How to get over not breastfeeding?

[RainbowFlowers]

I'm feeling awful about deciding not to breastfeed. My second son is 4 days old. I breast fed him on the colostrum days but became really saw on the last day so decided to use formula until my milk came through. Each feed hurt so much throughout the feed but I persevered and was able to give 15 mins on each side. Despite him latching on fine this did damage to my nipplea and I can't bare the pain after a few seconds now.

He has a tongue tie but due to covid the clinic where they cut them is closed. I tried expressing but still too painful.

I'm still in a lot of pain due to having a c section and I just feel that I have to pick my battles.

I hate that my boobs are full of milk now and are acting as a constant, painful reminder that I'm not doing the natural thing with them. Also having a c section feels like a bit of a failure as it was also not the natural thing.

Baby is sleeping now and I feel like I should be using this time to rest but instead I'm just getting in a state giving myself a hard time about not breastfeeding.

You can get through the pain. You don't need to give up yet.

Call a helpline for bf.

Get nipple shields and lasinoh on Prime.

It's not too late.

Your son is better off having a mum who can function rather than one who's in pain!
You've got nothing to feel guilty about and you're doing a great job! Babies thrive on formula and your son will too

Congrats on your baby!

You have two options.

1. It will be possible to continue breastfeeding. It will be hard and possibly painful at first but not forever. But it will require you to be dedicated to it as a baby who won't latch well can require frequent expressing etc. and that's not something to do if you aren't really determined to do it.

2. You make peace with your decision and move on because dwelling on it will achieve nothing.

If you want to breastfeed then you should be supported and informed to do so. But if you don't, that's fine too. T

Oh OP ive been there - the first week is absolutely hell, just push through it and the pain will stop.

Nipple shields and TONNES of lanisoh. You can do this!

Having a c-section is not a failure, I promise. Your baby is here – you did that! The recovery takes time but you will get there.

If you really want to breastfeed you can keep going – it's an excellent excuse to stay pinned to the sofa while you recover from surgery, and easier to manage night feeds I imagine than bottle feeding – with the help of nipple shields and Lansinoh and La Leche league support; it gets easier and less painful, and you may be able to get the tongue tie cut privately.

But if you want to stop, stop. You're not a failure. You're four days postpartum, it's a rough old time whichever way it shakes out. Bringing new humans into the world doesn't come easy; please give yourself a break, and a mint magnum, and a snuggle with your newborn.

And yes, don't give up something you want to do because you don't know how to fix it. There are various things that can help, but it does require some perseverance in those early days. You'll know yourself how important it is to you. I exclusively expressed for three months before DD could latch because I felt breastfeeding was that important and I was committed to it and I'm glad I did, but others might not make the same choice and that's fine. It's a choice. But don't give up unless you really want to.

Lactation consultants are doing phone and Zoom consultations at the moment. Do you have details of the infant feeding team in your local area?

I've been using lasinoh cream, it doesn't make a difference. I've ordered the sheilds but I don't think I'll ever be determined enough to use them by the time they come.

The annoying thing is that he latches on beautifuly, I got lots of support at hospital and I feel confident in getting him to latch on and positioning him etc. But the pain does not decrease at all through a feed and with each feed it has been getting worse. This is despite me constantly being on some sort of pain relief for the c section.

A this point ( and I do understand I had a section and a very bad start to bf) you have a choice, either grin and bear the pain, use nipple shields etc or switch to formula. There are advantages and disadvantages to both methods. No one else can tell you the right option. But you have my sympathy because its hard after a c section

My baby is 2 days old. My nipples are bleeding. It's so painful. I've had a section. What's getting me through is remember the intense pain only lasts a few weeks then it's easy. Easier than sterilising and taking formula with you. Keep going. It'll get easier soon

Can you express whilst your nipples heal?

Everyone saying don't give up - have you also successfully breastfed a baby with tongue tie? If you haven't, please don't be so quick to say you can get through the pain. What an awful amount of extra pressure to put on someone.
I was in your position op. Despite lactation consultants all saying the latch was good, my nipples were shredded and my baby wasn't getting enough milk. His tongue tie made the whole thing do much harder. We were both miserable. Switching to formula was the best decision I made. I have had periods of sadness over not continuing to breastfeed, but each time I remind myself of how my little boy thrived as soon as we switched.
His tongue tie still meant he struggled a bit with the bottle and I ended up paying to have it snipped separately.
Breastfeeding is great, but so is formula feeding.

