Breast feeding

[Ttcmumma]

Hey ladies, I had my gorgeous girl late on the 10th April. Initially she latched perfectly and I just followed her cues and let her feed as and when. Yesterday she stopped latching and even gets very annoyed at the breast while rooting. Today my milk has come in and it's very painful. I've pumped out some milk and stored it for her for now but she's really struggling to latch still. Any advice? I really want to continue breast feeding and also need the release!

Thanks in advance x

Remember it's a new skill for both of you.

It might be the let down is too fast so hand express some first so it isn't so highly pressured

Baby's put in their order for 3 days down the road so may feed and not get a whole lot, that's fine she's stimulating it for later in the week.

It can be uncomfortable for a week or so whilst your nipples adjust

You can hand feed her from a little feeding cup (basically looks like a little iron water refilled) and you hold it to their lips and lap it up like a cat.

Are your breasts too engorged for her to latch? If the areolas are hard / swollen her little mouth might not be able to get a good latch. Happened to me and my lactation consultant recommended hand expressing a little before trying to feed her so that they were softer. In the end I got fed up with the constant engorgement though (I am a chronic oversupplier and my boobs were constantly in agony) so I did a combo of expressing and formula which is working well for us. Good luck and don’t beat yourself up if it takes a while to establish bf / you end up mix feeding / you end up exclusively pumping. Do whatever works for you and your baby!

Not sure why she'd stop latching but some things I found helpful early on...

• nipple shields and the lansinoh nipple 'prep' things (I had very flat nipples so DD found it hard to latch)
• 'squashing' my boob so that it was an easier shape for DD
• getting a tongue tie assessment

I'd recommend seeking a lactation consultant in your area if you can, so they can tailor the advice to what's going on for you. It can be so, so hard to get established, so don't be hard on yourself.

Oh I also meant to say that you also shouldn’t feel one bit bad if breastfeeding doesn’t work at all. Formula is also a great choice and Hipp formula worked really well for both of my two (bonus is that it can be bought in ready to feed form which is v helpful)!

It is likely to do with the flow. Hand expressing like some pp said will probably help. Also use pumped milk or formula if you need to. Nipple confusion isn't as common as is made out. Mixed feeding often works very successfully. Good luck.

Look up the reverse pressure technique to soften up your breast. And as a pp says, hand express to release some pressure too.
Congratulations!

It takes awhile for them to get the hang of bf. They’re little it’s hard work. Don’t wait until they are too hungry or tired.
I only weaned my toddler when o was 28 weeks pregnant with my second and she arrived at 38 weeks. So I had 10 weeks off bf. I had bleeding cracked nipples, gallons of milk and baby who struggled to latch. It was hard going for the first few weeks but by week 6 we were doing well and by 12 weeks it was very easy

Thanks ladies! This is all massively helpful, I'm definitely going to try and reduce the pressure for her (and my own comfort!) these are all very helpful tips. Going to feed her some of the expressed milk so she isn't over hungry as she does seem to get even more angry at the breast then! And push through. I gave up at one month with my son and never really established it well so I'm determined to keep going this time until it comes more natural but also aware that she will be fine regardless x

This happened to me when my milk came in. I ended up calling the hospital midwives because it had been hours since he had last fed.

You could try expressing a little and cup feeding just to get some milk in

I actually went to the hospital and the midwife manhandled the baby a bit to actually FORCE him to latch. Once he was on, no problem and he had a nice 20 min feed

Don't be afraid to call the breastfeeding hotline. Like all skills, there is a learning curve.

Get local breastfeed charities on the case. Mine wouldn't latch the way midwives wanted to, tried rugby ball and baby massively preferred. Also got mad and refused to latch so I'd hand express a little so it was still on my nipple which got him interested.

Thanks ladies, alot of this has massively helped today. I'm ontop of the engorgment with a massage in the shower, expressing etc baby is now latching well nearly 80% of the time I sometimes just need to hand express a little onto her mouth and squeeze the breast to make it slightly different shape for her to latch. She has also taken a couple of ounces expressed into a Medela bottle in between too. Looks like it's going to be abit of hard work to keep up with initially but I feel we can do it with a lot of these tips. Thanks so much 😊

@Ttcmumma great update, I'm glad it's going easier.

I promise just like starting any new job once you are six weeks in it will all come much more second nature and the initial wrinkles will have worked themselves out.

Just take it easy and don't rush yourself, one of the fundamental benefits of breastfeeding over bottle feeding is that it makes the new mum sit down and recover for several hours a day rather than someone else doing the feed and you whizzing around trying to keep up with household chores etc.

so glad to hear your update, OP! Mine was just the same when my milk came in and my boobs were like footballs. I think the letdown also nearly blew her little head off too, so expressing a bit beforehand is definitely the way to go. Great for having some extra for bottle feeding, but be careful not to make a habit of expressing a lot before a feed or your body will expect to always have to make that much milk and you may remain engorged for longer.
Once you get into the swing of it this issue will go away.
I also second nipple shields if needed. I was reliant on them for maybe the first 6 or 8 weeks but was able to ditch them after that and it caused no confusion, think it was just the little bit of help we needed in persevering.