If you were definitely going to breastfeed when pregnant and didn't (or didn't for very long) once your baby was born

[hunkermunker]

Is there anything that could've been said or done to help you to breastfeed for longer?

oh yes, quidditch, the pain was utterly excrutiating

Pointydog, if I think about it now, I still get a bit of crippling cramp down the side of my abdomen, from shoulder to hip...like glass shards in your back...ahhhhhhh

they wanted to keep me in until I had 'cracked it' with dd1, reizi. But it was just awful being in a ward of about 14, screamign babies, not in my own home, going mental, not having dh there all the time to help. And the midwives just saying 'it must be the position/latch', looking at me as if they had never seen a woman in pain bf before. I was just crying all the time in hospital.

No. I had to go home.

I too couldn't wait to get out of hospital.
I felt totally unsupported with two prem babies next to me in my side room. NO DP, no nurse just me and two howling babies.
It would have been great, though very expensive, to have had someone cme to the house and help with it all.
That said it would have coost less than the gazillions the NHS has had to spend on our allergies!!!

Definitely couldn't wait to get out of hospital. I didn't have a blood transfusion and was really anaemic and weak, and it was so hard to drag myself out of bed, get ds out of the goldfish bowl cot, and try to feed him without waking everyone else. I wanted to get home to my comfy bed with the moses basket next to it and dh for support. The midwives in hospital were mainly really nice, but I cried constantly and just wanted to be in familiar surroundings.

sorry hunker - my post should more accurately be here as I did mixed feed for about 6 weeks.. would also add that had fairly stressful preganncy , ventouse/episotomy and ended up staying in hospital for 2 days with m/w shoving dd on to latch (which she didn't unsurprisngly)...

yes. someone could have diagnosed ds1's tongue tie instead of keep saying "well, he's latching on ok..."

hmm yes, so how come my nipples are torn to shreds then??
actually, i did last out til about 4 months, so I guess maybe that's longer than you mean, but I wanted to bf for at least a year so it was pretty devastating for me.
esp when I found out why he couldn't stay on properly and how easily it could have been fixed if someone had just checked

I was convinced I was going to BF whilst I was preg!

The first few hours after birth is abit of a blur due to a difficult birth and all sorts of drugs pumped into me, but Im sure I dont remember anyway helping me to get DD Latched on. I remember her on my boob (doing what I thought was feeding) but it seems she wasnt lacthed on, just sucking the end of the nipple.

I struggled to latch her on with little help from the too busy midwives. DD then developed Jaundice so found latching her on even harder as she was just so sleepy. Her jaundice was getting worse so Dr said she had to have bottles to increase her fluid intake to get better.

I still constantly tried to BF but with no luck. All the BF support worker could say was to express. This I did and was giving her the colostrum along with the bottles but the hospital had 1 pump between 2 full wards so getting hold of it was a nightmare.. Zero chance of expressing every 3 hours as suggested!

Hospital wanted me to stay in hospital untill I had mastered it but what with the struggle to get the pump it would of been much easier to express with my pump at home every 3 hours and continue trying to BF.
Trying to explain this to the midwife was impossible and she wouldnt have it. In the end DH kicked up a fuss and we were allowed home.

When at home it was much easier to express.. I was much more relaxed, Got my first sleep in 5 days and continued to try bfing. I managed to get her on a few times but by then she was so used to the bottle she would just fall asleep after a few sucks!

I continued to Mix feed for 6 weeks so pleased she got a good start anyway.

Looking back I think that following the midwives advice the use a bigger teat didnt help in trying to establish the BF at home as then she was too lazy to suck the boob.

If I could have gone home earlier I would have had more chance of being successful. My community midwife said in her opinion my confidence was so dented by the hospital staff that the odds were against me.

If I had been better informed about the realities of breastfeeding it would have helped as I thought the problems I had were because I was rubbish and I just thought that breastfeeding was yet another thing I had failed at (I have dyspraxia). The information that you receive on breastfeeding before your baby is born is too positive. I expected mastitis and was prepared for endless feeding but I didn't expect a baby who would refuse to suckle, I assumed that it was down to me.

Same answer as other thread.

