New mum - dummies

[Pickles31]

Hi, I had my baby boy on Monday 19th Nov and ummed and ahhd about trying breastfeeding, when I gave birth I had to have him taken out with forceps and was then out under general anesthetic due to pain when they were sewing me up due to a tear so I cudnt try breastfeeding or skin to skin so hubby had to ff him which we have been doing the last few days. Anyhow I decided to try bfeeding before I was discharged from the hospital and he seemed to latch on ok, the midwife showed me how to hold him close tummy to
Tummy and that he liked the smell of mummy. I tried the last few days to latch him on and he he’s only managed once to do it again and cries and headbutts my boob when he can’t do it (like he’s frustrated), I’m finding it hard to continue with the breastfeeding but now feel really guilty as this evening to calm him I let him suck on a dummy for 5-10
Mins and he was watching me intently and I think he thought it was my nipple cos he could smell me
And then within 5 mins he fell asleep and really calmed down. But now I feel a bit guilty if he thinks it’s my breast when it’s just a dummy as I want that closeness with us but just don’t know if I can do the bfeeding anymore, does this make me a bad mother? Apologies but think my hormones are a bit all over the place.

Using a dummy does NOT make you a bad Mum. Fact
Formula Feeding does not make you a bad Mum. Fact

Stop beating yourself up, and start enjoying your gorgeous little boy.
What you will learn as a parent is that we all make decisions every day. Sometimes we make different decisions from our own parents or siblings or from our next door neighbour or their friends. Sometimes that is just personal preference, and sometimes it is for really sound reasons. Neither is wrong. There is no 'one way' to parent. We all muddle through, doing our best.

Dd was in icu and scbu and we only started bf when she was about 7 days old. She was tube fed until then. Luckily we both got the hang of breastfeeding quite quickly, however, we tried a dummy about a week after we got home, she only sucked on it for about a minute before she spat it out. My heart did a strange jump thing and I felt ridiculously guilty for that minute. We've since tried the dummy on n off over the past 6 months (she's not interested, boobmonster) but everytime we try I get a surge of guilt. Almost as if she was suddenly gonna stop loving me for shoving a piece of plastic in her face (no offence to other dummy users!)
If you don't feel you can carry on breastfeeding, don't. Baby won't love you any more or any less for it. Fed is best. If you wanna keep on trying tho, I'd suggest speak to ur hv about peer support. Did us the world of good and I'm so glad we did as I can't be dealing with the whole sterilising malarky...but that's just me

@backforgood thanks for your response, I know it’s silly of
Me to worry about something like this when my baby is only 4 days old, not sure if it’s just my hormones too making me feel a bit up and down. I will do what I think is best and try not to worry

Yeah it'll be your hormones. You know everyone is just winging it, right?

Get the midwife in, get help with breastfeeding and just spend lots of time in bed having skin to skin with baby.

Using a dummy does not make you a bad mum at all. But please be mindful that there is sometimes a risk of inderfeeding young babies through dummy use as there can be confusion of whether baby needs feeding or just soothing. They feed little but frequently in the early days so I'd personally try to limit his dummy use at his young age.

In regards to breastfeeding, you could try squirting a bit of milk into his mouth when trying to get him to latch. It's something that helped my LO. He was a terrible patches as he had tongue tie. In any case don't feel bad about your decisions. It's important to protect your health and well-being so you can be a happy momma x