HELP - conflicting advice from professionals re: BF

[NewlyDumpling]

Hi all

My baby is 2 weeks old (i'm new to motherhood and mumsnet) and she was born with light jaundice. Consequently she slept a lot at birth, she didn't demand feed and we didn't learn how to breastfeed for about 3-5 days.

My right boob has suffered with 'supply' issues as a result and despite trying to express / feed from it reguarly it's not getting any better. The left boob is ok.

Unfortunately she has lost over 10% of her birth weight and not put anything on since.

Last week the midwife recomended 2 hourly feeding day and night with 30ml formula 'top-ups' each time, but after 4 days on this regime her weight is the same (no increase).

Now they recomend 50ml formula 'top-ups' and have warned me that I probably wont ever breastfeed exclusively.

I don't understand where I went wrong and whether I can turn this around?

Any advice or support much appreciated. I'm sitting here in tears over the whole thing because I so want to feed her myself.

Thanks xxx

Hi Newlydumpling, hope you are getting some RL help!
I can empathise, my now 7 month old dd lost over 10% of birth weight after struggling to latch on. Had lots of help from breastfeeding clinic and later from babycafe. Was never advised to formula feed, but she was very sleepy so woke her to feed 2-3 hourly in the day, 3-4 hourly at night and lots of skin to skin and stripping down if too snuggly and sleepy.
Also expressed some milk and gave her 10-20 mls to start with to get her awake, then latched her on, and then afterwards gave her any further expressed milk via bottle.
Was V hard going for 2-3 weeks as was slow/sleepy to feed plus the extra expressing was time consuming, but her weight picked up then, and didn't have to resort to formula at all.
Well done for persisting, and good luck, you sound like you're doing well under the circumstances!!
HTH

Just wanted to post in support too, my dd is 7 weeks and only regained her birth weight last week! I have to pump after every feed and give her a top up of at least 40ml but she started to need up to 90ml, mainly ebm as we hired a hospital grade breast pump from nct but some formula (advised by hospital to make up shortfall with diarolyte we soon gave up on that!). This am she had her Tongue tie snipped (only discovered at breastfeeding group last week) and that has made a phenomenal difference to feeding. Anyhow it is v.hard work and exhausting and we ain't out of woods yet but it is do-able- good luck!

Hi All,

After all your help I thought I would write back and let you know that I had a good session at the breast-feeding cafe.

The BF Cllr was very positive about how I can transition back to exclusively breast feeding by expressing milk and slowly replacing formula with B-milk over the next few weeks.

I'm also happy because DD has gained 6oz in 4 days on the formula regime - so although it's not been ideal, at least i'm more relaxed and my health visitor is being more positive with me.

Thanks
x

so pleased for you - keep up the good work

Glad it went well and you're feeling positive newlydumpling