The Breast Feeding Support Thread

hacked

I bought breast shields, but never ended up using them...I don't know whether to give them to a friend as thye are brand new, or hang on to them!

Was at my wits end this morning, so I went down to the breast feeding clinic with the public health nurse. Obviously doing my job right as Isobel is 3 weeks and up to 9.1!!
Unfortunately, she's been eating every 2 hours or more and I'm tired and sore! I feel like she's using me as a soother because she cant find her thumb....the nurse agreed. So now I have to express milk and feed her on one side only each feed, after she comes off the boob I have to offer her the bottle to see if she's actually eating properly or not. Fun!

Went out and bought some bottles today. I also have to try and stretch her feeds out a bit too...which involves a lot of screaming. I'm too tired to bother today as we had a big day...so will need to start tomorrow.

TargetWidow

I forgot something important about the swaddling thing... The danger of SIDS spikes at 12 weeks so you want to avoid any risk of overheating. Therefore it is recommended that you half swaddle (one arm in and one out, alternating arms every couple of days) by eight weeks and eliminate the swaddle by 12 weeks. Personally I moved to a 1tog gro-bag at about 11 weeks and tucked her in with a thin sheet to give the same comforting feeling as being swaddled. They come in 0.5 tog (I used this for daytime naps in the summer) 1tog (summer nights and winter daytime naps) and 2.5 tog. The grobags are brilliant because if you use them long enough they never figure out that they can eventually throw their leg over the side and escape. I have a two year old now who still hasn't clicked it!:D

clouds

I bf my little one for 8 months - it was so hard at the start but then it was fab.
I haven't read the whole thread so apols if I am repeating or patronising but these are things I wish I didn't have to search so hard for when I had enough on my plate when things were difficult.
google dr jack newman he has videos about how to get perfect positioning latch etc
Hot wet cloths over boobs very soothing
If you feel no let down it doesn't automatically mean you have no milk (which is what i thought)

Sorry again now if I am repeating stuff but it might be useful to someone

Nevyn

Can we please offer help and advice here on this forum rather then just pushing people off to other sites.

ebmma

hacked wrote: »

I bought breast shields, but never ended up using them...I don't know whether to give them to a friend as thye are brand new, or hang on to them!

Was at my wits end this morning, so I went down to the breast feeding clinic with the public health nurse. Obviously doing my job right as Isobel is 3 weeks and up to 9.1!!
Unfortunately, she's been eating every 2 hours or more and I'm tired and sore! I feel like she's using me as a soother because she cant find her thumb....the nurse agreed. So now I have to express milk and feed her on one side only each feed, after she comes off the boob I have to offer her the bottle to see if she's actually eating properly or not. Fun!

Went out and bought some bottles today. I also have to try and stretch her feeds out a bit too...which involves a lot of screaming. I'm too tired to bother today as we had a big day...so will need to start tomorrow.

are you sure stretching the feeds is a good idea? it can reduce your milk supply which she might be building up for 3-week growth spurt.

how long is she feeding for every time?

cbyrd

Ah i've just been slapped with a good healthy dose of guilt... Ben came off the morning breastfeed about 2 weeks ago, about a week and a half ago he started getting very snotty, so i assumed it was a touch of a cold possibly linked to the teething . 3 nights of this and i went and got the saline drops and some karvol and tilted his mattress, no change after all this time, i was assuming maybe hayfever....
He's not distressed except after his bottles when it seems to get worse.. so i went back to the pharmacist and asked her what i could do differently or if there was anything i could get to dry it up..she asked me loads about it and then pointed out a little bit of dry skin on one of his legs and some redness on his eyelids, which would indicate eczema from, she suspects, lactose intolerance:( told me to ring the phn and talk to her which i duly did and this is where the guilt comes in...
He can't go on the sma wysoy for infertillity issues in later life:eek: this freaked me out, and if i'm to change to a lactose free milk i'd have to be refered to a pediatrician, as they need lactose to aid digestion, the only solution is to try and increase my supply again which after 2 weeks of no feeding is going to be fun..
Apparently the one feed in the day would be enough to keep it at bay and this is why it only showed up when i stopped feeding him, but the big problem is not with me but with him, he didn't want to latch and i couldn't express so i really dont' know what i'm going to do??
the woman from la leche league is at the breast feeding clinic on monday but til then i've to pump every 2 hours for the weekend...only nothings coming out:( this is all my fault and i feel like sh!t because he's suffering :(Poor baba...
sorry for the essay...

