Forum home Babies Breast & bottle feeding

persevering with breastfeeding

Hi there
My baby is 10 days old and I'm persevering with the b/feeding. I'm still finding it hurts a lot and I almost fear the next feed. My mw says the latch is correct but my nipples are still so sore. I am using lansinoh which helps that a little. Sometimes I find he slips off a bit and ends up with just the nipple which is so painful. Also he is getting more frenetic / greedy in his feeding and this hurts too. Does it get better? Any advice? Thanks ladies.
xx

Replies

  • Hi,
    Sorry you are feeling like this, I know how you feel, I have been there!! Someone posted a thread similar to this recently to which a few of us replied, you may find this useful - here's the link:

    http://www.babyexpert.com/chatroom/topic/129955

    It will get better, I promise!! Good luck

  • Congratulations on the birth of your son and well done for persevering with breastfeeding! Yes, it does get better (well it did for me, at around 2 weeks). I too had very sore nipples at the beginning with the skin flaking off them despite all the lanisoh, though it did help. But then gradually they healed and the pain of feeding lessened and I began to enjoy it image.

    Since he is an eager feeder, if he slips off to the end of a nipple I would suggest breaking the suction with your little finger in the corner of his mouth and getting him to latch back on properly. Otherwise he will just keep rasping your poor sore nip and it will take that much longer to recover.

    Another thing, since you say you are almost afraid of the next feed and he is getting rather frenetic, I would say the awful words "try to relax"! I know it's hard, but make yourself comfortable before you start, have a drink and book/tv remote/whatever in easy reach and maybe even do some deep steady breathing to calm yourself. It's important to be as relaxed as you can to allow your let-down reflex to work more quickly. This is when your breasts release the richer hind-milk so the baby gets more than just the watery fore-milk that's always ready in reservoirs close to the nipple. Some mums can feel this happening (I couldn't for the first few weeks, but now I can). I'm not saying this is definitely what's going on with your LO, but it's possible that when he's hungry, if you are stressed from the pain it's delaying your let-down and making him wait so he gets really impatient and hurts you more by sucking harder to trigger the let-down. Think happy thoughts, hun! Gaze at his wondeful little face and be very proud of yourself for feeding him. You will get there image.

    Hope some of that helps, wishing you the best of luck.

    xx
  • thanks for your advice. Am trying to relax now. He's still greedy and impatient but it does seem to help if I'm less stressed. xx
Sign In or Register to comment.

Featured Discussions