Breastfeeding

Thank you for sharing; I’m in the depth of the challenges right now.

@Holly How old is your baby? What are you struggling with? Have you spoke to a breastfeeding consultant for support. It helped me dramatically! X

@Lucy Day 18, EBF until this morning. Over the last week baby has been doing marathon feeds (like 4/5 hours at one time 🥴) but is now losing weight and was admitted for assessment. Docs completely happy with the BF as I have tonnnes of milk and latch is good but he’s just not retaining from all the feeding and it’s soul destroying feeding constantly knowing he isn’t even gaining weight. They have put me on a dairy-free diet suggesting he has a cow milk allergy but I mentally can’t cope with feeding all day like a prisoner of my bed and sofa so I have given him a bit of formula today (suitable for this suspected allergy). I’ve been really conflicted emotionally about this but willing to give anything a try right now to ensure he’s happy and fed, and I am emotionally well. It’s also been a huge relief to see him settled and napping, whereas before he was either on the breast, or screaming to be fed with little to no sleep 🥺

@Holly that's really hard! My baby girl has been constantly cluster feeding but this week, she has actually started to have little breaks here and there where she's content and happy. I planned to formula feed if she had lost weight. It's definitely hard decision to make but doing a combi feed it still amazing 👏 your baby is fed and will have the best of both worlds and hopefully you'll get your sanity back too. You're doing an amazing job, don't be hard on yourself. Be proud! I hope the combi feeding works out for you both. Sending support Mama ❤️

I am experiencing the exact same thing apart from given formula... with very difficult I am now finally managing to breastfeed my baby boy (even with sore niples) and he is getting better at lacthing. I am still being supported by my health visitor and next week I will have another session with a breastfeeding support worker. It does makes a difference having help from someone like that. I am postive things are finally getting better, my boy regain weight and is now 7 pounds. Looking healthy 🥰

We couldn't breast feed at first and now will latch but not suck. I have chosen to exclusively pump and my lo is already past his birth weight at 3 weeks of age plus nearly a full pound heavier!

Thank you for this. Really needed to read it. This is my second baby and I breastfed my first until she was 2 with no problems, so I really didn't expect the struggles we've had this time around. She's 4weeks old today and still won't latch. So I'm pumping and giving her it in a bottle. I had an oversupply to start (fab I know) but she couldnt latch properly. She lost 13.6% of her birth weight on day 12 and had a hospital visit. The stress of it meant that my supply drastically dropped. I'm now only producing 150-200ml less a day than what she needs. So we are getting there. But still not latching.