2 day old baby takes one breast for at least half hour at a time!

[expatinscotland]

latch looks good from teh outside.

but he NEVER comes off on his own.

is windy as hell, too.

passing stools well and colour is good, plenty of wet nappies.

he often gets very hungry and shakes his head trying to get on, so i wind up swaddling him to try to calm him.

has a preference for one breast.

widgey pillow helps positioning a lot.

what's going wrong? his sister was a dream to feed!

rubbing cheek helps keep them awake, but generally a baby regulates how much they need/want...

Have you tried rubbing tummy in clockwise motions (under belly button). Can help wind...

he would love it if he could just stayed attached 24/7 .

poor wee soul, coming from a place where yhings were perfect.

Boys, what are they like? Congratulations.

I know wee souls come from a place where they never felt hungry or cold or wet, thrust into a world where they have to master this breastfeeding malarky nevermind everything else thats going on around them. It is reckoned that human babies should really have another 3 months gestation but our heads are too big now.

anyone fancy giving birth to a 3 month 17lber?

expat DD2 was 9lbs 3ozs and a complete milk monster, she would have sucked 24/7 if I had let her, they do calm down remember in about 3 weeks you will be saying oh what a doddle

Sorry to hear things are hard work

Some of the symptoms you have sound similar to feeding my DD - she had a very slight tongue tie which eased with age (within a couple of weeks) and now feeding is much easier.

Have you looked at his tongue? Can you see where it is tied? Can he poke it out past his lips? Is the end slightly heart shaped?

I may be way out here but this was what my DD was like (and feeding my DS had previously been fine)

xx

i went to lie down for a couple of hours.

i have been up ALL NIGHT for three nights in a row!

DH had him.

he has cried nonstop and sucked DH's finger.

i cannot get him on at all.

if you take your finger out, he just cries.

there is NO ONE to help me at all out here.

DH is just washing some dishes and he's going to sterilise some of DD2's old bottles in Milton's whilst he does that and i'm going to have to feed this baby some formula - ordered a steriliser and bottles but they won't be here till tomorrow.

this poor baby won't sleep and we just don't know what to do anymore at all.

just don't.

i can't see where this is going to work because there is no RL support out here - no clinics, nothing and certainly not at this time of evening/night.

it's not the best solution for Struan, but we just don't know what to do.

my boobs are like rocks they are so hard, too.

Sorry to hear this, Expat

Must be horrible to feel so isolated

Re the rock-hard boobs thing... could you hand-express a little off to try and relieve some of the discomfort? That might make it easier for him to latch (if you were wanting to try another feed in the short-term)

Poor you and congrats too of course...

It might be that he is struggling to get let down which can happen when your milk first comes in and your breasts feel a bit hard. You could express just a little to make you feel more comfortable.
Keep offering him the breast and it will get easier.
Also I found with DS2 when he was born that I forgot how tiny he was and wasnt holding him high up enough infront of me and he couldnt latch properly, so he screamed all the time for the first few days until a helpful MW saw him feed, coudl this be the same for you?

expat, my ds was like this. He cried unless he was latched on for the first 12 weeks. never came off by himself, never had the milk drunk look.

How would it work if you lay skin to skin in bed together? If you lie very close, he may be able to latch on and fall off by himself so you can get some rest.

Hello Expat,

Cngratulations on the birth of Struan, it sunds like you're having a difficult time with the BFing.
It might help to talk to a BF Counseller, even if you can't 'see'one IYKWIM.

With the boob hardness, can you express/hand express to relieve the pressure?

OK - your boobs are probably too full for him to latch onto. This happened to me, DD was exactly the same way.

I called the MW at 11pm and she told me to hand express from both sides.

You get in a warm bath now. Try to relax and get DH to take Struan so you can't hear him too much. Take a nipple and pull/stoke firmly until it starts coming out and keep going for a few minutes. Do this on both sides, swap between the 2 until they start to feel a little softer and less solid!

Then go back to the wee man and get comfortable, stick a good comedy on the TV and try and latch him on. Have chocolate and the remote nearby. FWIW DD still feeds now at over 2yrs and NEVER fed in a standard position. We always used a pillow and always on her back, she hated the standard hold and the rugby position. I have huge boobs too

Will be back later Hope you are OK.

mawbroon good idea re skin to skin.

expat you could also try feeding him in the bath (I found feeding lying down a bit tricky in the first few weeks).

Either way splenty of skin to skin is a great way for you to relax/rest a bit and for your DS to snuggle into you.

sorry, all, DH has been out driving DS around whilst i was washing and sterilising the bottles in Milton's tablets.

i have tried to hand express and nothing is coming out.

water is boiled for formula.

'expat, my ds was like this. He cried unless he was latched on for the first 12 weeks. never came off by himself, never had the milk drunk look.

How would it work if you lay skin to skin in bed together? If you lie very close, he may be able to latch on and fall off by himself so you can get some rest. '

mawbroon, you are impressive! hats off!

but i could never ever survive that. i have two other young children, one has dyspraxia, and i've neglected them both as was so ill whilst pregnant.

