Breastfeeding- should I do more?

[Senorfrijoles]

I'm struggling so much with my breastfeeding journey. I desperately wanted to ebf. I truly believe how you feed your child is an individual choice, but I feel robbed of a choice.

My DS is 12 weeks old. When he was born we were in hospital for nearly a week. I had a post dural puncture headache and couldn't move for days until I had a successful blood patch (it took two attempts). I was on strong drugs, dihydrocodeine as I had a c section and oralmorph for the pdph. Because my pregnancy was high risk, they monitored the baby closely and his weight kept dropping (far more than expected). The nurses asked me to pump alongside BF to try and get my supply up and I did this round the clock (he'd feed, then I would pump). Pumping was incredibly hard because I had to try and sit up in bed to do it (which was agony due to the pdph). I still didn't produce enough and his weight kept dropping so the medical team advised topping up with formula. I agreed and his weight came up and it was agreed he was fit to be discharged (I was also fit by this point).

I hoped that once I was home my milk supply would increase. I had stopped the strong painkillers and my PDPH was mostly gone. I fed and pumped to bring up supply but it still wasn't enough. I kept having to add formula. I'd resigned myself to combi feeding (offering breast first then formula) but lately my supply is reducing again. I was ill with a cold (nothing major) but this seems to have impacted the milk, as supply is dwindling. I feed and pump but the baby is getting frustrated at the breast and pumping is yielding very little. Soon I won't have any at all.

The baby has a terrible latch (diagnosed class 4 tongue tie at the hospital) so that isn't helping but it's not severe enough to be cut, and I'm not sure how I feel about cutting it.

HV suggested medication to increase milk supply a few weeks back, but I wasn't sure how I felt about meds.

Maybe I should have pushed for the tongue tie to be cut? Maybe I should have pursued medication? I just feel a bit heart broken with it all. My mum and sister had over supply, so neither can offer much advice as breastfeeding came so easy to them. I feel like such a failure that I can't do it.

Not sure why I'm posting, no one can fix this for me. I guess I just wanted to offload. Thanks for reading.

Please don't feel disheartened.
My LO was combination fed like this initially due to complications. I just kept offering breast before formula and over time she got better at feeding and my supply increased so she just took less and less from the bottles and after 4 months dropped them entirely and was EBF.

If you can afford it go and see a local registered lactation consultant. They are much more knowledgeable than gp/hv on breastfeeding and can advise further on the tongue tie.

Friends of ours had their baby tongue tie cut privately (no more than £200), which they think helped his latch.
My LO uses nipple shields to feed, which I know is frowned upon, but we’re at 20 months and still feeding so I’m not going to complain! I liked oat biscuits for my supply (hobnob types) and felt they helped increase it - and a tasty dippy biscuit!
Combi feeding is fine! They’re still getting all the love and nutrients from your milk and being fed enough to feel full.

you’re doing great mama xxx

Combi feed, and delicious oaty biscuits worked for us. But above all the things that helped my supply were hours and hours of skin to skin and lots of water. good luck mama - remember, fed is best, however you feed!

Things will massively improve if you get tongue tie cut. You can then taper off the formula and pumping. Fussing at the breast and seeking dissatisfied are normal baby behaviours not indications of poor supply. Insufficient weight gain and not enough wet and dirty nappies indicate when baby isn't taking in enough milk. Go for the tongue tie assessment. Best thing I ever did! I went private because the NHS said it wasn't severe enough. The private consultant said if there's a tongue tie at all, it's likely to impact latch.

Thanks all, I appreciate the support. I had never heard of breastfeeding biscuits, I will give them a try. I'm feeling better today, will look at private assessments for the tongue tie.

I had similar struggles but for different reasons (IUGR and prematurity.) It's so so hard. The crazy thing which I didn't know is that you need to sleep to make milk so for me triple feeding (breast, bottle, breast pump then repeat) was really counter intuitive. I made peace with combi feeding early on but every time my supply dipped it made me sad

At six months I'd say he's getting 25% breast milk and formula for the rest. I still pump a bit to keep my supply up but not obsessively now. It's a hard balancing act because you so want milk for your baby but you have to look after both of you.

Set small goals, but be kind and flexible. I kept saying one more month. Breastfeeding is beautiful when it works and so hard when it doesn't. It's ok to keep going or give up. Sorry for the platitudes. I know how hard this is.

I struggled a lot too. Have you heard about supplementary feeding systems (medela has one)

I had the tie cut. Took the medication to improve my supply. Pumped all hours of the day. Fed at the breast constantly. My mental health was shot and I didn’t realise. I had a breakthrough when we went away and didn’t take the pump. The formula and equal sharing of feeding and night wakes saved my life. I had started to resent my newborn. Since that day everything changed, I felt guilty but free. The guilt soon left. Best thing I ever did was to stop that ridiculous schedule.