breastfeeding a preemie, will there come a time when it just CLICKS? and will it be soon..? <whines>

[Aitch]

dd2 is 12 weeks now, and it seems as hard as ever it was tbh. she just doesn't seem to 'get it', doesn't latch on for very long without coming off etc etc. i go to a bfing clinic once a week, they say her latch is fine and tbh normally she feeds quite well in front of them. (the one time she behaved like she does at home they sent me home with thrush treatment).

does anyone have anything encouraging to say, something along the lines of 'she's six weeks corrected, it will all click next week...'

isn't there a cocktail called a slippery nipple, lol? perhaps it's a more common problem than we thought?

thanks so much for the support, i already feel better just knowing it's happened to other people.

and laundrylover, YES! they are so BRILLIANT it's not true. although can you believe she's just about to grow out of the small pink one? i'm so proud. thankyou thankyou once again. (she's wearing an entire LL ensemble today, actually. )

actually that's a thought... she's not put on a lot of weight in the last month but she seems to have grown 5cm, going from 46cm to 51cm... is that quite a lot or is that normal?

might it account for the slow weight gain, if she's been using her energy to put on bone rather than fat?

if she's growing that's an excellent sign.

mine all have really small mouths

here you go, chick

Hi aitch,

It's always the way that they feed fine at BFing group then you go home and it all goes to pot, it's like the law!

I don't know about feeding a preemie but I know it took probably 4 months for it to click. That doesn't really help you, but just just reassure you that it doesn't always come straight away.

It's took me months before I could bf laying down in bed too. Maybe when she is a bit bigger?

You are doing a great job, you really are, well done for persevering.

lol vlc, thaaaaaaankyou.

i cannot tell you how gratified i've been to find out that this slippery nippery is not uncommon, and to celebrate dd2 does seem to be getting a bit better. (although i think that if she has a cold it gets worse, which would make sense actually.)

totally true about teh bfing clinic, bumper, every sodding time.

and how's little horace, welliemum? (never did find out what you called him so i default to horace). do you really have sore nips you poor thing? that is the one thing i just don't get, mine must be like shoe leather or something. i do think that we have quite small mouths in our family as well, and added to which the smallness and preemieness isn't great, is it? fingers crossed that horace goes easy on your nips and that our babies's sweet-smelling little heads grow just a bit bigger soon.

'slippery nippery'

Tink wasn't that much at that age, your DD has overtaken her and everyone was telling me how well she was doing. 4oz is a huge gain at this age, I've been telling you that she's gaining loads more than Tink was from early on.

There did come a point where things started to get easier and she knew what she was doing - don't ask me now when, it's 28 months since she was born and I'm pregnant! I never did the switching thing, apart from when we had nurse-ins then I would change about half hourly or when she had a break or I needed to get comfortable.

If you dispensed with charts and ignored her feeding behaviour, would you be happy with how she is doing? I think that's the most important question you can ask yourself and I think that MWs/HVs need to ask themselves it more often too.

About feeding in a sling and lying down, if you try doing it in that position you may find it harder, whereas if for the first few times you start off in a normal position and move to lying down or putting the sling on without breaking latch you may find it easier and next time you will know how to do it comfortably - that's how I learned and those two positions changed my life!

I still can't get over that you were let home from hospital with a premature baby who wasn't feeding properly. I hope anyone who has a bad word to say about my hospital is reading this because it doesn't happen here. They break the statistic that says FF special care babies spend a week longer in hospital because BF babies here spend a week on the ward to make sure they're BF and gaining weight before they go home. Sorry, getting a bit ranty there

< scratches out "nicholas" on birth cert and substitutes "horace" >

Yes, really, major pain bf all 3, am just resigned to it now. I know the latch is as good as it can be. And thank goodness the supply seems to be good this time (was big concern with dd1) so really it is "just" the pain.

Is grim though. I feel a whingy self-pitying thread coming on actually

oh you poor, poor thing. i know you're not given to moaning, wellie, so it must be awful. may it click soon...

tinksmum, seriously, i BEGGED to be sent home. they normallydon't release babies until 2kg and we got out when she was 1800g. i couldn't ave been parted from dd1 a minute longer, she was so unhappy with me in hosp. i know that's not what you'll want to hear with being pg too, but hopefully tink will find it a more familiar environment and your family will be better set up for childcare etc. but believe me, if they hadn't let me out i'dhave done a runner...

She's already well established at my parents and got day time childcare sorted, with people coming up every day she will probably see more of me, so hopefully it shouldn't be too hard.

I dug in, I wouldn't let them send me home (have been given tips for getting more time in by sympathetic hospital staff ) in the end I went on Monday and was back on Thursday for transition. I don't think they'd have ever let her go, whatever happened to me, until she was growing with full time breastfeeding.

Thursday I will be meeting my record and with the way things are at the moment I don't think I'll be smashing it!

good, it sounds like you've got it all sorted. i did feel terribly torn between dds 1 and 2, but the prem thing did come as a shock to us. oh lord, tinksmum, i do hope you manage to smash that record, eh? it would be so much easier with every passing day. fingers crossed.

Thanks aitch

TBM, am thinking of you and wishing you lots of luck with the record attempt. What a scary time you've been having.

