What do you wish a bf supporter in hospital had told you/done?

[FourArms]

I'm coming towards the end of my bf peer supporter course, and soon I'll be volunteering on the postnatal wards at our local hospital.

So... if a bf supporter had been available in your hospital, what would you have liked them to have done/told you/showed you?

I was v.lucky with DS1 and DS2. Although there were slight issues with both (c/s with DS1 and a spell in NICU for DS2) they were both v.easy to bf and it came very naturally to us all from feed one. We did have problems once we were home, so I have a lot of experience with these, but not much for problems in the early days.

Any thoughts will be gratefully received!

I had no support at all (at UCH). I got the odd glance and a "yeah, that's OK" when I asked about the latch.

I think the midwives assumed I was all right, and turfed me out 24 hours after my emcs. I was fine, but...

I would really have appreciated somebody sitting down and telling me that I was feeding dd perfectly well. Confidence is so important with a first baby.

DS just fell asleep when I breastfed him - 2 mins of slower & slower sucking, then snoring. 30 mins later he needed feeding again. Tried tickling his toes, bouncing up & down, etc but nothing did the trick. Went to breastfeeding clinic & they agreed he was a "lazy feeder" and couldn't give much advice. I gave up at 10 weeks after being awake around the clock with him and going more than slightly loopy. It was easier to jiggle him around with a bottle and though he wasn't exactly enthusiastic about it I managed to get a little more into him, he started putting weight on slowly, was more & more settled and things gradually turned around - he was happy & smiley by 4-5 months having spent the first 2-3 months screaming basically. Perhaps he was one of those babies that are really not good at breastfeeding. I had no issues with DD - breastfed her til 13 months when she decided to bite...

Has anyone else had a "lazy feeder"? - I don't have a wide circle of baby friends and haven't come across it before or since - but it could be quite common really.

Wish I'd been told to drink 'Pints' of extra water, not just 'plenty'. I underestimated, exactly how much 'plenty' was and how much I really needed to drink. Also wish I'd been told to eat a diet high in protein. I am not veggie, so for me that meant shepherds pie, spag bog, a diet high in meat. I know not everyone is the same. ( my veggie SIL wasn't specially careful abut eating extra protein and BFed for England!)

The only source of this info for me was GF and when after I had upped my intake of protein and dranks loads I never looked back, BFing like a Jersey!!

Might not help everyone, but it certainly helped me!

I wish I'd found out about biological nurturing sooner and not spent the first three weeks hunched over in agony struggling with the three stupid MW positions!

I wish I'd not been such a martyr and FF occasionally if it all got too much, if I look back at the first 2 months of my son's life all I remember is BFing misery! wish I'd given myself a break from time to time to enjoyed him!

i wish I'd known what to eat! kept topping up my energy with cereal bars etc and have the extra weight now to prove it.

I with I'd fought for oral/nipple thrush treatment sooner, and I wish I didn't have to fight for it

I wish I HADN'T been told it was okay to BF whilst on the mountain of drugs I was on post natally - poor LOs digestive system suffered terribly as a result of all he second hand rubbish that went into him

actually! I just wish I hadn't TBH! its not always best for every individual mother/baby pair!

oh also wish I'd trusted my instincts and not let the MW roughly shove him onto my boob by his neck, it WAS hurting him, I WASN'T being silly, and it took a whole series of chiropractic treatments to unlock the massive knots in his neck so he could lie facing either way

and that's what they call BFing support!

and I wish someone just said at the time "a bottle given lovingly is better than a boob given grudgingly!". I literally screamed with pain every time he latched on, I know he was only little but BFing was so high - stress that he MUST have picked up on it!

I wish someone had very clearly told me that slow weight gain isn't the end of the world, then I wouldn't have been so worried.

i have breast fed 3 kids

with the 1st I got no advice or support was 10 years ago, I struggled in hospital, getting more and more upset as know appeared to be able to help, eventually I went home and within minutes of being at home was happily feeding my son

my 2nd child fed no problems all by herself

3rd was more difficult, got loads of support has a great b/f midwife who advised me from early on and helped when my baby wouldn't feed and I has sore nipples,

things I wish I had been told

1. first few weeks is hard but becomes easier after that
2. not everyone loses heaps of weight when breast feeding
3. how to stop, I now have a 2 year old who is a breast feeding addict, when I returned to my wonderful promoting B/F midw0ife for advice. was told children usually stop themselves by school age aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhhhhhh
4. if you can't do it, it really doesn't matter and it does not make you a bad mum

Wow this thread is long.

I just wanted to add that I would have benefited from a good listener who helped me to calm down.

I found the worry that my baby was starving was overwhelming and terrifying so some information about the way the feeding process works would have been very useful.

My DS had trouble latching as he was slightly early and a bit jaundiced and sleepy. I think the hospital stepped in and started to 'top-up' without giving me the necessary information or devising a plan to get him to bf. I don't think he was allowed to be hungry as such and it was a real slog to get him on to the boob.