Oh, op, fed is best. The method is not important. You've done your best. If you go with formula you need to find a way to shed the guilt. (not that I think it should be a guilt inducing thing, but it sounds like you feel guilty.)

Breastfeeding is difficult and can be painful. If you want to carry on, you could call a breastfeeding helpline. And take each feed as it comes.

I hope you're on the mend soon, and congratulations on your tiny baby!

How to get over not breastfeeding? - for me it just took time.
I didn't bf my twins for a variety of reasons, but even so I still reflect on it now and still wonder (they are nearly 4yrs).
At four days in, you are a big bundle of hormones, take it easy.
It'll just be something that I imagine you will keep going back to, but ultimately it doesn't actually matter, well for me anyway that's what I think - they were fed. End of. And it's such a short period in the grand scheme of things.

@Albgo We are saying don't give up if you are committed to breastfeeding and haven't explored all options yet. And yes, my daughter could not latch and when she did my nipples were shredded and bleeding. I had an EMCS and we were in hospital for a week as she had jaundice and feeding problems. So don't assume we've all had the wonderful textbook experience of popping baby in and magically latching. I pumped every two to three hours round the clock for three months to keep my supply up and feed her expressed milk until she was able to latch sort of properly. She then breastfed 'properly' till she was 1.

Her latch was never great, always shallow, and it was painful for a while but my nipples adjusted to it and as she got bigger it was a lot less painful.

I persevered because it was important to me. If it's not such an important thing to someone else then I totally understand why they wouldn't as it wasn't easy at all. If I had done my best and she still wouldn't latch and I couldn't manage with the expressing then I would have moved to formula with zero guilt. But I wanted to do what I thought was my best. What that is will differ for everyone.

Totally your decision but just want to say...it is toe curling painful at first,,,go to boots get nipple shields - I got a cracked nipple early on and have had mastitis 4/5 Times ...It’s blimming hard but soooo worth it. There is a lot of online support (Lucy Meckenburg (?) posted on Insta some resources Which helped her)
But if you don’t decide to push through you have to find peace with that. It has to be right for you.

Can you get the tongue tied cut privately? I forgot you said that and I know from friends it made BFing a lot more difficult. Sending love x

If you get the tongue tie cut the pain should improve. My baby had a 50% restricted tongue tie. I was in so much pain. Do you get pain through the whole feed or just the start? Can you keep trying until you feel a bit more over the C section then it might feel a bit more manageable? I battled through the first few weeks and was so glad I did because I loved breastfeeding, you've got to think it won't be painful forever and it depends how much you want to do it if you can get through the pain.

It's worth getting the tongue tie cut anyway as when I researched it it can cause speech problems, eating problems and even tooth decay in older life as the tongue cannot naturally rid the teeth of food etc when eating.

Day four is tough as this is around the time the ‘baby blues’ hit due to hormone changes. I was in a similar boat last year- Lansinoh did nothing for me but the Multi-mam compresses (boots/amazon) were amazing. I wouldn’t have made it through the first few weeks without shields and shells either. I found it really helped to think of it as just one more feed rather than think about where I wanted to get to long term. The best advice I received was never to give up on a bad day (although everyday felt like a bad day for the first few weeks). Have a look for local BF groups they may have a peer supporter who can help. Hope things improve

I switched at 13 weeks as although my ds was gaining weight, he wasn't gaining as quickly as the hv would have liked and the weighing every 2 weeks was making me anxious and the only thing I was thinking about.

I felt terrible and horribly guilty, but right now I have a perfectly content, extremely happy and cutely chubby 9m old who has attacked food with gousto and barely drinks 12oz of formula a day.

Fed is best, bf is incredibly convenient when out and about (ha!) and undoubtedly better, but formula is perfectly fine for babies nowadays - I don't know about you but I've never been able to pick out bf from ff adults in my day to day life

Best of luck, be kind to yourself, you've done an add maxing thing and have all the hormones flying about at the minute.

Cut yourself some slack. It’s so hard, made even harder without the extra help you would have got pre corona.
Our local area are only doing tongue tie cuts if it’s so severe that baby can’t feed from a bottle. It’s sad that support is so poor at the moment.
My dd wouldn’t latch as I have inverted nipples and she had a tie. I tried for 7 weeks whilst pumping and persevering. My mental health was on the floor and I was struggling to bond. I was going back to work when she was 13 weeks old and I didn’t want to waste a moment longer of my short maternity leave crying because feeding wasn’t going well. So I didn’t. I switched to formula. I had moments of regret but looking back now it doesn’t make a difference. My only regret now is not giving her formula sooner.