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Breastfeeding struggles!

Hi, I've been having trouble BF since baby was born. Had skin to skin after a very easy birth but baby showed no interest in feeding this continued for the first 3 days with baby losing  quite a lot if weight. On day 3 we started trying to feed her every3 hours and then topping up with EBM and a little formula (if there wasn't enough EBM) this continued for a week and she started to feed better at the breast and gain well. She's gaining steadily (but sometimes a little slowly?) but I'm experiencing bad pain particularly on one breast. I've seen councillors and my HV and MW in hospital and they all said everything was fine. The BF councillor most recently said she was nipple feeding but wasn't able to improve this! I can't get her to open wide or lean her head back, she goes very quickly from sound asleep to crying and thrashing! No calm hunger cues most of the time! She's 5 weeks old tomorrow and I'm adamant I'll carry on but I wish there was a fix for the pain! Any suggestions or just sympathy appreciated! I've heard some people say it will just fix itself. Is that true!? TIA! xx

Replies

  • Hi, my names Danielle and i am breastfeeding my little boy who is now 16 weeks. I had pretty much exactly the same problem with Rowan. And once they get to the thrashing screaming stage they don't even give themselves time to latch on. I too was adamant I would not give up so I tried Tommee tippee nipple shields. And they were brilliant solved all problems helped a lot with pain as they weren't latching on incorrectly. I used these until my nipples touchened up a little bit and started to stick out more and now it's a doddle. Made things so much easier. I did this until Rowans sucking/latching reflex was better and then only took a day or two to change to just nipple feeding. Now neither of us have to try its is natural and easy.

    hope this helps.

    Danielle xx

  • Hi, my little one is 5 months next week. She struggled with opening wide enough, and it was extremely painful. The lactation consultant suggested me pressing in her little chin, but then she would stop nursing all together. I did use a shield for several weeks to help. My little one nurses rough until I had her checked for reflux. Turned out that the milk was burning her belly and that's why she had so much trouble. Now that I have her on anti-acids everything is pretty smooth. We didn't get it all figured out until she was almost 12 weeks! But I was determined to keep at it and it has worked. 

  • Hi lIlly bug... Hang in there my dear... You can do it! I agree with the other ladies that nipple shields can be very helpful as a temporary relief for your nipples & to help baby latch if that's a problem... I used them (I had medela ones) for the first 4 weeks with my son as he couldn't latch properly so the nurses gave me shields & he did great. Was an easy gradual weaning off process at 4/5 weeks too so no worries there. He is now 6 months & still feeding great.

    My lactation consultant told me to initially position the baby nose to nipple as this encourages them to open their mouths wide.

    the other thing I would say just to check is to make sure that your little one is not tongue tied... My little boy was & this was most likely the cause of his difficulty with latching, slow weight gain etc & is also a very common cause of nipple pain for mums. If she is tongue tied the procedure to fix it is super quick & within 20mins my lo was feeding again & instantly noticed an improvement (he had it cut at 6weeks).

    hope thungs get better for you soon.

  • Thank you for your kind words and suggestions! Had LO weighed yesterday and she's gaining weight really well HV suggested thrush so have now got treatment for that (and need to USe nipple shields for that anyway) hoping that it is that and it'll start getting easier! Only a week and I've managed 6 weeks just going to take every day as it comes! Thanks all :-) xx

  • Hey. Has yoir little one been chexked for tongue tie? X

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