I assumed I would feed ds3. Having fed 2 children for 3 years previously I never expected supply problems. Supply isn't that easy to fix if you can't sit down and feed continuously. Which you can't if you have other responsibilities.

hunker, i am just a bit emotional abuot it at the mo,DD who is 3.4 has been ill, and curled up in my lap a lot, and i still wish i was breastfeeding her. I even said to DH the other week when she was falling asleep on my knee, i wish she was having a breastfeed, he just smiled and made the right noises, but what can you say?
also, in my line of work , breastfeeding is something i am seeing and talking about a lot, and am not sure how to get past my own upset. but jolly good thread

I managed 2 weeks.
I wish I'd known the following:

1. It is normal for your baby to suckle for hours in the early days.
2. The pain will stop and probably stop very soon.
3. There are products available to help you through the painful bit - creams, nipple sheilds, etc.
4. It is hard for most women.

Earlier one to one help in getting the latch right. Otherwise you think your doing it right , and actually after 24 hours of getting it wrong your nipples are bloody, blistered and cracked.

Earlier diagnosis of tongue tie (not after 4 weeks)

Earlier help in dealing with nipples mentioned above (ie not advice to take a 12 hour break from b'feeding and give formula instead)

A bfeeding councillor or mw who would stay with me for a whole feed so that they could see that dd pulled off my nipple after a few minutes

Someone to tell me that feeling searing pain throughout an entire feed is not normal.

Having my dh there for the first night after dd's were born

Having a buzzer that worked, so that i could get dd when she was crying the first night in hospital, and I couldn't move because of having a spinal after birth.

Not being told off for having dd in bed with me (not hospital policy) - in fact not having so many snappy, tutting MW's who made me feel like shit for having a hard time.

Going onto Mumsnet and finding help and advice rather than a horrible thread about formula being junkfood (I'd started to mix feed), which put me off looking on Mumsnet again until after I had had, and failed to b'feed dd2. (I realise now that threads, and opinions like that are the rarity, and that Mumsnet is full of fantastic advice, but I was a big stupid hormonal mess back then.)

I can probably think of lots more (that was just dd1!), but think I'd better shutup now! It felt very good to get all that off my chest

after pre eclampsia, being induced, baby in distress & emergency section with a reaction to epidural that made me shake for two hours i tried to breast feed and boy did i try

dd fed about 22 hours a day 10 mins on 20 mins off etc i used to sit on the couch with water and carrot sticks and telephone when dh went back to work fed through thrush in one nipple and i never thought i was doing it right,i had no support bar and amazing DH but i managed to feed her pretty much till her first injections why that was important to me i still don't know

few months later i was still tortuing myself for failing went to gp with unrelated problems and had some blood tests

found out my ferritin level was 4 normal is about 30 i think i now wonder if this was why i did not cope with the stress of not knowing i was giving her enough and if it was why dd fed for such long periods

i would have loved help no idea where to get it and only found mumsnet when she was about 6 mo looking at threads now i was probably doing ok but had no confidence and i feel worse about stopping

Nothing at all could have been said or done.

Bf ds1 for 12 weeks, both struggled with it, hated doing it, made me very miserable. Had intended to do 6 months, never occurred to me it would be difficult or impossible. Didn't buy any formula or bottles beforehand. Lots of family pressure to bf.

Had lots and lots of help in that 12 weeks, from mws in the hospital, a very good hv (and some less good ones), bf counsellors, phone lines, drop-in clinics etc. Just couldn't make it work for us.

Didn't intend to bf ds2 at all, despite lots of pressure from family and some friends. Did actually bf him for just 3 days, couldn't do any longer. Nobody could have persuaded me to carry on.

If someone had explained to me that sleepy early small babies need waking for feeds. It is not a triumph if a newborn baby sleeps though the night.

Like hazeyjane, if the buzzers on the postnatal ward had worked so someone could pass me my baby to feed her. (Hideous SPD so I couldn't walk). Also if the MWs had not told me off for trying to cuddle my baby in bed.

If I had not caught the bloody norovirus in hospital when I had to go back in with a jaundiced baby losing weight rapidly.

If someone had come to my house and done something useful like cleaned or made a meal, while I sat covered in tears on the floor trying to feed a non-latching miserable baby while simultaneously puking into a bowl behind her head.

If a HV had not said to me that DD was "clearly not getting anything from you, I can't hear her swallowing", when I was spending literally ten to twelve hours a day trying to feed her.

We lasted two weeks, then cracked open the bottles. Thanks to MN- Tik Tok specifically- I did somehow manage to continue to mix feed, even now at eleven months. If it wasn't for MN I would have stopped at two weeks entirely.

With DS1 I fed him untill he was five months old despite numerous mastitis and thrush.

