my breasts are crap! stories with happy endings?

[macneil]

I gave birth to a tiny baby on friday lunchtime and my baby won't latch onto my soft flat nipples and I have no colustrum and no sign of milk yet. typing with one hand. what if milk never comes? despairing. useless knockers, have always had giant ones that made clothes inelegant and trampy, now they don't even effing work!

usually comes in about day 5 i think, don't panic had the same problem thought i was never going to be able to feed. Then woke up day five with boobs like melons, and milk squrting everywhere.

don't despair, keep at it...you will have colostrum in there...just try to relax. I had one flat and one inverted nipple (my midwife thought it was all in my head...??!)
If you spend a moment or two to kind of push them out...they should harden enough for baby to latch on.
(with my first baby I had to resort to a nipple shield.....{{ducks to avoid evil looks from the professionals}}I just started to get in a flap, and one midwife suggested it..they help to draw the nipple up, and help to make it less sore...I only needed to use it for a day or so, then we were off!)

Congratulations by the way!!!!!!!!

I have one side with a flat nipple. Ds2 was a preemie with a less than optimal sucking reflex initially; would only take that side with a nipple shield for the first two weeks.

Congrats Macneil, and please don't be down on yourself. I remember looking at my perfect pristine newborn and feeling totally seedy and repulsive in comparison. All part of the baby blues I think. Do persevere with the breast feeding, and maybe post this in the breast and bottle part of MN. You will get tons of good advice and support there.

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Hiya and congratulations

I didn't have flat nipples, but a ds who wouldn't suck and really weak milk I spent ages trying to work out how you could HAVE weak milk when you had boobs the size of mine

Anyway after a week of the hospital midwives trying all sorts of things to 'improve' my milk, my own midwife suggested i give it up and go to 'bottle'

Now, i am not suggesting you nip down the local supermarket, but that if things don't work out in the breastfeeding department or you need a break, give a bottle and try again later - it would not be the end of the world My friend also recommends drinking loads and loads of water - worked for her and she was as flat as a pancake.
Best of luck

Is your baby actually feeding at all at the moment? I mean latching on and sucking? HOw is she?

Are you seeing a breastfeeding counsellor? Have you called the LLL/NCT/ABM/BFN? If you want to breastfeed you need to see someone and get this sorted ...

(Oh, and my DS1 wouldn't latch, I had flat nipples, and I only got him latched on with shields. But then we were stuck with shields for months. He did breastfeed for ages, though, thankfully.)

Also, what makes you think you have no colostrum?

Yay for nipple shields - I expressed for three long months until a feeding counsellor gave me one of these. Worked almost immediately.

But if it doesn't, don't feel guilty about using bottles. I really feel that my early relationship with DS was spoilt by the stress of trying to feed him, express in time to anticipate his hunger, etc.

Thanks all, and thanks for the steer towards the right place. I looked for somewhere to post and couldn't find it. Still quite ridiculously tired. I have seen the breastfeeding team in the hospital, and they just kept grabbing my baby by the scruff of the neck and forcing her onto my tit, and the nipple just goes completely invisible when you do that and vanishes, so her head was buried in tit, and she was screaming, and they were squeezing the hell out of my tit at the same time (and there was no milk anyway) and I got very upset.

Anyway, I got home, massaged in the bath, and today, a tiny amount of milk, like a drop, on one side, so I no longer think mine are just completely milkless breasts. I've had to give her formula, and I tried with the syringe, but she's such a tiny baby and they were telling me off because she was getting tinier and jaundiced, and they kept telling me never to use the bottle, but I've been using the bottle because she drinks more and that's all that matters now. I have a pump, I'm going to keep trying.

(I especially have to, as I lost a grand total of 9 pounds giving birth. So much for my theory that modern babies were very dense and I'd drop 20 pounds of amniotic fluid alone.)

Ouch! I had a similar experinece in the hospital with nurses trying to shove DS onto my nipples then squeezing really hard. Brought tears to my eyes and didn't help one bit - very offputting .

I thought my breasts were crap too, but they turned out to work pretty well and did the job they were designed for (& are still 'working' after 14 months). They just needed a bit of help! (And, if it makes you feel any better -they seem to have got smaller since breastfeeding so tops look far more flattering these days, yay!]

