Stepping in as a breastfeeding failure, so far, who has a bead of hope, with a question.
Just curious if anyone couldn't make it work until several weeks after their baby was born?
My baby is 3 weeks old and I didn't get any lactation support in the hospital due to him being in the NICU and it being a holiday weekend. He was bottle fed - and is lazy. Has a great latch (did see a lactation consultant last week) but won't stay there and work for it. Have tried a nipple shield. Should I even keep trying, see another LC, or give up? I feel terrible about it. I'm pumping but it's pretty tiring - don't think I can keep it up beyond my maternity leave, if that long even..
Have you tried compressions or pumping a bit before you latch him so the milk is ready for him? How many times a day are you trying to nurse? I would say it is a learned skill. DD had latch issues and we were still working on it at 3 weeks. She did get there eventually so I was glad I stuck with it.
I hope you find something that you're comfortable with and that works for you and your little guy. I know how frustrating and overwhelming it feels. You're a good mom!
I hope you find something that you're comfortable with and that works for you and your little guy. I know how frustrating and overwhelming it feels. You're a good mom!
Thank you! This is what I tried when he head butted me. I think h handling MOTN wake ups is a good idea! Thank you!
I really, really hope it works for you. I know it's not easy. So many hugs to you.
How long have you been breastfeeding? 20 months with DD, DS is weaned but I BF him for 27 months Best part of breastfeeding for you, right now? The snuggles before/after bed and naptime Worst part of breastfeeding for you, right now? Still having to pump if I have a night or two away Do you have plans to wean? I think when DD hits 2 I'll probably be ready to stop, but we'll see Questions for the rest of us? None, I'm in the home stretch, which feels good, but a little sad.
Post by crispnclean on Apr 24, 2015 9:03:37 GMT -5
How long have you been breastfeeding? 19 months Best part of breastfeeding for you, right now? the snuggle time because he is a very busy boy otherwise Worst part of breastfeeding for you, right now? He throws a fit when I make him stop nursing in the mornings. I think he would nurse for hours if I let him, but I have to get ready for work! Do you have plans to wean? No plans...I am happy with how things are going now, but I am going away for a long weekend with H in May and I wonder if he will want to nurse when I get back or just be done. Based on how much he likes to nurse, I would guess he will just be happy that I my boobs are back, but who knows?
Stepping in as a breastfeeding failure, so far, who has a bead of hope, with a question.
Just curious if anyone couldn't make it work until several weeks after their baby was born?
My baby is 3 weeks old and I didn't get any lactation support in the hospital due to him being in the NICU and it being a holiday weekend. He was bottle fed - and is lazy. Has a great latch (did see a lactation consultant last week) but won't stay there and work for it. Have tried a nipple shield. Should I even keep trying, see another LC, or give up? I feel terrible about it. I'm pumping but it's pretty tiring - don't think I can keep it up beyond my maternity leave, if that long even..
Have you tried compressions or pumping a bit before you latch him so the milk is ready for him? How many times a day are you trying to nurse? I would say it is a learned skill. DD had latch issues and we were still working on it at 3 weeks. She did get there eventually so I was glad I stuck with it.
Thanks for the advice, I actually got him to latch and feed for the first time today after pumping!
Last night was a really bad night. He was back to all his old shitty nursing habits and we had to give him a bottle to calm him down MOTN.
It was so tough. I feel crappy today. I thought we'd made so much progress and here we are again. I am hoping it's just because he saw the dentist and his mouth hurt but who knows.
@choco - the super long version (sorry to the rest of you, LOL)
Most of this is just my opinion and guess at things, as the professional help was pretty crappy, if anything.
For the first week, he was literally latched on to the breast at least 20 hours out of every day. If he wasn't latched, he was usually screaming to nurse again. Every so often he'd sleep for a few minutes. It was excruciating for me, but I'm sure that much nursing was exhausting, and possibly painful, for him too. At the end of the first week, he flat-out refused to latch again, and I had no other choice but to feed him by bottle (which he took to very easily, and was a MUCH happier baby).
Over the course of our initial troubles, we saw several different pediatricians, 2 LCs, a feeding specialist, my OB, a midwife, and probably others. No one was able to find any reason why breastfeeding shouldn't be working for us. I still feel confident that he has an upper lip tie, but otherwise, I think he was just a really weak and ineffective nurser. He was gaining weight well, but I think that it took him so much time and effort to nurse, that it was too overwhelming for him.
The professionals I saw, basically had 1 of 2 opinions - jump back into breastfeeding cold-turkey with no more pumping/bottles (and force him/us to figure it out), or give in to the fact that he's accustomed to bottles now and will not likely ever nurse again. I didn't feel comfortable with either of those 2 options.
