to post to give you a virtual hug (and i don't do those) and say i hope things get better x

I don't have any clever ideas, but didn't want you to slip down the radar, so bump, and I hope someone has a good suggestion soon.

I don't know how to help but I understand you must be missing the bf'ing experience desperately.

Your lo is not regecting you, she has got used to a certain way of feeding, she doesn't know it's not you.

OK, another bump to keep you afloat until the reinforcements arrive - help will be coming!

I'm not an expert, have no qualifications or anything but some thoughts include:
Is it possible that she likes the easiness of bottle feeding? Thrush? Tongue tie? Would it be worth considering cranial osteopathy in case she has jaw/neck pain from birth?

Keep posting, it's just a question of the right people finding this thread

Meant to add - you're not a failure!

i think it is a simple case of nipple confusion - but how to correct it is not so simple. She just seems to prefer the bottle now. What breaks my heart is she started to breastfeed so beautifully at start - latched on within half an hour of birth and brought the milk in really quickly. I wonder if the midwife over reacted when she sent us to the doc because of sleepiness but then this baby does have periods of very long, deep sleep when she impossible to rouse for quite a few hours and i don;t know why. She also has wakey happy periods but today and yesterday were very sleepy days so not interested in the breast at all. Just don't know what to do.

Awww ruty. I'm so sorry. I know what you mean by the feeling of rejection. They can prefer the bottle because they get more sometimes for less effort.

Can you try ditching the bottle altogether. She'll get hungry enough and start to bf again.

So she's six weeks? These are early days. Easy to say, I know, but the last thing you want is stress around feeding time.

Can you lie down with her, try to get really relaxed and offer her the breast? She'll take it if she gets really hungry and you simply don#t offer the bottle alternative.

I really feel for you. Tiktok might have some good advice.

Wishing you love and luck ruty. x

oh you poor thing, i do remember feeling similarly rejected, it was AWFUL. of course i took it all massively personally, regardless of the fact that i knew it wasn't really. but it HURTS to have your baby claw at you and then see her settle on a bottle.

and of course my story doesn't end well, unfortunately, because i never really managed to get things back on track. i had a poxy supply, though.

what i do regret (and i offer this not as advice because i don't know) is that i gave dd all of my expressed milk. i sometimes wonder if i'd given her some, to take the edge off her appetite, and then started bfing again when she was in a less ravenous frame of mind, whether she might have been more amenable. as it was, the docs were all about giving her as much as possible, including top-ups, so i never got to test that thinking really. dd also did that sleeping forever thing, it's pretty scary isn't it?

i hope you get the help you need, i cna't be of any use but you have my empathy and sympathy by the bucketload. good luck.

You need advice from a counsellor who's helped someone through this before, I think. I am sure you can get help from someone on here, but I would also suggest you email the BF support groups. I did this when I had some problems and I am sure it would be easy for counsellors to pass your details to the person with the most relevant experience if you contacted them by email.

have you emailed hunker's blog? www.howbreastfeedingworks.com it is. she was around earlier but came in for some light shelling so has maybe ret'd for the evening.

Hi ruty. New on here but read your message and it resonated with me from a couple of months ago. My daughter also got on really well with breastfeeding at first. However I had a very difficult and traumatic labour, and she was demanding food constantly - much more frequently than midwives/health visitor expected, altho I know breastfed babies feed more often. Her weight gain was fine, but I became very tired with the feeding and was also diagnosed with PND (connected with some other issues). Anyhoo, at six weeks I was at my wits' end and offered bottle of formula one night after no sleep. For a while combination feeding seemed to work but then she started to show clear preference for bottle and breastfeeds became a real battle similar to what you describe. I felt truly terrible about offering formula and cried for days about her rejection of the breast, but felt like it was a choice between that and my sanity - had become so low that was beginning to resent baby, altho I loved the closeness of breastfeeding. Was really worried that my daughter wouldn't get as good nutrition and start in life, and thought I was an awful mum and that others would judge. Needless to say, things have got lots better. My daughter's now exclusively formula-fed, which I know you don't want, but after a while I started although I wanted to breastfeed, she didn't! And I reckon happy baby is always the most important thing. I know it's a slightly different set of circumstances to yours but wanted to show my support. Hugs x

