breastfeeding getting worse again

[bakedpotato]

things seemed to be getting better, i was weaning myself off the nipple shields (old thread) and feeling OK about stuff.
the last few days i've started struggling once more. it hurts, can't work out what's gone wrong, but i'm using the shields/lanisoh more again -- will try to get hold of BFC again on monday.
the shield use is making me worry incessantly about my supply. i'm expressing in the evening (so DH can give a bottle of EBM while I get a bit more sleep: last night i got 3 oz quite easily) and 2ce in the morning, which isn't so productive (2 oz first thing, then 1 more oz after mid-morning feed). i'd have expected to get more in the morning.
DS looks better and seems to be growing slowly according to MW, though i still haven't encountered the HV's scales. but he isn't pooing that often, once every 2 days, which doesn't seem right. wet nappies seem normal though. he was unsettled yesterday but seems a bit better today.
i'm feeling so low. lots of weeping this weekend. why is this so hard. half of me longs to stop b/f so i can stop crying and feeling rubbish and just enjoy being with poor DD again. why am i putting us all through this. of course b/f is best, but it's taking such a toll. feel so useless.
DS will be 3 wks on tues.

bp, it is easy for me to say, but your ds is not yet 3 weeks old - I'm sure in a few weeks you will be able to phone/read/eat whatever while you are feeding him and it will be much easier. And the same with feeding in public - it is still early days, even though it seems to have been going on for ever. It will get easier I'm sure.

imo weekends are tough because you the rest of the family are there needing your attention too (or at least you feel that is the case), and you feel that you can't give it. The time with dh also seems to go fast before he is back at work and you are on your own (sorry that sounds very depressing - sunday night blues here!).

oh pollyanna, hugs re the sunday night blues. my poor DH gets it in the neck at weekends. i'm such a ratbag, i'm so jealous of him and the time he's spending with DD. but your situation must be far more fraught and complex. i hope your new arrival this week takes the edge off.
bundle: one side is fractionallyworse. but neither side is comfortable. there's a snaggy sharp pain when feeding (thin metal clamp around very base of nipple, that's what it feels like) and i can see signs of 'nipple trauma' on both again. i must have slid back into a bad habit. but even for that week and a half when feeding was OK, it was never better than bearable.
pollyanna, the thing is, with DD it never did get much easier. i think that's why i'm feeling it's crunchtime now. i just went on and on, plugging away dismally, because it was MY JOB while on mat leave. well now i have another job too, being DD's mother. i don't want to f*ck up both.
i don't know how feasiblemixed-feeding is from early on but in comparison to bf, experssing/sterilsing is a breeze, i almost LOVE doing it.

i used to try and feed with the better side first, it's supposed to help with the letdown in the "bad" one, because with pain you get into a vicious circle of pain, tension, no letdown, baby sensing it etc and more pain, feeling bad about it all
will find that book for you, it helped me a lot (think it's under dd2's cot)

bundle, still not sure what you are asking, unless confirmation that latch can look ok from the outside and yet be poor on the inside....yes indeed, trauma is caused when the tongue compresses the nipple aganst the hard palate, which is why it is so maddening to hear of HPs looking at a latch and saying 'hm, looks good to me' when they have not watched the baby take the breast, watched for milk transfer, and looked at what the nipple appears like when it is removed from the mouth. They need to watch a whole feed, and they need to listen to what the mother is telling them about the pain.

BP - it really is early days....to be pinned to the sofa is not abnormal and it is temporary. Get the phone and the remote within your reach as you feed, and also have a book/duplo/something for your toddler as well....it can feel like salami-slicing yourself so everyone gets a bit of you, but this passes.

Just to explain pollyanna - no need to worry about poos if the baby is gaining well and everything else is just fine. Usual pattern for babies is to poo several times a day for the first four to six weeks and then after that, it's much more variable.

my bfc is away for a week
i rang her before hv
now stuck for ideas

Message withdrawn

BP - there are hundreds of bfcs Try one of the 4 - yes, four! - helplines....NCT's is 0870 444 8708 but there are also LLL, ABM and BfN - BfN's supporterline is 0870 900 8787, sorry the other 2 not to hand.

