Breast feeding struggles
My baby is 9 days old. In hospital when he was first born he struggled to latch so they helped me express into syringes and feed him them. I then got sent home with not a lot of knowledge! We managed to get the latch and he would breast feed, but now he is really funny about it so I have had to start expressing and using a bottle sometimes. I get roughly 2 breast feeds in a day but sometimes only 1, the other times he just kind of licks my nipple and then gets upset. I don’t really know what to do and I feel like I’m failing him. Please help x
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Please speak to your hospitals infant feeding team. You’re doing great, skin to skin & let baby lick the nipple, it’s telling your body what baby needs! Which part of your latch are you struggling with?
The Anya latch aid app is fabulous! They’ve demos and a help chat x
When he latches, it’s great and we get a really good feed. But more often than not he’ll just lick around, put my nipple in and out without latching and then burst into tears. I’m trying to persevere but after about 10 minutes it’s really stressful!
I’ll have a look for the details of the hospital team and the app. Thank you so much xx
You should have some breastfeeding support groups (if you're UK based) as I was having trouble maintaining the latch, and they were really knowledgeable and helpful as well as suggesting other things to look at such as tension in baby's neck and recommended a chiropractor visit. Might be worth looking into that if you had a difficult birth, apparently it's a big thing that hospitals don't talk about but can really affect breastfeeding.
I am UK based. Do you know how I find these support groups? I feel like I’m in the dark about where to access this help….maybe I’m just being really naive and my sleepless brain isn’t working! 🙈
There’s the National breastfeeding line too!
My health visitor helped me with latch on a home visit, could be worth speaking to them for some advice
Have you tried some skin to skin when he gets agitated? Or giving him to someone else so you can both calm down before trying again. We had similar difficulties and our local feeding team really helped. Would suggest you call the national breastfeeding Line too, as well as calling your midwife/labour ward to ask for the feeding team. You’re doing great, keep persevering. ❤️
I got a text from the breastfeeding network with details on the support group so if you search up the BFN that might give you a place to start looking? https://www.breastfeedingnetwork.org.uk/ and your local children's centre should have information about groups too. Good luck!
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