Breastfeeding advice

[EmilyDoesntKnowHerStuff]

Hi, I hope I’m posting in the right place. I’m currently pregnant with DD2 and I’m in need of breastfeeding advice.

Unfortunately breastfeeding didn’t work out with DD1 and I’m sure this contributed to my PND and feeling like a failure. I did want to and I tried, but for some reason my milk never seemed to come in. By 10 days old, DD had lost so much of her birth weight and in my panic at the time I gave formula and that was that. My breastfeeding attempts just stopped. I am so annoyed with myself still for this, as I didn’t get any advice to try to continue or combination feed. Family around me were all very pro formula feeding too.

So this time around I am determined to persevere with breastfeeding! But I am so scared of being in the same situation watching my baby continue to lose weight until I’m forced to formula feed. Can anyone give me any advice on getting my milk to come in sooner? (I’m pretty sure I can produce milk because bizarrely when DD1 was about 6months old I started leaking milk all the time, which continued for a year!)

So, should I try hand expressing milk/stimulating nipples in the lead up to my due date? Or will this potentially lose valuable colostrum? Can this be stored ready for when DD is born?

I feel like I should know so much more than I do second time round but I’m absolutely clueless and terrified of it all going wrong again.

I’d also like to add this is nothing against formula feeding, as long as babies are fed that’s the important thing! But it’s just a personal feeling of guilt for me that I couldn’t breastfeed last time.

Thanks for any advice!

@EmilyDoesntKnowHerStuff my experience with combi feeding, the lactation consultant actually advised me to do a small top up after each feed rather than one full bottle at some point during the day. Her logic was that if I wanted to move to exclusively feed then it's easier to replace say a 30ml top up that a one time large bottle (which was what I had been doing).

As people suggest get some specialist help. A qualified lactation consultant should help.

Colostrum harvesting before will help - it's okay to do it after so many weeks pregnant, 35? 36? 37? I can't quite remember so do check.

Otherwise try 3 breasts e.g. left, right, left for max 10 mins (so baby not too tired for top up) then offer formula top up and then you can always return to breast and monitor weight regularly - though I really suggest getting some qualified advice. This approach will allow you to breast feed but with security that you're offering them enough food through top up to.

Good luck.

Re cracked nipples speak to your Dr as depends on whether bacteria risk to baby.

@EmilyDoesntKnowHerStuff I'll pm you

OP some people only produce drops of colostrum extremely tiny volumes so please don’t be discouraged.

Why did you feel that your milk wasn't coming in ?
Rather than not long enough/frequent enough feeds , sleepy baby , for example ?

@surreymum89 To be honest it’s all such a blur now! I remember by day 10 DD had lost well over the 12% weight mark, and it felt like I was feeding all the time, so I guess I just assumed I wasn’t producing any/enough..? Plus I never actually saw any milk as in if I hand expressed I never actually saw any milk come out, and pads were always dry (except from blood stains). My boobs never went hard or sore which I’d heard happens when your milk comes in?? The first time I ever actually saw milk coming from my nipples was when DD was about 6 months old and randomly they’d just start streaming!! Obviously this was months after I’d given up! X

An easy way to increase milk supply and to encourage it to "come in" is doing lots of skin to skin with your baby. Literally spend 10 hours a day with their skin touching yours. You can buy kangaroo care tops which make this very easy.

I ebf 2 DC and always struggled to get more than a couple of drops from expressing early on. Even later I could never express more than about 30ml at a time.

It's worth having a breastfeeding consultant lined up to give you advice (you want someone who can watch you feed and help with techniques and positioning) the day after you give birth, again a couple of days after and probably a fortnight after that.

It's normal for bf babies to lose weight after birth (normally about 10% by day 3 then they gradually recover to birth weight by 10-14days).

There's a good book by Kate Evans called The Food of Love that's really worth a read before birth if you want to bf.

Goodluck

Clare Byam Cook has quite a lot of misinformation in her books. It's great if it helped someone but I would take her info with a pinch of salt if you get that one.

It's worth being aware midwives don't really have the time, experience or training to properly support BF aside from the very basics unfortunately.