With DS2 I could still cry about it now. He was born two weeks late a very healthy 8lb. After 2 days the agony of feeding him was unlike anything else I had experienced previously. The midwife noticed a tongue tie but our GP told me they did not snip them in our area.

I started expressing and it became apparent that bottle feeding was also impossible for him. For four months we fed him mostly from a cup or a syringe. By this time it was formula and had been for ages.

At 4 years of age we get a diagnosis of a type of cleft palate making sucking almost impossible.

What would have helped would have been a diagnosis I guess. Actually somebody listening to me when I said I knew something was very wrong.

I never want to hear 'well, it's very rare so we don't do anything,' again.

The worst thing is he has sufferred from very, very poor health since he was twelve weeks old and whilst I know that he has a comprimised immune system due to his syndrome breastmilk would surely have helped.

Midwives and health visitors who actually know about bf and dont contradict EVERYTHING the other has said

One midwife told me not to mix feed (which I wanted to try as I was getting desperate) as the baby would not get any benefit from the bm due to the ff....can that really be true?

My ds2 is currently 7 weeks and was bf for 2 weeks (with top ups) and I would dearly love to relactate and try again - or even mix feed - but I know that there is no help out there for me from the midwives and HV

Any advice appreciated hunker.

Oh, and my baby didnt feed at hospital at all before being sent home....

Oh Lulu - how sad. I do know how you feel.

It never, ever, ever, occurred to me that breastfeeding wouldn't go well for me.

Like some of the others, it didn't even occur to me to buy bottles, formula, a steriliser etc. when I was pregnant, because I knew that I was going to breastfeed for a loooooooooong time.

By the time I left hospital when she was 2 days old, I already had a cracked nipple. I told several midwives about it and they kept saying my latch was fine.

Within a week I had an infected nipple and went to my gp for antibiotics.

I carried on breastfeeding.

After 4 weeks with no improvement to my nipple I got mastitis - not just a few red patches, but the whole breast - seriously engorged and so painful that I couldn't even lift my arm up.

I went back to the GP for more antibiotics and carried on feeding.

I fed dd for a whole night (or so it seemed) and developed blisters all over my nipple.

By this point I was dreading dd waking up because I knew I would have to feed her. I went back to my GP and said "what will happen if I give up breastfeeding".

He answered my question without ever asking me whether I really wanted to. I know I can't expect him to be a mind reader, but if only he had said "is it really what you want to do", I think the outcome would have been so very, very different.

I felt so wretched and such a failure that I just didn't know how to reach out and ask for help. I had the NCT breastfeeding line phonenumber, but I just couldn't admit that I needed help.

I gave up. I didn't know that I could have carried on feeding on one breast for a few days, or mix fed for a few days. I just gave up.

A year later I cried in the GP's surgery when I was asked if I was still breastfeeding. It took me a very long time to stop grieving. And, like Lulumama, there are times even now when I wish I was still breastfeeding.

Sooooooo, what could have been done:

Better, more proactive support from GP. He was the only person I went to and I received factually correct information, but no support.

Better training for hospital midwives and community midwives, all of whom said there was nothing wrong with my latch, when there obviously was.

Blimey - an essay. Sorry.

Ds1 I thought I would breast feed but he was 8wks prem. I expressed for him to be tube feed. When he was stronger I tried to breast feed and he did ok but I found too exhausting trying to get him to feed and still expressing in between feeds. I decided to bottle feed which I knew would get us home sooner too.

Ds2 I decided to bottle feed from the start,he had blood sugar problems and had to be put on a high calorie formula for a while. I did some times wish that I had breast feed him but never thought I would be able to after being started on the bottle.

I wanted to bf dd1 but found it difficult to feed due to inverted nipples, the midwifes gave me no advice and told me if i couldn't feed her i could'nt go home , so i bottle fed her so they would let me go home. I tried again once i got home but was offered no help.

becaroo, it is absolutely possible for you to re-lactate, but it'll be quite a hard slog! not saying you aren't up for it, just that you should know in advance that it takes quite a lot of time and patience.

ring round the breastfeeding counsellor numbers, get one who can come out to you and give you GOOD advice. it is totally possible, with the right support

Thank you for the posts - I'm sorry if I've stirred up sadness in some of you

Becaroo, no, it's not true that formula negates the breastmilk your baby's having - ANY breastmilk is a good thing for your baby.

You can relactate - it's hard work and you do need support from someone who knows about bf. Try one (or more!) of the bf support lines - all the numbers are on my site here