I felt very unconfident and ill-informed about how the whole process worked and was frightened to reduce his formula. I could have done with advice in that area.

The other points are all great as well, particularly that the first weeks are insane and tiring, but that they will pass. It's good to have something to focus on during the lunacy of the first few weeks/months.

I honestly didn't know that an engorged breast could stop ds from latching on.

He was yelling, I was crying, milk was going everywhere and it took forever for ds to feed. Every feed was a battle and I gave up at 8 weeks. The MWs kept saying that my latch was fine but ds was dribbling more milk over me than he was drinking.

This time (despite better bf help in hospital) I discovered quite by accident that making the nipple stand proud by wiping it with a muslin meant that ds2 latched on without a problem and we're still going at 15 weeks.

So simple, yet nobody thought that it was worth mentioning!

I wish I'd known that one single feed could crack my nipples so badly that they wouldn't heal for 4 weeks. When DD1 was laid on my tummy, she started to root around and the midwife just shoved her on my breast. She wasn't attached properly, I of course had no idea what bf was supposed to feel like, and from that very first feed onwards I had very cracked and sore nipples. Not a good start.

I wish someone had told me there was a 3rd option to BF and FF - i.e. expressing breast milk and giving via a bottle - before I spent the 2 weeks of hell in hospital trying unsuccessfully to get my LO to latch on at all (even a bad latch would have been fantastic at that stage!). I have expressed for 6 months now and although I did manage to get him to BF a couple of times at 6 weeks, it was never really established. Admittedly expressing isn't for everyone but neither is BF or FF. As another poster mentioned on this thread, quality time with your LO at this very special time is more important and I wish I could have got some of that time back rather than being stuck in a medical prison!
Secondly, not having to repeat the problem every single time to every single different midwife (I must have seen 20 of them!) would have been nice! So having someone consistent to talk to such as a BF advisor would have been good. When I finally did get some consistency I got to understand what was required so they would let me out!

I haven't time to read it all so sorry if this is repetition. I got excellent support in both hospitals for both mine and have successfully fed both. DD had a brilliant latch from the beginning but was my first and I kept worrying I'd get it wrong; DS didn't latch on so well and I was getting sore but the counsellor sorted me out on that. I was a bit non-plussed because I thought it would be as easy as the first time and it wasn't. Although on the plus side I worried less

One really important thing for me was that DH happened to be there when BF counsellor came in to help me with a feed. His brain was not nearly as addled as mine and he remembered it all and was v helpful in those first few days at home. If you can involve partner it really helps.

Warn people about cluster feeding and growth spurts. With DD, my first, I had never even heard of this and thought my milk was inadequate. NCT counsellor put me straight on that in 20 seconds...

Also agree with earlier poster who said tell people about good places to feed and change locally.

estar as part of our training, we get trained on bra fitting, and sell bras through the breast-feeding groups. I can certainly point people in the direction of 'nicer' bf bras... I found a lot of my favourites on the internet.

narmada the lady teaching our course is the infant feeding co-ord in the hospital, and she is doing her level best to raise the bf support standards in the hospital. She has responsibility for the Baby Friendly Project which is aimed at improving breastfeeding rates and the support offered to breastfeeding mothers. The hospital has the Baby Friendly Initiative (BFI) certificate of commitment and they are working towards full BFI accreditation.

laser4 the support that our organisation offers post hospital stay is groups which run each week day at various locations in the city. I think home visits would be the ideal, but these aren't really viable for volunteers to undertake since many of them are at the groups with their babies.

ElusiveMoose in the hospital it won't be policy for peer supporters to suggest stopping bfing. However, if a mother wishes to discuss this, we could if they bring it up. Although a bf baby is our no. 1 aim, a happy mother is also v.high on the priority list.

mamadoc Your hospital doesn't sound at all supportive of bfing. I hope ours isn't like that. They were great when I was in there 6 years ago, but they could be completely different now. Guess I'll find out soon!

KernowMother thanks for that info. Will def be passing that on. Along with the fact that when your boobs go soft after a few weeks it means that they're getting used to bfing, not that they've stopped making milk. Don't think you're a million miles away from us... my DS2 was born at Treliske.

justanuthermanicmumsday mixed feeding is fine, but not ideal in the early days as it can compromise your bm supply, and lead to it tailing off. Once feeding is established, and if perhaps you've fed other babies before, then it might be less of an issue. Hopefully your next child will be a super quick efficient feeder, and then bfing for 6m will be much more convenient than FF.

legscrossed the nightmare you went through on night one sounds like something we have been advised not to do at all. We'd explain how to hand express, explain it's important to get lactation initiated that you express after birth if the baby can't feed directly, explain where to put your fingers, and even show you if you needed us to, but we wouldn't express the milk for you unless you had explicitly requested that we do so.

