Really struggling with breastfeeding after frenotomy

[stnly]

Hi everyone - I wonder if anyone has any advice as me and my little girl are both struggling.

I'm a FTM and had my little girl 17 days ago. From the offset feeding has been a horrible experience as she had a tongue tie and the pain was excruciating with bleeding, cracked and blistered nipples within 24 hours.

We tried nipple shields which where rubbish, so resorted to pumping and topping up with formula (still offering breast too a few times a day when they where healed enough to bare her latch).

Yesterday we had her tongue tie snipped and I've gone back to offering back to back breast feeds, but it's still excruciatingly painful. I'm after feeding on both sides last night the pain was unreal for any feeds afterwards which led to both of us crying our eyes out and me shouting out in pain as she was feeding - which isn't great for either of us. I gave up and gave some more formula to her last night and a bottle in the early hours this morning (she's only waking once a night for a feed currently) and have tried breast feeding again today to the same result. Currently sat on the sofa crying my eyes out wondering if it's all worth it.

When she opens her mouth wide I manage to get her on the boob in what I think is a deep latch, but she detaches herself and relatches on just the nipple. I've tried all sorts of positions with no luck. I have GG cup boobs so can't really see what's going on too well. I've had advice from the midwives in hospital, the community midwives and the midwives who performed the frenulotomy on latching but we can't seem to make anything work. Even with their help the latch has always been unbareable.

She's gained weight well (gone from 6lb 4 to 7lb by day 10) on the combi feeding, but I'm finding pumping a pain to manage and so was only doing it with the hopes of keeping up my supply to breastfeed.

Is it going to always be this painful? I know breastfeeding can be painful whilst it's being established but surely it shouldnt be so bad that I'm in tears shouting out in pain and can't bare to have her attached.

It's really affecting my bond with her as i dread feeding, but feel like giving up breastfeeding is letting her down

It could be that the poor latch has damaged your nipples and they need time to heal. Are you using lanisoh? Or any other lanolin-based cream? I would do that. Use TONNES.

Awww bless you , congratulations first of all on the birth of your daughter, I know it may sound silly but put cabbage leafs in the fridge and then put them in your bra it does help honestly, also try to relax your doing a great job just try lots of different positions with feeding, one trick I did was lying baby on a pillow on my lap and then moving my breast to them so I could see more of what my baby was getting. 😊

Honestly your not letting her down. It seems like BF is just making you miserable and effecting your bond with her. Obviously there are benefits to BF but when they grow up you really can’t tell the different between a person whose been BF and a person whose not. Don’t feel bad about giving up, I’m sure your baby would be much happier to be around you happy than for your relationship to be effected by this.

You poor thing 😭 I'm just going through this with my newborn this week, but she's not my first and not tongue tied and it's still excruciating, but nowhere near as bad as yours sounds. In my experience (no tongue tie) it has always been very very tough at first. This is my 4th and I wrote down last time that usually by 1-2 weeks it is much more bearable. It sounds like hell for you. I would just access all the help you can if you want to give it a final try. (I would have stopped by now for sure.)

My sister said look up breastfeeding cafes as they often have trained lactation consultants there and they are free. (I paid quite a lot for one privately in the past.)

Just wanted to say you're doing incredibly well and it sounds unbelievably tough and unbearable.

Just to add, it might be worth seeing a lactation consultant as they apparently have more training than midwives with this. As the tongue tie was so recently done it may be a good time to try, if you want to give it another go. (I completely understand if not!!!!)

I breastfed with formula top ups and expressing until DD was 5 weeks. I used to dread every feed. I had a day ‘off’ and tried to get back into the routine the next day but it was just awful. The one day ‘off’ made me realise how much I was dreading every feed and how anxious it was making me. I stopped later that day. Personally I kept going for as long as I did because everyone says breastfeeding is free (it’s not, you’ve already had recommendations for a lactation consultant and presumably bought or hired a pump) and it’s convenient (it’s not if you have to use nipple shields or pump every time). I also have large breasts and I don’t think breast pumps are designed for people with large breasts, I couldn’t get anything out of a breast pump. I also really struggled to find a good position to feed in.

I did feel like I was letting her down. I felt a lot of guilt. I felt that people were judging me because I was formula feeding. I still feel a bit sad about it sometimes but honestly it wasn’t worth my mental health and continuing to breastfeed would have had a serious impact on my mental health. I always said I planned to breastfeed until it impacted my MH but when it came to it, I struggled to remember that. I got so swept up in trying to do everything perfectly that I wasn’t being a good mum and I wasn’t being fair to myself. Formula feeding my baby has allowed me to develop a better bond with DD, I was saying to DH constantly that she hates me because she was just screaming with me because breastfeeding was just a constant battle.

