please tell me i can get through this

[willowstar]

Hello

I have posted on here about my little girl before. She has severe reflux which we have only just got sorted out with treatment for.

However, she still isn't gaining weight well and I am worried sick. She just had a load of blood tests yesterday (harrowing!) but in the meantime I think my supply has become affected, probably stress and lack of sleep? I had to give her a bottle of emergency milk I had expressed a while ago last night because for the first time I really really didn't have enough to feed her int he evening...I think I often doin't have a lot but I just feed her all evening and we get there,.

ANyway, I just tried to express after her first feed at 5:30 and in 30 minutes from my 'good boob' I got 10mls.

What can I do? I so desperately want to keep feeding her myself but I have to up my production. I am doing what I can to eat well and drink enough but sleep is one thing I lack.

Would using a hospital grade pump help do you think?

Sorry have no idea but its early and didn't want to leave this unanswered. Am sure someone will be along soon with some proper advice. But you are doing really well Is you MW being supportive? What age is your wee girl?

good morning! Ring Breastmates or La Leche League or whoever does your local peer support as although the advice here will be brilliant I'm sure, there is no substitute for speaking to a real person (and possibly crying!) She can also see you personally and advise on positioning etc. Don't worry, you can do it!

How old is your little girl?

Sorry to hear you are so stressed out.

Please don't worry about stress and lack of sleep effecting your milk supply - as many new stressed out exhausted mothers (myself included!)will tell you, you will always produce milk and it isn't effected by lack of sleep or stress.

I know the feeling of not having any milk but there will always be milk there. Can you breastfed lying down? I found this the most relaxing position and sometimes the baby has to suck a few times before the milk come down but it will always come down.

Expressing milk is no indicator of how much you are making - I have four years of breastfeeding experience but I have never been able to express much more then 10ml! Believe me, your baby is far more effective at getting your milk out then a pump!

Please feed as much as you can - have a few days resting, either in bed or lying on the sofa, holding your baby and feeding.

Hopefully TikTok will be along with more advice.

What do you mean by 'not gaining weight well'? Is it possible that she needs some time to adjust to the meds? (What meds are they?)

As others have asked, how old is your baby?

Are you doing demand-led feeding? I.e. feeding her whenever she wants. Ideally bed-sharing? And letting feeds last for as long as she wants, and always offering both breasts? You can offer one side, then the other, than back to the first, even.

Does she fall asleep on the breast? Have you tried breast compression?

I would recommend, rather than a hospital-grade pump, some in-person BF support, if you can get any. If you're happy to say what town you're in, I can try to dig up what groups are availble. It's possible your latch etc are not as good as they might be, and talking to someone in person is better for support.

Hello, sorry you are having such a difficult time. I really feel for you as both my DDs had bad reflux and also vomited a lot and had trouble gaining weight.

If you aren't getting any personal help from a BF expert then I think it would be a good idea to see somebody. As said above they will help you with positioning, etc and also the moral and emotional support they can provide is important.

Something that helped both my DDs enormously was cutting all dairy out of my diet as they both reacted to dairy protein passing into my milk and it made their reflux much worse. Dairy intolerance is very often an underlying problem in babies with reflux.

Here is a link about it that may be helpful if you don't have info like this already.

I agree that the amount we can express is often not a good indicator of supply, with DD1 I was able to express plenty but never really did with DD2 (who gained weight better than DD1).

Keep posting and let us know how you are getting on, also it will bump your thread as there are lots of people here who know lots about BF and you are sure to get help and support.

Good luck, will pop in later.

Forgot to say that a friend of mine's baby was so upset by cow's milk protein that the baby's gut was very inflamed and he failed to gain weight because he wasn't absorbing nutrients properly. Once my friend stopped dairy and his gut healed he started to gain weight normally.

This baby also had bad reflux and I have heard similar stories on MN.

This of course may not be what is going on with you but is really worth a try if you haven't already.

hello

I forgot to say that she is 15 weeks old and I am SICK of people asking me if she was premature because she is so little. She was born 7.10lb and now weighs a whopping 9.3. and has slipped below the 0.04 centile :-(

The problem is compounded by the fact that she has almost completely stopped feeding from the left breast and crying and screaming at it, funnily that is the only one I can pump out of.

she is really fussing at them both though and gets very frustrated during feeds with wind and who knows what else. When she does it with my right breast and pulls of and eventually has a melt down I can usually still squeeze it and have it shoot across the room so I just don't understand what is going on.

I have been feeding lying down more again over the last couple of days...but again this morning she took 10 mins from my boob each boob and that is it, but she isn't satisfied but won't take more!

I am getting very upset about it as I really fail that I am seriously failing her. I have a real opposition to formula and I just don't want to go down that road but i think I am going to have to as it looks like my supply is dwindling.

thanks for the info on milk allergy...that is one of the tests the blood was taken for so we should have an answer on that soon.

breast feeding is the hardest thing I have ever done (prior to this I thought my PhD was the hardest thing I had ever done but it pales into comparison with this...the responsilibility feels so huge!)

oh and for people who suggest 'babymoon' type of things...I try this with her but she gets bored!!! she is really active and inquisitive.

thanks for your replies, any more advice also gratefully received. I will look up and see if the breast feeding group in town is on tomorrow.