My primary concern about getting back to breastfeeding some day, was that he'd forget what breasts are for. I worried that if/when the day came that he was physically able to nurse better, that he'd look at me all crazy like when I offered a breast. So, my thought was to continue to offer to nurse, in a very comfortable, non-pressure sort of way. I'd usually offer when we were in the shower or bath together, or maybe an hour or so after he'd taken a full bottle and was drowsy. He'd usually latch for a few seconds, then pop off. I'd let him do the latch/pop off a couple of times, and then move on. I'd tell him that there was no pressure to nurse, and that I'd still give him a bottle, and that he could just try it if he wanted to. The "conversations" I had with my newborn about trying to breastfeed are actually very funny, looking back. LOL. My goal was to offer the breast once a day, but sometimes I forgot or was feeling too anxious about it. I probably averaged 4-5 offers per week. That felt like enough to me to keep him remembering what the breast could do for him.
The day we had success happened to be very different from my other offers. We got home late from dinner, and my husband wasn't home. He needed to eat and go to bed, but I really needed to pump (which I couldn't do in this order, because he also co-slept...a sleep issue which I also thought was tied to this whole crazy mess). The baby was screaming like a maniac. I was frazzled. We sat down, and I said to him, "If you're so hungry, why don't you just nurse!?" And he did. Then he slept for several hours. He had never before nursed a normal session, and slept like that. Once I knew he could do it, I never personally offered him a bottle again. Some of our next sessions weren't as easy, but it went much better. I didn't want him to think, anymore, that he had any option but to nurse with me.
I do think that being bigger and stronger was the key for him. I wonder if being super starving when I offered the breast made a difference, because I wasn't previously offering when he seemed hungry. Other than just continue to offer, I did nothing. I didn't see any more doctors, do any therapy, or anything else.
The biggest adjustment back to breastfeeding was to my supply. I had established an insane over-supply because of the pumping. I was purposely pumping as much as I could, and freezing it, with the intent to quit pumping when I was comfortable using out my freezer stash. So, I went from pumping 50-60 oz per day, to breastfeeding a baby who'd eat less than 25 ounces/day. I had to do some major weaning off of the pump, even after he was breastfeeding full time again.
What I wish had happened differently - I wish that someone in the hospital would have noticed that a newborn nursing so often might need some assessment. I wish that I'd seen a pediatric ENT to discuss the lip tie (if even just to cross it off my list). I wish that LCs were available more often. The ones at our hospital work part time, weekdays only. So WTF am I supposed to do with a nursing problem at night or on the weekend. Tell my newborn to hold out for a day or two? I wish that I wouldn't have been so damn obsessed with pumping the max amount of milk possible. I think I would have been much happier, overall, with pumping just a little more than he needed. ETA - I also wish that the first LC I saw had suggested pumping before feeding. I had really terrible engorgement, which I think made it even harder for my tiny boy to latch. This LC was firmly in the no-pumping-for-the-first-6-weeks-camp, though.
Overall, I'm happy that we are where we are with breastfeeding today, but those first three months were really hellish (which, luckily, I didn't realize at the time how hard things were for me until they're weren't so hard anyore).
Have you tried compressions or pumping a bit before you latch him so the milk is ready for him? How many times a day are you trying to nurse? I would say it is a learned skill. DD had latch issues and we were still working on it at 3 weeks. She did get there eventually so I was glad I stuck with it.
Thanks for the advice, I actually got him to latch and feed for the first time today after pumping!
That is great! Hope you are able to have more success, the early days can me so hard.
Questions for the rest of us? If you nursed a different length with a different child, do you feel guilty? Every once in a while I think I'd like to wean at a year, then I feel guilty as it would be less than I nursed DS1. Or sometimes I think I might like to let him self-wean and I feel guilty because I did parent-led weaning with DS1 due to being pregnant with DS2. And sometimes I think I am just over thinking this.
I felt incredibly motivated to make BFing work with DS when it was clearly not working at the beginning. Part of this May have been guilt because I nursed DD for so long, but a big part of it was that I really enjoyed BFing a small baby. By the end with DD, I didn't enjoy it anymore. I felt touched out and drained. I figure that point may or may not come at all with DS and I would be fine with nursing him for less time if I never felt resentful/"over it" with him. There's no point in making things even at the expense of my own happiness.
I worry about being "fair" regarding a lot of other random things, though, so I get where the question comes from.
Questions for the rest of us? If you nursed a different length with a different child, do you feel guilty? Every once in a while I think I'd like to wean at a year, then I feel guilty as it would be less than I nursed DS1. Or sometimes I think I might like to let him self-wean and I feel guilty because I did parent-led weaning with DS1 due to being pregnant with DS2. And sometimes I think I am just over thinking this.
I felt incredibly motivated to make BFing work with DS when it was clearly not working at the beginning. Part of this May have been guilt because I nursed DD for so long, but a big part of it was that I really enjoyed BFing a small baby. By the end with DD, I didn't enjoy it anymore. I felt touched out and drained. I figure that point may or may not come at all with DS and I would be fine with nursing him for less time if I never felt resentful/"over it" with him. There's no point in making things even at the expense of my own happiness.
I worry about being "fair" regarding a lot of other random things, though, so I get where the question comes from.
Thanks, I worry a lot about this stuff. DS2 will never have the same amount of one on one attention that DS1 had solely because of his birth order. But DS2 is already way more social than his brother and I wonder if that is because of his personality or if I am just a more relaxed mother.
I know in the grand scheme of things, BF will not really matter when they are older kids, but right now, it matters a lot to me.