Breastfeeding issues

[Mancdaddy]

Hi all, new father here to an 8 day old beautiful baby girl. My partner is having some issues breastfeeding (you can probably guess by the time of the post), which I was looking for some advice on.

Baby can breastfeed fairly well, however sometimes she has real difficulty latching on or staying latched on. What we’ve found is that, if she expresses a little, we can give her a bottle for a couple of sips, and then ‘trick’ her onto the breast.

Initially we thought this was maybe tongue tie, but pretty sure it’s not. Any help and advice welcome!

Maybe go back to basics with checking positioning and attachment, there is some good advice and techniques here

kellymom.com/ages/newborn/bf-basics/latch-resources/

I wouldn't advise to feed from bottle as it can cause nipple confusion. Breastfeeding can be difficult until you get established but will get easier. Good luck

Ask your midwife or health visitor to refer you to your local infant feeding team. They can watch the baby feed and give advice on positioning etc that could be really valuable. Midwives and HVs aren't usually experts on breastfeeding so someone who has been fully trained on it can make a huge difference in terms of quality of support and advice.

Second the above about trying not to use the bottle so young (it can really mess up breastfeeding) but your partner can try the same trick, just by expressing directly into baby’s mouth - sometimes they just need to get an idea of what they’re getting, to get enthusiastic. Also: make sure baby comes to the breast with mouth wide open - your partner can tickle the baby’s lip slightly with the nipple, to encourage her to open up; a shallow latch can cause the baby to slip off so she needs to get a big mouthful of nipple. Is baby coming off because she’s falling asleep? Are there jaundice issues (that can cause excessive sleepiness)? If falling asleep is a problem, you can try undressing her (poor thing, I know!), or tickling her feet, to try and keep her awake; with my first (quite jaundiced) baby, I never found anything did much good though!

Has your partner had any face to face help? It really is key. Try to seek out a local breastfeeding “cafe” (ie group/help group/advice centre); la leche league also brilliant. Keep the baby fed at all costs: if she’s got good wee and poo output (I think at this age it’s something like 10-12 wet nappies in 24 hours - but please do check that figure online) then ultimately everything is good and you can work on perfecting the mechanics at a more leisurely pace; if she’s not weeing and pooing well, or is jaundiced, you may need to seek face to face help more urgently and use your expressed milk in the bottle (look up paced feeding for how to bottle feed in the best way to preserve the breastfeeding relationship).

Good luck to your partner - breastfeeding can be difficult, frustrating, worrying, and upsetting to start with, but it is so so worth it, if you can work it out. She does need support - yours, which you’re obviously giving (also snacks, rest, the opportunity to shower, company, understanding), but also possibly face to face professional support.

Thanks all. Morning feed going well so far, can’t understand why she’s so much more difficult at night. We’ll keep going, appreciate your advice!

DD2 was like this. She was would get so hangry that she couldn’t latch properly and I was so anxious about not being able to latch her as DD1 had massive issues with bf. I used to give her a few sips of formula to give us breathing space and then move to the boob. By 2 months she was exclusive breast and she is now over 2 years and is still breast feeding.

I found watching loads of video on YouTube especially ‘flipple’ and ‘burger’ really helpful.

Without teaching you to suck eggs, check that you're both confident on feeding cues so baby isn't getting over hungry and too upset as that can make it harder to latch and frustrating for everyone. If baby's upset then they're already too hungry. To be fair, basically any sign of movement at 8 days old is a feeding cue