It’s OK to formula feed. It’s not giving up, it’s stopping. You aren’t giving up because you’re weak or can’t be bothered or aren’t prepared to push through the horrible bit. It’s stopping to protect your mental and physical health, the bond with your baby. It’s making a choice to do what is right for you and your family.

I would say that as she is a small size still, she has a small mouth and can only take in so much. When she grows she will take more boob in and will be more comfortable for you on there.

Just use formula and enjoy your baby. I spent five months expressing. Even getting up in the middle of the night to express (some shite about the milk being better). I look back now and think "what the heck were you doing!?" Life was hard enough. I did cup feeding (evil joke), nipple shields and even a pot with tubes that your pour your milk down, attaching the end of the tubes to your nipples. Never, ever did the boy breast feed. Now I was very strong to do this. But I think I would have been stronger to accept that the effort outweighed the benefit.

Your situation is different to mine but you are in crying pain. Please don't suffer. You don't have to rule it out but let yourself heal and don't see formula as failure.

Yeah I feel like I'm 50% nipple cream 50% boob at the moment. I'd dropped down to having her on the boob only a couple of times a day prior to yesterday, so my nipples where in pretty good shape but after only a couple of feeds they feel like they're being sliced off 😣

I'll have to give the cabbage leaves a go! I've tried the pillow on the lap, she can get quite a good latch but within a couple of seconds let's go and relatches on just the nipple every time.

Thank you & congratulations on your baby! Hopefully it gets a bit easier for you soon

My ds had tongue tie snipped and just could not latch on, he had no idea how to properly latch on and my word I had many many people, nipple shields, different feeding positions etc suggested.

In the end I expressed milk while I could and bottle fed the expressed milk and formula. He is a lovely chap who is kind, clever, funny, close to me... In other words it won't be a terrible thing to ff your ds!

As other posters have said, enjoy this time with your baby, some babies just won't feed properly and f you have to ff and where possible express, then so be it x

Thank you - this is what I needed to hear.

When I was pregnant I said to myself I would give breastfeeding a go, but if it wasn't working out I wasn't going to put myself under pressure to carry on. That's much easier said than done though.

I am at the point where I'm dreading feeds which is really getting me down. In part it's due to the pain, but in addition to that she isn't getting full from a breast feed so we end up having to either put her back on (which adds to the pain) or give her a bottle VC otherwise she cries her eyes out. When we give her a bottle immediately after a feed she will finish a full four ounces which is what we would give her without Breastfeeding anyway, so then I feel like what's the point in having gone through the pain etc of breastfeeding in the first place which is really demotivating.

I think I'm partly worried about the judgement from other people who might think that I've not tried hard enough or I've not given it a chance for a long enough period of time, or that I've stopped for selfish reasons. I'm thinking about giving it another go tonight / tomorrow and if I'm still feeling in the same position making a call and stopping. It's not doing either of us any favours making feeding a miserable experience.

I was exactly in your shoes a few months ago! Firstly, was told with the tongue tie snip it could take a couple of weeks for baby to relearn latch, so consider that. I also had a whole host of other complications which ended my BF journey at about 5 weeks. Honestly the day I switched to FF I was a brand new happy mum, I think I was on the brink of PND trying to make it work. What helped me was to know that baby got the really important colostrum and anything after that was a bonus. He's now a chunky happy FF baby and I'm no longer in pain. Good luck with whatever you decide to do, if you want to stick out the BF for a while longer then take a look at silver cups for nipple healing. All the best mamma :) xx

Thank you for this. There's so much pressure to breastfeed I almost feel that I'm being selfish for giving her formula. I'm not sure where I've picked this up from or if it's come from having a bit of a shit community midwife, as I said when I was pregnant that I wasn't going to put any pressure on feeding and if I can I will, and if I can't I won't.

You're right in what you say about enjoying the baby. I feel like feeding and worrying about what is best is taking over any of the joy I've got at the moment and clouding everything so I need to make a decision on whether to carry on or not soon.

Getting DD's tongue tie snipped made no difference to BFing for us. It did eventually stop hurting weeks later as everything toughened up but it never stopped being a miserable experience. I ended up limiting BFs at 12 weeks as it had given me severe PND and I couldn't stand waking up each day knowing I was going to have to BF my baby.

I really regret not stopping completely (I BF for years in the end) but I felt under so much pressure from the midwives and health visitor and extended family to do it. It never became something enjoyable - although by about nine months it took less time and was more in the 'boring chore' category than outright loathing. I'd sum up BFing as huge amounts of expensive hassle!

