in Feeding Baby: Boob & Bottle Thru Food!

Struggling to latch

My baby boy is a little over 2 weeks, and he won’t latch onto the boob. A bit of history: I fed him in hospital by the boob but eventually my nipples started cracking and bleeding, they checked him for tongue tie and said he didn’t have it. After two days he had jaundice and the hospital wanted me to mix feed to know how much intake he was having to try and improve his jaundice, we were discharged and then it was found by the community midwives that he had tongue tie, they released it but during all this time he was mainly bottle fed. Skip to today, I keep trying to pop him on the boob, any boob and he just shakes his head and gets so frustrated with himself, even after 15 minutes of trying I can’t seem to get him to latch and he’s just getting himself worked up by this point. He is my second baby, my first was during lockdown and she had the exact same circumstances but I gave in and bottle fed her, I really wanted to breast feed this time for personal reasons. Does anyone have any advice on how I can get him to latch to me, or should I admit defeat and exclusively bottle feed him?

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My LO had a tongue tie too. We were in the same situation as you, jaundice, mixed feeding both expressed breastmilk and formula (we used a cup and bottles). After he got his tongue tie snipped, he still didn't know how to latch. When he was around 2 weeks old, I reached out to my local breastfeeding support group running by a health visitor. The group was super useful, they taught me how to do deep latch and shared a lot of tips. My baby is now 17 weeks and I'm exclusively breastfeeding. Maybe ask your health visitor or midwife about the support group? Hope there is one near you.

Hi Hannah, I had trouble getting my 2 week old to latch to one boob. I saw a lactation nurse and she gave me some great tips. Happy for you to message me if you’d like? I can try and talk you through some of the things I did that worked

He might be confused if he's used to the bottle. They have supplemental nursing systems that can be used to get a baby back onto the breast (basically supplements their feed while they learn to suck at the breast effectively so they don't get frusterated and give up on the feeding before getting any milk from the breast). If you have access to lactation consultants or even le leche league near you it may be worth asking about. One of my friends successfully used it to get her little guy to breast feed after she had to start him off with bottles when her milk was slow to come in!

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