Early breast feeding

[lolo]

Call a lactation consultant.

Try to express a little on the nipple when he starts eating.

Make sure you are burping him. Bicycle his legs to help with gas.

[pugz]

I would also call an LC to have a consult to help him latch, either one that will come to your house or one whose office you can go to.

[andthentherewere10]

Be sure you are trying to feed him before he shows all those intense hunger cues.

[pinotgrig]

You're doing great so far! Here's some info from kellymom that may be helpful. Hang in there.

kellymom.com/bf/concerns/child/back-to-breast/

[Deleted]

Try the laid-back position: www.llli.org/faq/positioning.html

[pinotgrig]

Dec 20, 2014 15:24:37 GMT -5 pugz said:

I would also call an LC to have a consult to help him latch, either one that will come to your house or one whose office you can go to.

This is an excellent suggestion. I wish I had called an LC sooner. She was amazing.

[undecidedowl]

Call a LC, I wish I had done it sooner with my first. We had a similar rough start. Try to feed sooner, before he is so hungry and feed more often if you can. If you can't get a good latch and are super frustrated, have someone take him to another room for a few minutes while you take a few deep breaths then try again. I had to do that a lot on the early days as DS1 did not take easily to latching and we would both be in tears. DS1 could only latch with a shield so you might keep trying that. If the colostrum/milk is not available right away you might pump until it starts then try to latch.

[vmars]

Can you have someone help latch him each time? My husband would wait until his mouth was wide open then put him on my breast and hold him in position for me. My milk did not come in until day 3, so don't worry too much about that. You are doing a great job!

[vmars]

Also has he been evaluated for a lip or tongue tie?

[Blue Moon]

My milk didn't come in until day 5. We didn't supplement, just nursed every two hours at a minimum and often every hour in those early weeks. DD lost weight but the pedi said that was normal and she gained a full pound very quickly after my milk came in. H helped me get her to latch a lot in the beginning. It can be very overwhelming in the beginning but hang in there- it gets soo much easier. You're doing great!

[Poppy]

I had a helluva time getting my son latched on the beginning, sounds similar.

Several times I had my husband or MIL hold his hand out of the way. I also had success swaddling him and then doing cross-cradle. Finally, sometimes football hold worked when he was really worked up.

Also, if you can get the nipple in his mouth (which was a real feat for me), pull him in real tight and hold him firmly to the breast. I was paranoid about his breathing so I'd indent the breast with my thumb, but the truth is that he could breath just fine. It feels weird to pull him in that tightly but that's how the LCs did it and it helped me. Good luck.

[heygrey]

milk can take 4-5 days to come in - it is perfectly normal! their stomachs are so so tiny, they don't need much colostrum to fill them up, but that also means their tiny stomachs empty rather quickly and they need to eat again soon. when R was awake, he wasn't off the boob more than a half hour at a time for the first ~12 days. i remember thinking that if this is what breastfeeding entailed there was NO WAY i could do it long term, but that kind of intensity ended pretty quickly in hindsight.

don't wait for him to show hunger signs, it's harder to get a good latch when babe is hungry and fussing.

sometimes it takes four hands to get and keep a good latch. this will improve quickly and babe gets a bit of muscle tone and can help hold himself in position. also try the lying back method that tokenhoser linked above. that was our main position for a good 3-4 weeks.

have him checked for a tongue tie. don't let a doctor dismiss you either. some will say that tongue ties don't affect breast feeding. okay, maybe sometimes it doesn't, or maybe some moms just power through, but it absolutely can affect nursing. R didn't get his tongue tie clipped until 4 weeks and the difference was literally instant.

and even though you cannot see the light at the end right now, there are hundreds of mommas here that will tell you that it gets better and gets better quickly. 3 weeks was a huge turning point, then 6 weeks, then again around 3 months. you're doing great

[dcn]

My milk didnt come in until day 4, that is normal! I had to hold my breast and had dh help hold baby at first. Try different positions as well. You could try puliing his chin/lower jaw open a bit to get hm to open really wide and then aim your nipple toward his nose and really stuff it in there, quickly. If you get too frustrated, give baby to dh and take a break, try again in ten minutes.

Also contact a lactation consultant! The one i saw was so helpful, and showed me i had to be a little more forceful than i was initally doing. You are both still learning and it takes awhile to figure it out.

[ringstrue]

::hugs::

I just wanted to put it out there that you can still supplement until your milk comes in and it won't ruin anything. It's a choice if you want to do that or not, but I don't want you to think you have to suffer in the meanwhile. Just make sure to keep offering the breast throughout the day as well.

You are doing great.

[lilac05]

Just offering support & another recommendation for a LC. I would have never made it without my LC. If you see one you don't particularly like, try another one. They're all very different & you need to mesh well together.

It surprised me at first how far baby needed to go to get a good latch. Most LC's shove baby's head quite forcefully to get there. If you're being gentle, it may not be deep enough.

It's good to think about your goals now & think about how much BFing means to you. Do you want to bf "at any cost", "at almost any cost, but...", "if it works well", or "I'll give it a shot, but don't mind if we switch to formula"? It's good to know where you are today (& share that here, if you know what the answer is). For example, I was "at almost any cost, but formula isn't evil." I chose not to have formula in the house the first few weeks so I wouldn't "take the easy way out" (I tend to be a quitter if something is hard & I know that about myself), though other new moms do better knowing that option is there. You can change your mind anytime, but it helps those offering support when to help you push, push, push through the crappy parts and offer a billion suggestions & when to remind you that it's really OK if you want to give formula, in whatever amount.

[thatgirl2478]

Dec 20, 2014 15:54:07 GMT -5 Poppy said:

I had a helluva time getting my son latched on the beginning, sounds similar.