Did your little boy not ever have an improvement after his tongue tie snipped then?

They've said to me that she was overcompensating for the tongue restriction really well but that she was doing so with a chewing effect, and I'm worried she won't un-learn that but not sure how long to give her to see if we get any improvement.

I was always a “I’ll try breastfeeding and if it doesn’t work out then fine” BEFORE I had kids, but the hormones made me all kinds of messed up and I beat myself up for months when we switched to formula hue to an unusual tongue tie and D-MER for me.

what I would say though is I thought cabbage leaves dried up your milk so be careful doing that if you still want to try breastfeeding.

this gets better, just be kind to yourself x

I was exactly in your shoes a few months ago! Firstly, was told with the tongue tie snip it could take a couple of weeks for baby to relearn latch, so consider that. I also had a whole host of other complications which ended my BF journey at about 5 weeks. Honestly the day I switched to FF I was a brand new happy mum, I think I was on the brink of PND trying to make it work. What helped me was to know that baby got the really important colostrum and anything after that was a bonus. He's now a chunky happy FF baby and I'm no longer in pain. Good luck with whatever you decide to do, if you want to stick out the BF for a while longer then take a look at silver cups for nipple healing. All the best mamma :) xx

I'm honestly not sure I'm cut out to make it another few weeks with how the past 2.5 have gone 😓 When we've given her formula and she's no longer crying out for more milk I do enjoy it so much more, so BF is really getting me down.

I just don't want to stop before I've given her a fair shot at relearning her latch, but also don't want to be getting myself as down as I have been by putting us through this for longer than I need too.

Massive mum guilt whichever way I go at the moment - BF and her be unsatisfied & me get frustrated at feeding or FF and feel like she's missing out (although I never felt that way about formula pre-birth so not sure why I'm telling myself that now)

Thank you, I think the worry of what others will think along with mum guilt and the stupid idea 'breast is best' that's being forced on us is making me reluctant to stop, but I'm also not being the best mum to her while resenting feeding her 😔

I said the same thing literally up to and including whilst I was in labour. I wonder if it's a hormone response that's contributing to my guilt if I stop. I don't really know where it's come from

It was SO painful with my middle child, I was crying with every feed. I used nipple shields for about a week or so and then stopped and that seemed to do the trick in helping them heal! Wasn’t painful after that. No tongue tie or anything like that, just poor latch due to be really sleepy which got better on its own. I know nipple shields can affect milk transfer and aren’t recommended necessarily, but they saved breastfeeding with my second. I’d also reach out to a lactation consultant - I did a phone call with Lucy Ruddle for help with stopping breastfeeding and she’s really really lovely.

I just wanted to add in though, if you want to stop breastfeeding then there’s absolutely nothing to feel guilty about. My eldest was FF from day 2, middle EBF for 12 months and youngest EBF for the first 3 months, then combi fed and transitioned fully to FF by 4.5 months (nothing do with anything being wrong with BFing, just wanted to stop). You wouldn’t be able to tell the difference as to who was fed what. In fact my most sickly and needy child thus far is my middle! Nothing to do with breastfeeding though, he’s just got a flair for the dramatics and picks up any illness that so much breezes within a 3m radius of him. Breastfeeding is wonderful, but ultimately as long as both you and baby are happy with how you’re feeding then that’s the most important thing.

I had very similar problems with all 3 of my babies. The pain was just as you describe! I did keep going but it never became easy and I also suffered with mastitis. I did find nipple shields helped (I used the avent ones) and sometimes expressed a bit first to soften my boob. I also used a moist dressing called jelonet to help heal cracks (ask in a pharmacy) and multimam compresses from boots were soothing. I also found it helped to have a goal of 2 weeks at a time. They are teenagers now and honestly I'm not sure it was worth the stress and pain - I can't tell which of their friends was breast or formula fed. Do what works for you and don't worry about what others think. The vast majority of babies in the uk are formula fed.

I totally get the mum guilt thing! But it helped to look at it this way, would my baby rather have formula and a happy mum? Or breast milk and a miserable sobbing mum? This was what eventually helped me to decide to stop, it was best for both of us :)

I still get the occasional pangs of disappointment that it didn't work out, but FF has perks too!

I got bullied at BFing support for using formula and some formula shaming comments when I was out in town and feeding (baby was combi-fed, I never had any adverse comments about BFing!) but the formula feeding was so much better I regret not switching over completely.

Have a look at Emily Oster's book Cribsheet. She takes the actual research evidence for a lot of baby related stuff, assesses its quality and what it actually says. The benefits of BFing, except for very premature babies, disappear when the confounding factors are taken out. The actual benefits for a term infant in a developed country are negligible.