Latching Issues Following Tongue Tie Snip - HELP!

[BasingstokeDad]

Evening all,

My wife and I had our 5th little one on Monday, I’ll try and summarise as best I can below.

He’s been exclusively breastfed and we hope to keep it that way.

The midwives on the ward said he definitely had tongue tie, we ended up going private this morning to reduce the wait time. Whilst feeding has been successful (up until this morning), my wife has been in a lot of pain when feeding (hence going private to speed the whole thing up).

Since his tongue tie appointment, he won’t latch on naturally at all. He will when she’s using a nipple guard but he doesn’t appear to be getting any milk through the nipple guards (we’re using Nuk ones).

My wife is absolutely heartbroken and is desperate to make this work. Her first experience with breastfeeding was with our 4th in 2018 and it didn’t work out so she’s extremely determined to make it work this time.

can anyone offer any advice?
Why will he latch on using a guard but not without?
Why isn’t he getting milk through the guard? (It’s the correct size and fitted correctly)

As I said, my poor wife is absolutely distraught so any advice would be hugely appreciated. “Just give him a bottle” isn’t needed. This is what went wrong last time in 2018, little one got a bottle preference and refused the breast, despite frantically pumping her supply dried up in a few days.

Thanks in advance all.

I know it sounds silly but just keep going. Sometimes with the guard, sometimes without. Try all the different positions and cushions everywhere and keep on unlatching and relatching (break seal by putting little finger in corner of mouth).

I found rugby hold and lying down worked best. I also watched lots of videos on YouTube!

The best thing someone told me was “imagine you’ve already successfully breastfed one baby and you’re teaching this one how to do it” It just made me feel like it wasn’t my fault it wasn’t working, we just needed to figure it out together.

Wishing you all the best

Also- if you’re worried I gave my baby formula or expressed milk using a cup or syringe to avoid nipple confusion but get some milk in

Thank you Fluffy, much appreciated.

The problem is he won’t latch on at all. He considers it for a few seconds then screams the house down. Rinse and repeat! the second a guard is on, bam! Latches on fine (but doesn’t appear to be able to get milk out).

We’ve tried using the guard for a few minutes then removing and putting him back on, we’ve tried a breast pump to ‘get things flowing’ then putting him on, we’ve tried laying down, standing up, rugby ball, various pillows, everything imaginable outside of me holding her upside down by her ankles.

We’re doing everything possible to avoid using a bottle but it feels like time is ticking fast.

We don’t have a huge supply in the fridge either (maybe 80ml so around 2 feeds). My best suggestion was to use syringes to buy us some time but due to the lack of reserves we’ve got, 50% of it will probably end up soaked into his clothes/the bed etc.

is he doing better today? I had a baby who refused the breast and oh woooow is it a pain in the arse. We had that latching for a few seconds and then screaming the house down which is so stressful, what worked for me was waiting until baby was sleepy or even asleep and dream feeding. He may just be a bit panicked from the TT snip (don’t even feel bad about this you did the right thing getting it done) and need the pressure of feeding off him.

with the nipple shields, sorry if this is very obvious but is she definitely putting them on right? It’s just im a midwife and I’ve seen plenty of women just place them on the nipple when actually they need to be nearly turned inside out and then applied that way. She could also try hand express for a few minutes until let down and then latch and baby should get milk both through shields or straight onto the nipple without having to work so hard.

I feel for you because it’s so so hard, and especially when it didn’t work out last time she’s doing amazing for carrying on. You also sound very supportive which is brilliant. I agree that ‘just give a bottle’ doesn’t help. You could try giving 20mls of ebm or formula just to take the hunger off and try feed then.

good luck! If you can you could try access and ibclc privately

SO much better today thank you!

We ended up giving him some pumped milk in a bottle in the night, my poor wife was utterly distraught then this morning at about 9am, just latched on as if nothing was ever wrong! Felt like we’d won the EuroMillions!

He’s been busy feeding today with very minimal issues, he kicked off momentarily about 20 minutes ago but settled within 5 minutes.

My wife has been an absolute superstar over the last 24 hours, there’s no way I’d have been able to ‘push on’ like she has, very proud husband!

thank you so much for checking in and offering advice, it’s greatly appreciated!