Thanks everyone.
Spidermama I tried to leave it today until she got really hungry, she had a small amount in a bottle at 2pm, and was crying [though up to that point in a deep sleep all afternoon] and at 6pm she breastfed for 4 mins and promptly fell asleep. then she started crying at 8.30pm and i tried to latch her on whilst she got more and more upset until she was almost choking with screaming. And i gave in with the bottle because she was so upset and traumatised. Wonder how long i could leave her to get hungry before she really would take the breast? Oddly enough she always has a 5 mins breastfeed at around 6am, this is the only one i can rely on at this point.

Aitch,so sorry about your experience. I have tried the feeding her a bit then offering the breast. She gets agitated and wants the bottle again. I'll try it again though.

IARCFB, i could try emailing, just feel a bit let down by the breastfeeding agencies at present. The galling thing is that the breastfeeding clinic at my hospital has a brilliant reputation, and i know they are great, and of course they are closed for 3 bloody weeks.

I'm going to look at those links now Turniphead, thankyou so much. will email hunkers blog too Aitch.
Glad things are better for you Madge now. Couldn't bear to stop breastfeeding now tho, but can understand why it worked out for you.

I can understand how disappointing it is when you ask for help and don't get it, but the BF support agencies are run by volunteers who work in their own time mostly, and they can be really busy, so please don't give up.

Midge i mean..

Should add that I'm not saying you should give up - as others have said it is early days and there is probably a way to get things back on track - hopefully any experts out there can help. Just wanted to add my post to say that even if things don't work out the way you'd hoped, although it feels awful, there is light at the end of the tunnel x

thanks Midge.
Turniphead, do you know Geraldine is really good? I think i will call her tomorrow.

have emailed hunks the link to this thread, but don't know if she's online tonight, ruty. thanks for the sympathy, btw, and yes it is a big, big thing, but i'd also agree with midge that it can't be the be all and end all. it's one thing in a long list of parenting stuff, and i have made my peace with it more or less. but i'll try like buggery the next time, lol. give it your best shot.

SOrry to hear you're having a hard time ruty, its a shame your GP suggested giving a bottle, regular feeds at the breast woudl have made mroe sense .
I don't know much about what you are experiencing but have you tried having lots of skin to skin with your DD? Having a bath with her and co-sleeping snuggled up together? These are all good ways of giving breastfeeding a boost, think its hormones related.
Also feeding at night is often easier when your DD will be sleepy and might fight less at the breast, I had some problems with fast let down early on and found the night feeds much calmer and easier.
Agree that kellymom is a great placed to look for advice and info, and LLL as well.

SOrry to hear you're having a hard time ruty, its a shame your GP suggested giving a bottle, regular feeds at the breast woudl have made mroe sense .
I don't know much about what you are experiencing but have you tried having lots of skin to skin with your DD? Having a bath with her and co-sleeping snuggled up together? These are all good ways of giving breastfeeding a boost, think its hormones related.
Also feeding at night is often easier when your DD will be sleepy and might fight less at the breast, I had some problems with fast let down early on and found the night feeds much calmer and easier.
Agree that kellymom is a great placed to look for advice and info, and LLL as well.

Turniphead i'm going to call Geraldine first thing in the morning. thankyou.
Thanks aitch for emailing hunker, i also emailed her website. It is a bugger about the sleepiness issue - did you ever get to the bottom of it?
Will try a bath now pannacotta. Dh home for a week now to look after ds because of all this so i will have more time for baby, if it is not too late. i wish i hadn;t listened to the doctor now and at least tried a syringe or a cup.

no, i had an epidural though so i've always wondered about that. and i have high bp so was on tabs for that (and it's the reason i had the epi cos otherwise am HARD-CORE ) and, well, beta-blockers make me sluggish so...

who knows? like you i wish i hadn't got into the docs way of thinking about amounts so early... but when they don't wake up, it is a HUGE worry, so i know why i did it.