owww owwwwwwww - cracked nipples...

[smallorange]

Christ almighty, my nips are sore. DD3 is four weks old and ws diagnosed with a tongue-tie at two weeks. During those two weeks my nips were effectively shredded( although my notes say 'good latch, feeding well' etc, thank God for good community midwife who noticed the tongue tie)and they are still very, very sore. Am slathering them in lasinoh and jelonet and giving the worst one a break by giving DD3 one or two bottles of EBM a day.

DD3 seems happy with this arrangement but am still concerned about her ability to latch on - I get her on with a good mouthful of nipple but she pulls back into her preferred position which is sore for me.

Do you think the problem will resolve itself as she gets bigger?

Any advice? Especially about healing sore nips.

Baby crying so am off to feed... oooowwwwww

I was last seen breastfeeding in the paleolithic era but can you still get those cup things that go over the nipples? those and kamillosan got me through a very painful few weeks

Vaseline works wonders

Lansinoh worked really well for me www.lansinoh.co.uk/. I used it constantly at the start. you can buy it in supermarkets and chemists.

Nipples shields worked for me. I know people turn their noses up at them but if I had used them in the beginning when it felt like my nipples would drop off I would have had to stop bf so bad was the pain! I used them for a about a week and once my nips were healed I stopped. I went on to feed DD for 17 months.
Good luck hope it starts to get easier soon

You have my sympathy. I had very sore nipples when dd1 was 4 weeks, but It did get better and I was able to enjoy breastfeeding to 15 months. I used a combination of differant positions, expressing and kamillosan .

Loads of sympathy.

My DD is now 9 weeks old and although no way near as painful as yours sounds I did have problems as a first time Mum.

Have you tried feeding lying down on the bed? I found it helped us both relax in the beginning. DD latched on much better and I had both hands to make sure she was in the correct position.

It also helped while we had the pain of thrush for DH to lie behind me and give me a big cuddle to get me through the pain.

Hope that helps

I had this problem and on Thursday the doc snipped the tongue tie. There was hardly any blood baby didnt cry, he was more upset about having fingers in his mouth. I noticed the improvement IMMEDIATELY. The latch is better he is getting more milk and he is happier and content. My nipples are healing and it isnt sore anymore.
I would recommend looking into this procedure I was horrified at the thought of it but it doesnt hurt them and for me it has meant that I can BF my baby without screaming in pain.I dont think I could have continued with that sort of pain.
It is highly unlikely that this problem will resolve itself.

Sorry I wasn't clear - DD3's tonguie has been snipped and feeding has improved but is still sore.

I suspect she still has problems feeding an am hoping these will resolve themselves as she gets bigger

Thanks for the reassurance everyone - I just need to know things will get better as it is so painful at the moment and she 'has a suck like a Dyson,' to quote another poster.

I had similar issues with my DS doing this smallorange and he was diagnosed with a tight labial frenulum (after weeks of pain and discomfort for me and bleating on to whoever would listen that it wasn't right!!) so worth checking for that as well. He has never had the classic little duckbill with both lips turned out when latched on, or else we would start like that and he would pull back as it was obviously uncomfortable.

I didn't get it snipped as his latch did get better on it's own, although not without lots of grief for me before it did; sore nipples, blocked ducts, mastitis etc etc etc.

I had to be very determined in making sure he was latched properly and did spend a lot of time relatching him, but it did get better. I also found that if my positioning was even slightly out it would be awkward for him and he would do the pull back thing.

It may also be that she has just got used to being in that position from when she had the TT and it will take time for her to get used to doing it right.