Willowstar - she sound exactly like my DD - tiny, fussy, refusing feeds despite there being plenty of milk, not wanting to babymoon etc.- it's so frustrating and upsetting isn't it? . What treatment have you got in place for the reflux? We got ranitadine in the end and it did make a difference.

How do you know she isn't satisfied? 10 mins n each boob might be enough? She might just want feeding little and often and to be close to you in between times? Do you keep her upright as much as possible?

You say you're having some luck feeding lying down which is great but if she's got reflux you need to get her back upright again after feeding otherwise it will hurt her.

If you feel your supply is dropping (mine certainly did by about 12 weeks)and she is refusing to feed, I would suggest getting hold of a double electric pump and pumping as frequently as possible (I know it's hard to find time but if you don't want to use formula you need to protect your supply).

You could try giving her some of the expressed milk (in a cup or syringe if you don't want to use bottles) - sometimes they just need a bit of a boost to get their energy back up to feed effectively.

You have all my sympathies - I know how miserable it is and still get upset at the 'isn't she tiny' comments.

WillowStar-
Please don't think you are failing her - you are obviously a lovely mother who is very concerned that you are doing the absolute best for your daughter.

You need real expert, one to one advice from people who know what they are doing - La Leche League, or your local NCT counsellors, and your midwife.

The fussing at the breast/wind thing sounds very like dairy intolerance. Both of mine did this, they would be on/off, on/off, fussing, crying like they were starving, grab the breast and then practically spit it out.

That's great that you are doing blood tests for food intolerances.

Just a word of caution, DD1 tested negative for dairy allergy with blood tests but she definitely reacts to it and her allergist agrees that she is allergic to it.

She said to me that a positive test is a positive but a negative doesn't necessarily mean there isn't a problem.

I know what you mean about BF being the hardest thing. With DD1 I was so disappointed and miserable that she seemed to hate it so much and it was all so stressful what with the weight issues and everything. DD2 wasn't so bad because as soon as the vomiting started I stopped dairy and things improved.

God, the tears I shed over the whole thing. However once we got ourselves sorted both babies fed brilliantly and I started to enjoy feeding. Fed DD1 til 14 months and DD2 even longer.

You just need to find out what it is that is upsetting your baby so much, take it out of the picture and then things will be fine. Not easy I know, but there has to be a solution.

You can do this!

hello ladies, thanks so much for your positivity...I have given myself a good talking to today...we WILL get through this :-)

ALso good to know it isn't just me and my baby who have gone through this, it is so different from how it is described in the breast feeding books!

So many people have suggested cutting out dairy that I think it is worth a go. I don't mind at all if it is going to help. I have been in touch with the local (ish) NCT breast feeding counsillor about borrowing a double electric pump and I have also got hold of some fenugreek to give that a go.

She has hardly fed today so we have to work out what is wrong and pronto.

She is on domperidone, ranitadine and gaviscon but the gaviscon made her horribly constipated so have cut that right back.

thanks all

How is it going Willowstar?

Did you manage to see anybody in real life?

Hope things are on the up for you.

Willowstar, you are doing a fabulous job, and I can empathise with you on so many levels; I also have a very vommity 15week old DD but Dr and I not convinced that its reflux.

Weight gain has also been very poor and she's swings between the 2nd and 5th centils despite good birth weight. (and I also wholeheatedly agree that this is harder than completing a PhD!)

I tried going dairy-free for 2 weeks but no change (well actually I think her vomitting was worse, but I think there's no correlation...!)

To up the fattiness of my milk I switched to feeding from both breasts at every feed, around 15-20mins on one boob, then switch, always starting with the boob I last feed from.

Kellymom explains why this is good for increasing the fat content of the milk:
www.kellymom.com/bf/supply/foremilk-hindmilk.html

My supply increased significantly, perhaps you could try this if you haven't already?

You can do it! good luck :D

whoops

www.kellymom.com/bf/supply/foremilk-hindmilk.html

thank you all very much it is so lovely to have encouragement from so many people. My confidence has started to return...and I think that my supply is fine. I think part of the problem is that I go out and about a fair bit so end up feeding her wherever and in the last couple of weeks she has started to be too distracted to feed properly unless we are at home!!! so I think that accounts for some of the fussiness.

She has also had naps in the evenings the last couple of nights which has helped with the last feed, it has been much better, and I have been sleeping with her next to me and feeding her in the night when she stirs. So all in all I am satisfied she is getting enough. thanks for the tip on switching sides, i do that anyway though i have one boob much stronger than the other and she only ever takes 10 mins max from there unless during the night.

I will see the paediatrician next tuesday but if she hasn't gained weight by then I know they are going to kind of insist on formula as they have been trying to get me to give it to her since she was three weeks old.

will keep you all posted and thanks very very much, it really does help to have support no matter how it comes online or in RL it is appreciated.