Bp - really sorry to hear things are grim for you again. It's very very early days still - but you should definitely shout for help on one of Tiktok's numbers given your BFC is away. My top resolution for this baby (due in 2 weeks) is that I will ask for help sooner, rather than spending days weeping over the offspring due to painful feeds if I hit trouble again. And I so remember the despair of thinking that everyone else could feed whilst out and about, or whilst chatting on the phone, when I was stuck at home in agony, with my cushions piled high and baby perched on top. It's not unusual to find feeding hard - but also no reason to have to put up with it.

Just wanted to send you best wishes really.

BP - sorry to hear you are having such a grim time.My dd2 is now 5 weeks old and bfing is just starting to settle down properly - still get latch-on pain but they quickly ease off. I have suffered with a cracked nipple and found that it really helped not to feed at all from that side for 24 hours, just massage the boob to help avoid blocked ducts etc. Seemed to give wounds enough time to heal up so that it was much less painful when we tried that side again the next day. No problems created with supply by doing this, but don't know if it is really recommended - mastitis? Couldn't have carried on as I was though - it was AGONY!!
Hope you feel better soon.

bakedpotato, hello. This takes me back. DD is now 9 months and still bf like mad, but we had a really painful start that went on for ages. My discoveries at that time were:

it heals so fast. How frequently does ds feed? Even three hours between feeds can work a lot of good. There will be some miracle healing sessions and things will improve... then damnably bad ones which chop it all up again. Expressing will extend the healing times, so a vote here for that.

their little mouthe are growing all the time. I always thought it was sorer because it is such a huge force on such a tiny area. Growing makes that force spread more bearably.

I found changing positions to a ridiculous degree worked... upside down, back to front... it took mastitis to give me the impetus to try as I had no energy for acrobatics, but it did work. Makes sense that the force should be differently distributed each time.

If you have a feeling that bottle feeding is not for you, then you will feel not exactly that the pain is worth it, but at least that there is something good that's worth striving for at the other side of the pain. Bf'ing a baby who's old enough to consider it a part of her normal life is a very important reward for me now, quite different from the pressure of getting those early feeds sussed. Hope things improve for you. xxx

A proper feeding cushion really helped with our positioning too ... like you, the evil in the latch was not visible to the casual observer!

MW came. i told her the truth. thankfully she has given me dispensation to express and give EBM in a bottle. as she said, breastfeeding is all about bonding, closeness, comfort, and if you're not getting any of that, then you shouldn't beat yourself up. from my struggles with DD i know that it didn't really get much easier for me, and that it also affected the way i felt about her as a tiny baby so in a way i am in a better sitaiton now.
i've just expressed a good quantity quite quickly for his next feed.i feel so relieved. maybe i won't manage to exclusively give him ebm, but at least i won't be sobbing 24-7.
i have tried feeding pillows, the works... really, i've tried. i'n not going to reproach myself.
if i keep the expressing going and it works then if i have a change of heart, i can try again later. but i'm not going to pressurise myself on that front.
thanks for all your kind words, sorry if i've let any of you down

oh and pollyanna, MW said not to worry about infrequent pooing at this stage. she says some babies really can go 5 days, not to worry unless they're not gaining (as tiktok says)

Hope things start to feel better for you v. soon, BP....your midwife sounds v. good

Glad you have come to a decision BP that will make you happy. Now you can enjoy your baby more which is where the real bonding takes place afterall.

Sweetie, you've let NOBODY down. Never think that, not for a moment.