Several times I had my husband or MIL hold his hand out of the way. I also had success swaddling him and then doing cross-cradle. Finally, sometimes football hold worked when he was really worked up.

Also, if you can get the nipple in his mouth (which was a real feat for me), pull him in real tight and hold him firmly to the breast. I was paranoid about his breathing so I'd indent the breast with my thumb, but the truth is that he could breath just fine. It feels weird to pull him in that tightly but that's how the LCs did it and it helped me. Good luck.

This!

And the laid back positioning thing. 

My DD2 still does that back arching thing from time to time, it annoying but being firm with them does seem to help them settle down.

ETA - with my first, my milk didn't come in for days!  So nursing was a huge bone of contention for us.  Plus, she never latched well at all. Formula was a life (and sanity) saver.  DD1 is a smart, healthy 3 (almost 4) year old now. 

[lilac05]

A 3 day old's stomach is .75-1oz, the size of a walnut or shooter marble.
A 7 day old's stomach is 1.5-2oz, or the size of a Ping pong ball.

Colostrum is so nutrient dense that only a very, very small amount is needed.

[greycat]

My milk didn't come in for 4 days...yours might not be in yet. I also had flat nipples which made getting a good latch challenging. I really had to sandwich my boob and shove it into DS's mouth. MH used to help because it was tough to keep his hands out of his mouth. The LC at the hospital gave me a latch assist - basically a small pump like thing that helped to draw my nipple out. That helped some too.

I do suggest calling an LC. I didn't and really wish I had. I think it would have helped and made me worry less.

Hang in there - the first few days are rough. It get much easier - I promise!

[sjh722]

My milk didn't come in for 5 days either. I called a LC and she said to do lots of skin to skin and had me doing kind of a massage on my breasts after nursing (like, grab the base and rub kind of hard toward the nipple? It's hard to describe. Kind of like how you would hand express.

Hang in there!

[orangeglow]

I've been crying all day about breast feeding issues. It's been a really bad day.  No advice (since I am failing at it), just hugs and understanding.

[sjh722]

Dec 20, 2014 20:13:51 GMT -5 orangeglow said:

I've been crying all day about breast feeding issues. It's been a really bad day.  No advice (since I am failing at it), just hugs and understanding.

You aren't failing! No matter what happens with BF, you're taking good care of your baby. 

((hugs))

Have you tried calling a lactation consultant? If she wasn't helpful don't be afraid to try another ones. The LC at our hospital are awful, but the one at my OB's office is awesome. 

[orangeglow]

Dec 20, 2014 20:21:28 GMT -5 sjh722 said:

Dec 20, 2014 20:13:51 GMT -5 orangeglow said:

I've been crying all day about breast feeding issues. It's been a really bad day.  No advice (since I am failing at it), just hugs and understanding.

You aren't failing! No matter what happens with BF, you're taking good care of your baby. 

((hugs))

Have you tried calling a lactation consultant? If she wasn't helpful don't be afraid to try another ones. The LC at our hospital are awful, but the one at my OB's office is awesome. 

Thanks!  Yes, I've seen 3.  DH is at target now getting nipple shields.  My nipples are destroyed. And I am not producing enough milk to only pump (righty seems to have not reconnected enough). Ugh.  So I feel Astrid's pain of frustration.

[smm5623]

You're doing great. Breastfeeding is so hard at first. Definitely meet with a LC. It's well worth the time and money.

[kaycee]

I can so vividly remember how tough it was at the beginning. It took awhile for my milk to come in and it took until I went back to work to pump more than a few drops.

I remember having my husband help and listen really carefully with the LC and then he would try to replicate what they did when we were at home. Him being invested and helping really got me through the tough spots.

Mainly I just did a ton of skin to skin and offered the boob what felt like constantly. Eventually it got easier.

You are doing great. Be kind to yourself. Feed your baby any way that works for you.

[purplecow0206]

Dec 20, 2014 20:35:59 GMT -5 smm5623 said:

You're doing great. Breastfeeding is so hard at first. Definitely meet with a LC. It's well worth the time and money.

Also, look into your insurance. Depending on the on your insurance, you may be able to get reimbursement for the cost of an LC. I had to pay up front, but was fully reimbursed for my visits.

HUGS

[celiacmom]

Hugs mamas! I agree call a lactation consultant asap! If you choose to just pump for now mama I'd try really hard to pump every 2 hours not 3. It's super important during these early days. Also be sure to do paced bottle feeding if you give baby a bottle m.youtube.com/watch?v=UH4T70OSzGs
Hang in there it's hard work!

[cmarie11]

Hugs @astrid and orangeglow, you're going great...it is SO SO SO hard at the beginning.

A good friend told me if I could make it through the first 6 weeks, you're golden. It turned out to be so true. There were noticeable differences at 2 and 4 weeks, and then by 6 weeks, it was (mostly) smooth sailing. Hang in there!

[MrsAggie]

Dec 20, 2014 20:24:44 GMT -5 @astrid said:

This shit is fucking hard! I am going to give up trying to latch until we see the lactation consultant and will keep pumping every 3ish hours. I am getting less than a cc from both breasts per time. Sometimes way less.

Stress can affect your milk supply. Sometimes a solid 4 or 5 hours of sleep can do wonders.

Also, have you tried burping your DS? My DS fusses and roots like crazy but won't latch until he's been burped before the feeding. I use a nipple shield and I've read that it can make them gassy.

[MamaMaui24]

Try pumping for a minute before putting him on the breast so your nipples are drawn out and it's easier for him to latch? Good luck

[noodleskooze]

Does he have a good amount of wet and poopy diapers?