If you want to see if a lactation consultant is affordable, look up the list of who is near you and just ask a few for a quote. It's worth having this kind of support on hand, if you can.

A lactation consultant also may be able to do a bit of a "debrief" with you to try and work out exactly what happened last time, which might give you more info about what to do differently this time.

What misinformation? She is a former midwife and lactation consultant who does not agree that the 'nose to nipple' technique is the best way to latch and she suggests an alternative (which worked much better for me).

Also The Food of Love made me feel very upset given that I was unsuccessful at breastfeeding my first - I read this ahead of preparing to breastfeed my second in light of that experience and it did not help at all

OP my milk didn’t come in until day 10 with my first but this was due to a large PPH and sepsis and I had every feeding/lactation person involved various bloody breast pumps, a feeding schedule etc and it still didn’t work with all the help so please don’t beat yourself up, sometimes it just doesn’t work I was just crying with bleeding nipples for 6 weeks I wish I had stopped trying sooner for my own mental health. Lots of feeding professionals will see you antenatally for a consultation if that might help. Have you been assessed for IGT? Or discussed your medical history to see if there’s anything there may have had an impact. I started producing ‘milk’ randomly when my son was about 18 months and I saw my GP who sent me for an ultrasound and it turned out it was to do with a cyst. I now have a 6 months old who is mostly EBF but did have formula top ups due to a big weight loss and jaundice and I continued with a bottle a day for a break. The most important thing with a big weight loss and/or jaundice is getting milk (BM or formula) into baby to prevent dehydration/electrolyte disturbance so you absolutely did the right thing feeding your baby what was needed when please be kind to yourself. Speak to your midwife most trusts have colostrum harvesting packs that you can use. I had a really good chat with my midwife when pregnant with number 2 about my feeding issues the first time and she put me in touch with one of the feeding support maternity assistants who I had a good chat with at about 36 weeks and I actually decided not to harvest colostrum after talking to her and putting a plan in place for feeding number 2 ( this was during the first lockdown last year so it is still possible to access help I had a zoom consultation.) what I would say is going in with an open mind helped me as personally putting too much pressure on myself to achieve something would have been more difficult if it then didn’t work due to circumstances out of my control like with my first. Good luck!

I strongly recommend to line up a LBCLC breastfeeding consultant locally to help you, if you can afford it. Worth every penny.

She is not an IBCLC. She is a breastfeeding specialist, which is not a protected term (anyone can call themselves that). The first current Google hit for her shows that she's working for Mam which is a bottle company! She also used to be famous for advising Gina Ford for her books.

I haven't read the food of love so can't speak for its accuracy.

Byam Cook's misleading info includes of the top of my head, expressing as a measure of production. She reckons breastfeeding is as bad as cola in the second year of life, which is not true - it still contains many benefits to children.

I couldn't remember any more specifics but here are some examples of an actual IBCLC responding to things she's said, and a mumsnet thread discussing her from a few years ago. She does seem to help a lot of people, so I'm not disbelieving your experience, but if her advice doesn't work for op then it could end up with the opposite effect.

www.analyticalarmadillo.co.uk/2012/03/discussion-clare-byam-cook-low-milk.html

www.analyticalarmadillo.co.uk/2012/05/claire-byam-cook-in-times-say-what.html

www.analyticalarmadillo.co.uk/2012/11/why-expressing-breastmilk-isnt-reliable.html

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/breast_and_bottle_feeding/737675-Who-is-Clare-Byam-Cook-and-do-you-consider-this

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/am_i_being_unreasonable/1768977-That-Claire-Byam-Cook-shouldnt-be-constantly-being-wheeled-out

I don't remember any of that being said in Breastfeeding Without Tears. And she's been around a long time so it's possible her advice has changed and she's updated some of it. There are loads of threads and internet discussions and reviews that are very positive about CBC in addition to the ones you've looked for so I guess it's up to the individual to read up on different approaches and find what works for them. For me, having had difficulties in the past, her advice was invaluable and was directly related to my success.

Thank you everyone, I think this really highlights how we’re all so different and advice might work for one person and not another!

If only there was one rule to follow, it would be easy hey!