DD loves nursing, it works for everything and I love the connection too. However her latch has never been fantastic and always has (and continues to) mean she swallows a lot of air. So much so that she still wakes hourly through the night (assumingly due to discomfort), but yet the only way to get her back to sleep is to feed her which I think compounds the issue.
The older she's got and the more used to breastfeeding she's become, it's as though she's become more lazy. No matter what I do these days she will not open her mouth wide to latch. It's not that she can't, she'll try and fit a whole ball pit ball in her mouth when she's playing. But to feed? It's like she's about to drink through a straw. She didn't used to be this bad but it's like she's learned how much effort is actually necessary to get milk (not a lot for us) and so only does what she needs to.
I've been going to a breastfeeding support group since before she was born, I've had the lactation consultant who runs it observe her feed and have no further suggestion past everything she's aware we've tried (every position and tactic under the sun). She had a tongue tie divided at 2.5 months, I've been off dairy since the same time and spoken to a dietician, we've had cranial sacral therapy... literally nothing has even made a temporary bit of difference to the air intake (subsequently causing now silent reflux). She will go on hunger strike if you offer a bottle and is no where near moving onto predominantly solids yet. Not that I want us to stop nursing sooner than she decides anyway.
I don't know how much longer I can go not even getting a full sleep cycle in and the disturbance is no doubt going to affect her too.
Given I've seen and spoken to professionals with no luck, I don't really know what I'm expecting here but maybe there's another mum who's come out the other side from something like this.