My friend has had a tongue tied baby and I am despairing at the advice she has been given.

[Sidge]

Friend had beautiful baby boy on Thursday, seven and a half pounds, healthy but he has a tongue tie.

She has been completely unable to get him to latch on (she really wants to breastfeed) and in the meantime has been giving him a bottle of formula. His tongue tie is to be snipped on Tuesday.

In the meantime she has been told not to bother expressing as her milk won't have come in anyway, to make him go four hours between feeds and don't bother to try and latch him on as it just makes him cross when he can't.

Now I'm no expert but this doesn't sound like good advice to me. Can you advise me so I can help her when I visit tomorrow?

Many thanks

Should add I have advised her to feed on demand and get plenty of skin to skin, and start pumping. Hope that's correct.

Gaaaawd.

start here and take it from there.

Crappy crappy advice. Has she a Baby Cafe near her? A breastfeeding support group?

this is also made to measure, but it might be helpful if you prnt out some of it and maybe try limit the content of anything that might make her feel desperate or sad. Like the 'within 6 hours'.

YIf you think it would really upset or demotvate her. In balance, you could point oit that there is info on establishing bfing even when you are not the birth mum - so anything is possible.

Good on ya!

Bloody hell no wonder the breatfeeding rates in this country are so low!
My DS had a tongue tie not sorted out till he was 5 weeks old. He could get a bad latch so I fed as much as I was able, and pumped LOADS (though was told by the home visiting midwife not to pump for the first 2 weeks as I would get mastitis. Total bollocks, I'd already been doing it in hospital).
Milk is supply and demand so she needs to pump really regularly to ensure she starts to build up a good supply.
can she not latch at all? As long as he is not starving and she can cope (it can be incredibly painful,she can get Lansinoh from the supermarket to help) it makes sense to me to keep putting him to the boob and see what happens.
The other thing she can do is call the national breastfeeding helpline (google it for the number) and see what they advise. In fact think you should should call her and get her to do this now, or do it for her.
Lots of skin to skin, definitely.
Not sure about how often to feed with a bottle, ask the helpline that too. I know that formula isn't digested as easily as BM so they won't need to feed as frequently but I think she still needs to demand feed?

The positive thing is that they are sorting out the issue really quickly, but in the meantime speaking to someone who is an expert in BF who can give sensible advice about her specific circumstances, and give her the reassurance she needs at this time.

I wish her loads of luck, let us know how she goes.

(PS I'm still BF 7 months later after the initial TT problem, she'll get through it )

Thanks treedelivery, she's not too demotivated just more resigned I think and confused from all the conflicting advice she's been given.

Luckily she came home this afternoon so can work out her own way forward! I hope I can help her a bit, I expressed for 9 months for my tube fed DD2 so hopefully I can be of some help for her.

From personal experience, pump every 3 hours, put baby on for a bit after pumping. DS didn't latch properly for the first week but I still had plenty of milk coming in. She's been told bollocks.

And cup feeding EBM might work if she doesn't want to use a bottle? I went from cup to bottle to breast without any problems, once he'd got the hang of latching, but am aware that some babies don't like going from teat to breast.

Wish her luck from me :-)

Thanks lovely74, it's really positive to see that you are still bfing despite a TT baby!

I will print off lots of info for her and find the NBH number; I fed DDs 1 and 3 for 9 and 13 months respectively so have some experience but again am no expert and certainly not confident with tongue tie.

Thanks PerArdua, I said to her to pump 3 hourly and try cup/spoon/syringe feeding if needed. I understand he isn't latching at all (the tongue tie is quite severe) but hopefully if her milk gets a boost she can crack on after he has it snipped!

This sounds very poor advice....she needs a second opinion from someone who can see her and the baby, preferably.

Skin to skin is great, and expressing is essential...baby may need more than demand feeding, though. Sometimes babies don't 'demand' and 'switch off' and they need gentle, loving handling and encouragement to feed.

where TT can be divided

scroll down to page of exaggerated attachment

Thank you both very much

My DD2 had a TT and successfully fed although did develop some bad habits such as snacking as she got so tired she used to fall asleep so much. Once snipped, feeding should improve no end though.

My ds had a tongue tie which entirely prevented him from being able to latch on. I was told to express every 2-4 hours initially and he had exclusive ebm for the first 5 weeks.

His tongue tie was snipped at 7 weeks (a delay due to admin cock up) and I was advised that with time/effort I could BF (and from the speed his tongue use developped I'm sure that's true).

It wasn't something I pursued as I'd had a miserable time trying to BF before and shortly after TT was diagnosed (ie first 5 days) and by then had moved on to mixed feeding and gradually phased out BM.

If your friend is keen to BF she should express to keep up her supply, get bottles that most closely mimic the breast and kick up a hell of a fuss to get TT snipped ASAP.
Alternatively, she could bottle feed EBM for as long as she can face it and then FF. My gorgeous ds is now 15.5 weeks, 15lb and suffering no ill effects from his lack of BF.

Gurraun! That's almost exactly what happened with me and my son! I had to eventually pay to get TT snipped privately as had no luck whatsoever with the NHS even though he was unable to latch at all and was so exhausted by the time he was finally snipped I put him onto formula. I take comfort in the fact that at least if I have another child with severe TT I'll know what to do this time and have the number of a private consultant who will snip ASAP!

DS2 was TT and I BF for a year, they woudn't snip his till he was a year old and that was privately too.

DS is TT but mildly I think. I had one cracked nipple. That exaggerated attachment thing is fascinating, and excellent advice. Because feeding DS was so painful at first I had to do that thing where you kind of flick the nipple right into the top of the baby's mouth. I hadn't heard of exaggerated attachment but it was the only way to feed comfortably until he was bigger!