My DS couldn't latch on at all but, with guidance from the lactation consultant, we ended up BF succesfully but did have to use a nipple shield. Without it, I doubt we'd have managed. They can be a lifesaver but please don't use one without proper advice as I think they can interfere with milk supply and can be a pain to wean from (took DS 5 months. Grrr)

I wouldn't worry too much about milk not coming in yet. It can take about 5 days - you'll know when it arrives! Sounds like it's on its way now.

Can you pump for a couple of minutes to help draw out your nipples then try latching the baby on?

Is the baby sucking at all? Is she trying to latch on? If the baby wants to latch on but isn't sucking, you can stroke along the jaw or gently tickly the crown of the head to stimulate sucking.

For some RL help, try contacting:

The National Childbirth Trust: Breastfeeding HelpLine 0870 444 8708

Or

La Leche League

Keep at it- it sounds as though you're doing really well.

Oh, and Congratulations

I had a handheld pump, Macneil, which was v good, and then rented an electical 'double' one, which was v quick indeed and made life easier (though I did feel like something from Emmerdale when attached to it!). I agree that pumping will make your nipples less flat, too.

I really thought that I had missed the latch on 'window', and gritted my teeth and promised myself I would pump for 3 months before resorting to formula (at which point 83% of the benefits of b/feeding would have been conferred, so my adviser told me). But at 3m DS did latch on - he was bigger, more awake, and had a stronger suck, and just took to it. Apparently it is not uncommon for babies to latch on for the fist time at 2 or 3 months in this way. And once he started, the little b would never take a bottle again, by the way!

Thanks, dueat - I have a hospital rental which is brilliant, but the milk is really only just through. So you could pump enough for your baby to feed from the start? I worry about how much formula I've already given mine, but it's so much pressure with a first baby when the baby is tiny and you're not allowed to take her home until her weight stops falling. I just pumped (this is day, er... five) a mighty 20mls in total from both. I had no idea this was going to be a problem.

It is fabulously interesting that they can change their 'habits', too, because you're sort of told that there is, as you say, a window, and you've basically ensured they will be an ASBO hoodie by 16 if you went for bottle/formula on day 3.

The "breastfeeding team " at the hospital sound elss than helpful tbh. Do try one of those helplines and look out for MN posters tiktok and mears who are trained to give advice. Have you tried pumping just to draw out the nipple and then latching baby on ?

Hi firstly congratulations, just wanted to add my thoughts and experiences with you as you sound like I did after DD1 was born, she was tiny too and didn't take to the boob straight away, she got jaundiced and had to be readmitted to hospital where all and sundry tried to shove my boob in her mouth but she was too sleepy yo take it. I was "threatened" with the bottle or tube feeding at one point. I started expressing for her, the first time I got a measy 10 mls, then I was expressing and feeding every 2 hours. After about 24 hours of this (it was knackering anyone who expresses full time is a saint btw) I started to offer her the boob prior to a feed then offered her the milk in a bottle. After a few days she got the hang of it and we went to boob only and she was BF for 12 months.

Keep with it, breastfeeding is hard to begin with but after a few weeks it's gets a lot easier. Your boobs just need to be coaxed a bit into the job they were meant to do. Soon you will have milk gushing everywhere I promise you.

Thanks for those posts, and to everyone. It really makes the difference between going oh eff it all, the bottle stays, and going back to the pump to express again. At this point I'm okay with expressing, actually, but haven't done it very much. Also I've only rented the machine from the hospital so I'd be looking at buying it if this carried on much longer. It's day 5 and Xmascarol's post seems to have come true. Maybe not squirting, but suddenly my knockers are gigantic and full of hard places.

Yeah! Good news then, macneil

Oh Macneil, I agonised over hope much I was producing at first - really sobbed at times. I was given a statistic of how much the baby needed (which i won't repeat) and tried deserately to match it, not realising that I only had colostrum, not milk at all. Until the milk comes in properly, you can only do what you can do (though I think that spending time pumping will stimulate the milk to come in, even if you don't get much, so worth doing). If you top up with formula, don't feel guilty if your LO needs it.

bump for mears