Sorry you are having such a hard time BP. Please do not worry about letting people down - the only prople you need to be concerned about are your family. I feel sad for you that you are still having this pain. Has DS been checked for tongue-tie by the way?
Does the shield help? You do not need to worry about your supply because you are getting loads expressing and that in itself is stimulation. Why not return to feeding with shells if it is painless and give EBM from bottle as well.
You sound as though you need a bit of relief and perhaps expressing alone will give your nipples time to totally heal. As you say, if you feel like trying again you can do.
The poos are perfectly normal at this stage. Breastfed babies can go for a good number of days before their bum explodes into their nappy
Do whatever you need to do to maintain your sanity BP. We all just want to see you happy whatever you choose to do.

hello mears, MI, thanks for checkingup on me. the awful thing is that even feeding with the shields had become painful. i have no idea why but no energy to keep chasing after answers: i may get that energy in time, who knows. (i may try feeding with shields in the night, possibly, if i feel up to it,it did hurt last night. no one has checked for tongue tie, what is it?)

anyway, today i've expressed quickly before every feed, and got 3oz each time, which is right for his weight. it's all been so much easier, of course i mean that in a relative way, of course it would be easier to just stick the boob in his direction, but YKWIM. he's been pretty happy all day, as happy as a 3-wk-old can be, napping very deeply, alert at other times. he's a bit whingy now but he always is at this time of day.

i've managed to get out for a walk (haven't felt up to this for about 7 days) with my mum. i do feel better. we'll see. at least i haven't cut off any avenues. it could be that this solution works for us though.

BP, don't know if you can afford one, or even if they're any good - but would a proper nursing chair help you?

I wish I'd got one as my sofa leans back and I have a real faff sorting cushions out etc and getting comfy.

I'm soooo sorry you're having all this pain and hassle. I really admire you for keeping going; I'm not sure I would be so strong.

and congratulations by the way...

Hi BP - don't worry about letting any of us down! I just hope we've been some mental/emotional support for you, even if what we are saying sometimes misses the mark for your situation. Anyway, I'm just encouraged to hear that you are still expressing - I think you've been very determined so far...

Good on you, BP. You're having a horrible time, but you have a plan, and it sounds like a good one. Hope it does the trick.

No-one here going to be "let down" whatever you do (I'm sure you know this really, don't want to sound patronising). You are the one on the spot, therefore the one best placed to decide.

As I said on your other thread, I've been through similar, so am beaming Good Thoughts over your way, especially Bountiful Expressing thoughts, also Anti-Toe Curling Latch ones (in case you're bfeeding tonight).

BP, had almost exactly the same experience. Can't give much advice except to say that I did express until ds was 13 months even though I gave up on bfing. sometimes I regret not being able to carry on longer but then I try to remember that I did the best I could. I'm certainly not saying that you should express as long as I did (unless you want to) just that it is possible. If I had read some of the books, etc. that I read later saying that you could not exclusively express for that long I would have given up long before I did actually stop. Good luck with whatever you decide.

Tongue tie is when the little bit of flesh under the tongue is too tight. My DS2 has it, but not so badly that it affects his nursing. You feel a tight little string under his tongue, far too close to the lower jaw.

If you do a websearch, there are loads of links, Here is one.

It can affect nursing, and later, speech. Fixing it is very simple.

thanks for these sweet messages. will get HV to check for tongue tie today. jabberwocky, wow, well done for getting to 13 mths, now that is heroic. i'd love to know how you planned your day re expressing at this early stage, but you probably can't remember. is there an encouraging book on the subject you can recommend?

on the upside, i used the shields for 3am feed and 7am feed, because i couldn't face the alternatives at those times, and it was ok. presumably trauma is starting to heal again. but i did feel as if a weight had been lifted off me yesterday, i might stick to expressing if i can during daylight hours.

another thing that's bothering me about ebm in bottles is that i can tell DS misses the sucking . he took ages to settle at 7, when usually he goes down pretty heavily. he drains the bottles so quickly, even tho i'm using the slow-flow teats and making sure the ring isn't screwed on too loosely. any tips for making it a more relaxing/enjoyable experience for him? maybe i should keep that as a shielded-breastfeed, though that means i'm not around so much for poor DD at bedtime.