DS hasn't slept and is just exhausted.

but being out here and with his being so big, i'm starting to realise that formula is probably the way forward.

he's SO hungry and there's no help for BF support out here but the midwives who can't come out and i can't get to them outside of daytime hours.

i'll get over this asap because things are just going to get worse.

i have some hot packs for my boobs because they are painful so i'm going to get those ready and finish preparing the bottles.

all he does when i snuggle him to my skin is howl and cry and root and i can't handle it.

i just sit there crying.

it's not going to work for us, we need too much help that isn't there and so i just need to move on.

c'est la vie!

Expat I really sympathise. My first days with ds were exactly as you describe, he was never off the boob and I felt terrible for my dd as I really felt I had neglected her and been no fun throughout pregnancy as I had such bad SPD. But 3 or 4 days after he was born my milk came in and it really made such a huge difference. I know that hanging on for 2 days seems like forever but (sorry haven't read whole thread) I presume your milk isn't in yet so expressing won't do anything. It will still be possible to bf if you want to. I gave ds formula at night for the first 2 or 3 nights on the advice of the midwife (much to the horror of everyone here) as he was just so hungry and not satisfied with puny ammounts of colostrum.

thanks, ll!

it's like how it was with DD1 all over again, but see, i'd given up after 1 day in hospital with her - horrible delivery.

they're still not back yet. i think he's driving because it's the only thing that puts DS to sleep.

he will not sleep for more than a minute or two if he's not on and tbh i don't have that kind of strength to keep up with that.

i just don't.

i've got the hot packs on but i have ordered formula.

Expat it must be a boy thing
I think priority for you should be rest tbh, and if he is as bad as that you clearly aren't going to be getting any! From experience with ds (and it seems an absolute age ago though it was really only a bit less than 5 months) I would say that he's just hungry, birth must really take it out of them as well as us! I know that ds screamed literally all night his first night home and I was a wreck. I dreaded feeds because they hurt and seemed neverending. He is still very much enamoured of my ample bosom but I couldn't have managed without formula for those few days. I really think it would have tipped me over the edge- I knew he was hungry and it just seemed silly not to let him have somehting that would fill him up. Hopefully they'll come back all sleepy for you And in case you do consider continuing but think, well, ll is up at midnight so clearly the feeds never end, I am a terrible insomniac- ds has been asleep for hours

thank you for sharing, ll!

your post helps loads.

we did so well today, finally he fell off the boob on his own.

then i fed him about 8 and just had to sleep afterwards for an hour or so.

my stomach muscles are SHOT to hell (having physio) so my back is in agony, my blood pressure has not shifted under 180/90 and i've got stitches down below.

when i woke it was a little after 10 and all i could hear was crying.

he's hungy.

everything's ready so i'll feed him when DH gets back as he needs to go into town to do some errands and be there for 9.30 so he needs to sleep.

hopefully DS will get some rest, too. he needs a nice long stretch. he slept a lot his first day here - well, he arrived at 4.11AM and then slept on and off till around 11PM.

but since then he's only slept in spurts and it can't be good for him.

he weighed 8lbs., 10 oz. today.

Try not to worry expat-sleep deprivation doesn't help with the worrying at all. My boobs went black all the way up to my chest dd was sucking at them so hard-she used to stay on all night and nothing would come out, then about a week afterwards my top was suddenly soaked and my milk came in-the relief was astonishing. Every baby is different and they sleep in spurts sometimes-dd never slept for more than 20 mins until she was past 4 months. It's your first week, please don't worry xxxx

Big boy My ds was 8lb 9 at birth and very quickly gained back his lost weight in less than a week. He is almost 19lb now at 21 weeks so absolutely massive! (I have a snowsuit he has just grown out of if you'd like it btw. Bit colder up there than it is down here I'll bet) You will feel better after a decent sleep. The night after my ds finally stoped crying, and god knows what posessed me, I was feeling pretty good so I went and bought some new clothes, after all that time spent in horrid maternity stuff. 2 days postnatal. What was I thinking??

How did it go over night expat?

milk is in!

DS had two bottles of formula that DH gave him, that he absolutely bolted.

he slept about 2 hours in between them, so he's a lot happier this morning.

about to feed him again just now.

he appears to be happier now there is milk.

oh, his little face is SO cute!

thanks, all.

going to take this one day, one hour at a time.

told myself i'd give this my best shot.

with dd2, she bf'd for 4 months and then i needed to go to work FT and so we decided to wean her as i have PND and extreme sleep-deprivation doesn't work well for me.

these third babies are surprisingly hard to bf expat! It was a nightmare with ds for the first two weeks - I simply couldn't latch him on (having assumed bfing would be easy having two and a half years experience!) and he lost 10% of his birth weight and took more then a week to regain it. It's going quite well now though.

Hope it gets better quickly for you.

regular feeding will help stimulate supply. Dont worry about it being snacking. Feed laying down if it's more comfortable for your back. (Utterly sympathise with that).

Are you trying to express by hand or pump?

and have a look at www.howbreastfeedingworks.com