Breast feeding hell.

[beeboo92]

My little one is 15 days old, exclusively breast feeding and I am hating it!! She constantly wants boob and I mean constantly! It's every half an hour day and night. She screams and screams until she has it and there's no other way to console her.
She will stay on for 5 minutes or so then fall asleep and then the cycle continues. I can't get a single thing done or even leave the house. She is my first child and quite frankly I am hating being a parent right now. This doesn't mean I don't love her I do, but this is relentless.
She's also stopped latching properly which makes it even worse.
We did try her on formula for a couple of days to see if she'd settle but she was in agony with colic and hated it so we decided boob is best for her.
I've considered expressing and giving her that but she doesn't give me a moment of peace to sit and pump.
Is this quite normal? Has anyone else experienced this? And how long did it last? Or how did you get through it?
I'm at my wits end.

It’s very hard early on but what you’re experiencing is normal cluster feeding. It feels endless but won’t last. If you’re worried there are many free to attend breastfeeding cafes where you can get advice. Good luck.

That's what ds did for about the first month. I got to the point I could reach out, feed him and ease him back into his crib without opening my eyes I was so tired.

Then I bought a sling, he started feeding for slightly longer so the gaps between got longer, and things improved.

But it's hard work to start with. Well done. x

Yes normal
No it won't last for ever
Get a good tongue tie assessment. My daughter had 3 through the infant feeding team and I think she has a tongue tie that was missed. She has very good movement in and out but has restricted movement up and down. I think they saw the in out movement and stopped there. When she was Baby the middle of her tongue didn't lift when she cried and I have spoken to someone experienced with tongue tie but not an expert and for them this would have been a trigger to get it checked again. She was a toddler by the time this conversation happened and I'm happy she's not currently impact by the potential tongue tie.

You could try hand expressing into a clean muslin just before a feed to reduce the letdown or get her latched sat up and the lean back once latched.

My daughter developed feeding aversions due to reflux and allergies. This started in the first few weeks with her getting very angry at my boobs and latching on and off giving her a poor latch. Despite a poor latch she seemed to get plenty of milk and the poor latch wasn't hurting me so we stuck with it whilst we sought reflux treatment. As soon as she was on adequate reflux treatment and I went dairy and soya free her feeds improved so much

Yes this is normal and with both of mine things "turned a corner" at around 3 months. You could try a dummy for when she's fed a lot but just wants to comfort feed, a lot of people hate them but my two had them and I exclusively breastfed and no long term effects.

Persevere with the dummy, took a few goes with my eldest. Try putting some breastmilk on it!

I formula fed mine so don't have anything else to suggest that hasn't already been suggested, I just wanted to add that I did nothing for the first 4-6 weeks so try to lower your expectations and just get through each day. Things will settle down, you'll get used to things and into a routine and naturally start doing a bit more. In the meantime try focusing on the little things - for me getting dressed every morning made me feel better and getting a shower every evening.

Thank you so much for this! I think I'll definitely try and get her assessed for tongue tie when her registration at the GP is sorted.
The other things you've mentioned about hand expressing and the positioning are brilliant ideas and I'll give them a go too :)
X

Stick with it Op. If the person they send to help you is not a lactation specialist and they send a health visitor or a midwife to help you then please do your best to get in touch with a trained lactation consultant. They do cost but they can be the difference between breastfeeding your baby and bottle feeding. Obviously health visitors and midwives do great jobs but their training on breastfeeding is often shockingly lacking.

This link is a great resource and a good way to build your knowledge. It's ran by someone who works for the NHS but it's a really great website thebreastfeedingcompanion.com/ it's full of little videos which are easy to watch on your phone while you're feeding.

Skin to skin doesn’t have to be during feeding even just when you’re lying or sitting around with her ten mins, just pop her on your chest and let her mooch/move around, helps baby get to know the place 😄 And stimulates your supply. She might tension in some part of her body that is only becoming awkward or apparent to her now, there’s so many reasons their latch or feeding can get temporarily worse, the progress isn’t linear unfortunately! Well done on getting this far, if you aren’t satisfied with the help from the feeding team member have a look at IBCLCs near you.

My DCs were always on the boob in the first few weeks and often fell asleep too, but by a couple of weeks the feeds became longer and less frequent. It will become a lot easier in a few weeks time. The best advice I got was to keep re-latching until they got a good latch/it was comfortable for me. My DC also got pretty angry whenever I did this too, but it really did help.

Its veeeery normal, my second was like this day and night on the boob non stop. Just tv and phone is your life now. Sit and rest and let baby on boob, its all you have to do at the moment
It eventually stops being like this dont worry not gonna be forever there, she's only a newborn. Try to change your mindset and accept the situation, thats your whole job right now to tend to your baby. Then you have a whole life again to do whatever needs doing, but she will be only once a bewborn, remember that. 😘i actually miss those days now xx

IME GPs are not always the best regarding tongue tie. Find a local lactation consultant led support group, or call your MW team and ask for someone to come and assess her.

I have had 3 DC, my oldest was tiny and jaundice and he fell asleep at the boob and wasn't getting enough milk (I had plenty ) I found and this is for me - using a nipple shield helped him extract the milk easier and therefore had a proper feed and slept better, without i would have given up. He used the shield for a few months but then he fed without until he was 15m.My middle one had severe lactose issues from my breast milk and screamed constantly / youngest I used a shield a few days until she got the hang of it and then it was gone. It really depends on the baby and if they smell milk they want the comfort of what they know.

I gave my first a dummy at 10 days. I think it took about a week for him to take to it. He also had colic and cmpa. The comfort sucking and then sleeping then waking in pain cycle we were stuck in. I gave up dairy and soya and gave him gripe water.

If all these suggestions don’t work for you, you could consider pumping breast milk & giving it to the baby from a bottle. I have a late preemie, born at 35+2, who was unable to latch at all at first because he was too weak & as he has gained more strength, he can latch better. I tried to transition to breastfeeding exclusively but we were both extremely miserable for the reasons stated in the original post, so we are still mostly pumping (with an electrical pump) & then giving the milk through the bottle.
The pros to this are: my baby is done eating in 10/15 minutes (sometimes falls asleep after drinking abit, then wakes up again for the rest of his milk), you are more mobile & can go outside & do thing, dad & other family members can look after the baby so you can have a bit of a break, the baby is still getting breast milk.
The cons are: washing & sterilising bottles becomes annoying (to me less annoying than not being able to do anything), learning how long milk can be left out, refrigerated etc.. (also not really a con to me)
It is still important for the baby to latch a few times a day, so that the body knows how to change the composition of the milk according to baby’s needs.

Breastfeeding may also be more practical in some situations.
The worst con for me was the judgement from other people, but as a mother, you need to grow a thick skin anyway since everyone has an opinion on everything you do with your child.

I also tried a nipple shield, which my baby accepted for 2 weeks then decided that he totally hated it.
also very important to buy anti-colic bottles if you’re going to try this.