Thankyou again for all of these posts. Hopefully I can avoid doing the things that have upset others in the past.

rowingcah my training session today has been all about hand and mechanical expression.

DashingRedhead I think it's great if you can give dads the info too. Obviously they're better placed to inwardly digest it, but also they can then encourage the mother after they've left hospital.

re mixed feeding:

Surely a few weeks of happy combined feeding is a good thing? so what if supply tails off! the alternatives are often either hate BFing so much that you completely give up early on, or struggle on in misery and miss out on being able to enjoy and bond with your newborn! I have friends who just switched to exclusive FFing early on because BFing advisors were so negative about combined feeding that it was eliminated as an option in their minds, leaving just all or nothing!

With my first child being a traumatic and six week early birth I gave up because I found it too painful, the support was of the "well it shouldn't hurt". With my second I sought classes via the NCT and all the advice was it shouldn't hurt if you're doing it properly ! Well really sorry but again it hurt like hell. I say that but only for the latch on and until the let down point. But then I had a fabulous older midwife who came the day I was about to give up. The advice she gave was that for some of us gals it could be toecurling for about six weeks.She said to try and bite the bullet. Once I had this as a horizon it gave me some hope and do you what she was right God love her. I went on to BF for another two years. I had the same difficulties with my third child but again at about six weeks on the pain had gone. If only someone had told me that it could be painful I may have perservered with my first. Very best of luck to you.

it just seems (including the OPs replies) that so called BFing support people only care about ticking off another baby being BF, rather than looking at individual cases

During one of my many visits to hospital with my abscess saga, I realised that my son would be much better off with his mummy at home, healthy, with a bottle in her hand, instead of leaving him every couple of weeks for days at a time, with a rotting boob and endless pump-and-dump in hospital because the antibiotics meant I couldn't use the milk I expressed. It is usually "happy mum, happy baby" whether it's bottle or boob.
(My mum tells me tales of people feeding their babies condensed milk, I say [eek] but apparently the babies were fine!)

I had a lot of problem with latching DD and the main reason for this was that I'd had a breast reduction and the milk simply wasn't getting through.

The problem is, some women who have had a reduction can bf with almost no problems, and for others (like me) it's practically impossible. It depends on lots of factors, such as how much breast was removed, the type of operation, when it was done, the shape of the nipples etc. But ultimately it's hard to know if you can do it or not until you try.

FourArms, I think it would be important for you to be aware of the problems that might arise if a lady having had a reduction wants to breastfeed, and how to remedy them (or when to give up ) - the www.bfar.org site is good for this.

Lots of problems in my post.

That there is no schedule at first

That is might hurt like hell and bleed but that isn't unusual - I thought the pain meant I was getting it wrong

Be kind - and talk about the mum's feelings - don't grab her tits and wrestle them into the baby's mouth when both are sleeping!!!!! (It happened to me).

That babies not latching on don't hate you (!)

That it can take a while - months maybe to get it sorted

That deciding to go with formula in the end doesn't mean you've failed and consigned your children to a life of obesity and doom

Oh and I would have liked to have known about nipple shields. I know they are not generally recommended as they can slow supply, but for some mothers whose nipples are fucked to buggery (if you'll excuse the expression) using a shield may be the alternative to giving up.

just a few thoughts -

1. It is very very painful but it does get better.

1. Just sit and feed and feed.With dd1 on advice of midwife i was trying to impose a routine of 15 mins feed every three hours. The midwife said dd was using me as a dummy!! So baby screamed and i cried until nxt feed. lucily another midwife then told me it is normal for them to feed almost constantly early on. Now with 3rd child realise its perfectly normal for baby to nuzzle suckle and only sometimes guzzle in those early weeks.
2. don't worry about being used as a dummy!
3. Formula is not the enemy - It can be used for odd feeds esp if u find expressing difficult. Eg my husband now gives ds3 formula every saturday night to give me a break (milk hasn't dried up)
4. in the end it often becomes as easy as brushing your teeth .

It is so important that point made - by flipsy and sallyjaygorce that there is no schedule at first.

I bump into first time mums who have followed those baby training manuals where they feed their baby to strict routines - even when their babies are a few weeks old.

I think it is very dangerous all these manuals.

A mix of honesty, encouragement and practical info is valuable. This is what I would have liked to hear.

"Ignore the people the say it shouldn't hurt if you are doing it right. It can hurt a lot in the early days even if the baby's latch is perfect, but it can be really worth sticking at it for the time when it becomes easy and you enjoy giving feeds.

Find positions to feed that you are comfortable with. Lying down is okay if it works for you.

If you are planning to introduce a bottle of expressed breast milk so you have have a break, make sure the baby gets used to a bottle early.

If you have a problem after leaving hospital, call the NCT breastfeeding line. They are helpful and reassuring,and have come across most problems before."