Help - baby won't feed from right breast!

[BadGardener]

DS2 is 4 months old, 100% bf. He's the third child I've bf and tbh the other two have always had an issue with the right breast - DD would only feed from that side if I used the football hold and DS1 tended not to feed as well on that side so I ended up very slightly lop-sided.

Now DS2 is clearly having trouble feeding that side at all - he tries for a minute or two then comes off looking very upset, cries in a screamy way then sometimes burps.

I suspect some kind of supply problem, but what, and what on earth can I do?! If he won't feed there won't be any supply, will there? I've tried a variety of holds without success.

Thanks in advance for any advice!

Don't panic BadGardener. Women do successfully feed from one breast alone.
As long as you feed regularly from either one or both, your supply will keep up.

"Can I breastfeed on one breast only?
If you only have one functioning breast you can feed your baby perfectly well. If you are using both breasts, let your baby drain one breast completely before offering the other one. If your baby doesn't want that one, start by offering that breast first at the next feed." This is from the NHS BF site.
Do you have pain in your less favoured breast or does it feel lumpy. If yes, then perhaps you should see GP.
Whilst looking for info for you, I came across this to cheer you up a bit. It made me laugh. It takes a while to get to the funny bit though so I moved the cursor along abit.upside down breast feeding

no pain or lumps.
Good to know that bf is possible with one breast, but I don't want to only use one! Where has my milk gone? [wails]

I guess if there's a blockage of some kind and your DS can't draw the milk through, supply in that breast will decrease.

maybe I should try to express - I have a pump.

yep - regulalry expressing might help although you'll need to massage the breast perhaps beforehand to increase the chance of getting some out. Warm flannels, kneading gently with knuckles etc.

Offer them that side every time first. Do regular massaging and pumping too and take fenugreek to increase your supply.
Try getting your older DC to feed from different places to see if his larger chin will unblock the duct a bit.

And as the weaker side is DD1's this could probably be the reason why there's not much when DS2 gets there - DS1 will be taking a lot less than DS2 I imagine and so the supply in that breast won't be as much. Aha - I think that's the problem!

It's tricky because with 3 children it is hard enough to find time to feed ds2 let alone to express, massage etc - I rely on being able to just stick him on and ignore him while I read with dd or whatever.
Think I may need to have a talk to dh....

I had the same problem with my DD, my back was hurting so much from the difficult positions I was putting myself to try to feed her from the right breast. I finally went to an osteopath to fix my back and told her about the problem. She asked me to bring my baby and after 3 sessions she was feeding from the right breast perfectly!

Having said that, milk from my right breast doesn't flow as easily as it does from my left breast. Have you checked if that is the problem?

Oh, the osteopath said dd had some tension on the back of her head and neck caused by the birth, once she relieved the pressure dd was happily drinking from the right breast.

My right breast was rubbish too - DH had a very strong preference for the left from about 8 weeks old and by 6 months would only take very occasional feeds from it if I sneaked him onto it in the football hold when he was very hungry. I pumped and pumped and tried valiantly to keep it going, but it went into official retirement when he was about 18 months old (by which time he was referring to bf as 'mambo' and had christemed my boobs 'big mambo' and 'slow mambo'). I'm still feeding at 35 months and am ridiculously lopsided, but I just stick a 'chicken fillet' in my bra now and let Big Mambo do all the work! Apparently it's not uncommon to have up to three times as many milk ducts in one breast as the other and it's usually the left breast that's the most productive. Don't ask me where I read that but I think it was somewhere reputable!

Have you had his neck checked- it could be he has torticollis (muscle shortening on one side) which is preventing him getting comfortable hence his preference for the other side. DD had this, and we were given a set of physio exercises to do by our GP which sorted it out.

Can he look both ways comfortably?

That said, I think most babies have a preference for one side, possibly linked to which direction they lay in the womb. My DC2 had a preference (for the opposite side in fact) but had no torticollis.

All of mine preferred my left breast so I would hold them in the same position and hoosh them over to the right. Mostly they didn't notice!

Erm, yes, make that DS...!

thanks for everyone's advice.

I pumped a bit yesterday and there was some supply though not much. However to my amazement he did actually latch on properly and feed later and now we seem to be back to normal, ie would rather not feed from that side but will if there's nothing else going!
Could it have been a blockage that got cleared by my expressing? Or does that not make sense as there are so many different ducts?

Capt Nancy - interesting you mention torticollis as my dh actually has that. However I would think it's not that as if you use the football/rugby hold he's essentially in the same position as for the other breast, just further round.

v interesting about the different numbers of milk ducts.