Aitch- just wanted to say it sounds unfortunately for you that DD2's feeding is very normal for her adjusted age...Both mine really didn't get it til they were quite a lot older, but their latches were so non-existant & difficult and support from BFing counsellor not available that I resorted to nipple shields- this stopped them falling off so quickly but feeds still took up to an hour (20+min per side, and they wanted both sides each time), and lots of cluster feeding too. When both hit about 3 months corrected and were much bigger they managed without the nipple shields and also feed times shortened a bit (though both still fed pretty much every 2-3 hrs all day/night until weaning onto solids...). Both were fairly little (DS 3lb- born 30wks & DD 5lb2oz, born 36 wks) so I just assumed they were trying to make up for lost womb time/nutrients so fed A LOT. But the latching prob was torture. You have my sympathies. FWIW I ended up BFing DD until 12.5 months (& would have happily continued but that's another story!!).

Hard as it is try to bear with it- but definitely try the rugby ball hold (& maybe if it's getting v tough consider nipple shields to help maintain a latch )

Good luck x

Tinkerbellesmum- been following your story- really hope you make it to 31wks but like Aitch said every day is a bonus. Sending lots of positive vibes to you all xxx

Thanks both. I'm not so worried now I have a 3 in my week (anything over 30 feels good and I can convince myself it's not that early, took me until fairly recently to realise that she was born at 7 months!) and meeting the age when Tink was born makes me feel a lot more confident, we're into known territory now!

I can imagine how awful it must have been to be torn between the two. I hate not having Tink with me, I'm not strong enough to look after her properly and the risk of going into labour with her with us just seals it really. I missed her peadiatric appointment for her asthma a couple of weeks ago because I was at antenatal with problems with the baby, she's less than 10th %ile and there is a notch in my Doppler. I sat in the reception area and cried, I'm so angry that I'm missing out on Tink when she needs me but no one else can take the baby, who wouldn't notice if I'm there or not, to hospital and I'm not well enough either.

Sorry, I don't mean to hijack

Sorry, x-post there. Thanks JJF, I'm 31 today so it's just getting to the few days past that is the next task

Hiya, I have no advice at all but well done for persisting and hopefully it will get easier soon

Tinkerbellesmum- so know how you feel being torn between the 2. I ended up in hospital for 2.5 wks having DD and in that time only saw DS for 3 short visits. It was agony (the hosp I was in was a long way from home). He was just over 2 at the time so hard to explain it all to him. But their resiliance is amazing, he really seemed to settle "back to normal" pretty soon once we were home, I made sure I used an much of DD's napping time to focus on playing with DS and making time for him, and he was always very involved with nappy changes etc....Though admit to watching a lot more DVDs than we used to while DD cluster fed!! But I still worry about spending too much time focussed on DD now and not on DS as she has health issues which require a lot of our time each day and it's hard to involve him in. But he is very loving to us all, inc. DD, and people comment on how well adjusted and cheerful he is- which amazes me considering all he's been through.

I promise it will all be ok! xx

oh god tinksmum i didn't realise that tink wasn't with you right now... oh you poor thing. you must miss her like crazy. it's all part of the long game, though, isnt' it? you need her little brother or sister safe as well. not easy though. charted territory good, though, glad you're getting there.

and thanks everyone else. such a powerful thing, this MN. i feel like i can go on just becaus e it's happened to other people too.

and giraffes, was it you who recommended the tramway to eat? weeeeeelll, i went the other day and it was fookin' hoachin' with children. some bloody braying fool of a woman shouting right in my ear 'no, Sandy, NO stairs' rather than getting up out of her bastard chair and saying it to him, totally ruined my otherwise pleasant sarnie. unbelievable. i imagine it's nice in summer though, when other people's children are, you know, Further Away From Me.

jumping, that was our experience as well. and i made sure the nurses took dd1 away sometimes and me and dd2 did crafts and cutting stuff up (big girl stuff) on the bed. my room was covered in glitter. thanks for your post to me btw, so good to hear it's normal.

Tramway? Nope wasnae me. I took the kids out on Monday night to the ever glamerous Morrisons dahhhling. Was actually quite nice...loads of space, gave us wee toy pack things and pretty fast service. Have you been to Oscar and Hollys? Might try it this week but not been since its reopened and dont fancy it if its hidelously overpriced. They gave me tea in a glass before, it just felt WRONG. I met someone at toddlers this week who mentioned MN, I have a strong desire to whisper fanjo to her now

oh sorry it's just i have you pegged as quane o' the sooth side...

must recommend a place i was at today, except it's got some shitey gaelic name i can't remember. it's a marketing nightmare, why do people do that? cail something. on gt western road. FANTASTIC roast dinner, yum yum, v good booth seat thing at window to keep dd1 entertained, and cushions and loads of room for comfy bfing.

nooooo I'm a westender had a brief stint over the southside but am now firmly back in the westend. Oh window booth seats are good, I like the one on Dumbarton road thats almost next door to Partick library, we like to sit in the window seat. (Plus one of the owners is HOT )

I can't leave the flat at the moment unless there is a car waiting for me, if I rest up all day I can get the bus if I'm going to be getting off straight to where I need to go. I have two flights of stairs to walk down and no matter what state I'm in at the top I'm wrecked at the bottom. I couldn't manage going to the CM each morning, I can't get her to the GP when she's ill, I put my back out when she fell asleep on my lap and my dad had to break in (must get some spare keys cut) to take me to hospital! Just after things started to get bad with my back I went into labour the first time, fortunately she was in Malta with my parents so we didn't have to worry about her. It made sense to leave her with them. It's almost comical!

I wish I could sleep until it was all over or just fast-forward time.