Das Kitty

Don't beat yourself up cbyrd! Sure what could you do?

Once you get your supply up enough for one bottle you won't have to do it as much. Hopefully it's just a temporary intolerance.

You could give coleif a try to see if it helps any.

cbyrd

Thanks Das kitty .. i'm not sure it'd help him, it's his mucus production that's the problem.. he doesn't seem to have any pain in his belly or wind so i really don't know what the problem with him is.. i've been pumping now for 18 hours every 2 hours and nothing.. not a drop.. think i'm all dried up:( i should try the colief for myself:D maybe then i could eat an icecream.;)

hacked

ebmma wrote: »

are you sure stretching the feeds is a good idea? it can reduce your milk supply which she might be building up for 3-week growth spurt.

how long is she feeding for every time?

yeah i think it's the only way to go to be honest with you. She's not really properly eating when i feed her every 2 hours or so...she eats a bit, and then just sucks. Since stretching hte feeds, she's properly hungry, so she eats more efficiently and is now properly draining the breast. It doesn't seem to have made a difference to my milk supply. She's just very strong willed and gets very angry when i don't feed her when she wants a suck! It can be very wearing.

hacked

i'm having the same problem!

My little girl is 4 weeks now, and I don't care what they say...if there is a definate bad habit starting, you should stop it.

My little girl came out sucking her thumb, and has a very strong suck refelx. Because she is too tiny to find her thumb I found she started needing to "feed" every 2 hours or more. Like yourself, she would eat for the first few minutes, and then just be sucking and using me as a soother. After two weeks I was wrecked and at my wits end! She also would be calm for other people, but as soon as she was back to me, she knew i had the milk and would roar.

I have started doing controlled feeding after I worked out she wasn't eating. I went from two hours to stretching her to three hour feeds. For the first couple of days I only offered her one breast and waited till she completely drained it. One of the reasons she wanted to feed so often was she wasn't getting the hind milk. Now after three days sometimes she goes looking for the other breast.

It's tough going...i'm exhausted with the screaming. But after a few days shes much happier than when i did the demand feeding. Hopefully in another week or two we'll be settled.

Have a talk to your PHN if you can. I went down to the breastfeeding clinic at my local health centre last week when I Was at my wits end, and the nurse was so fantastic.

Good luck!

ebmma

hacked wrote: »

yeah i think it's the only way to go to be honest with you. She's not really properly eating when i feed her every 2 hours or so...she eats a bit, and then just sucks. Since stretching hte feeds, she's properly hungry, so she eats more efficiently and is now properly draining the breast. It doesn't seem to have made a difference to my milk supply. She's just very strong willed and gets very angry when i don't feed her when she wants a suck! It can be very wearing.

yeah, I guess it is hard to tell the difference between extra sucking on the breast to increase supply and being used as a soother.
Robin only feeds for 10-15 min from each breast per feeding so I'm probably safe

Elle13

hacked wrote: »

I bought breast shields, but never ended up using them...I don't know whether to give them to a friend as thye are brand new, or hang on to them!

Was at my wits end this morning, so I went down to the breast feeding clinic with the public health nurse. Obviously doing my job right as Isobel is 3 weeks and up to 9.1!!
Unfortunately, she's been eating every 2 hours or more and I'm tired and sore! I feel like she's using me as a soother because she cant find her thumb....the nurse agreed. So now I have to express milk and feed her on one side only each feed, after she comes off the boob I have to offer her the bottle to see if she's actually eating properly or not. Fun!

Went out and bought some bottles today. I also have to try and stretch her feeds out a bit too...which involves a lot of screaming. I'm too tired to bother today as we had a big day...so will need to start tomorrow.

Hey Hacked,

well I know what you are talking about.. I am exclusively breast feeding Tobiash for past 13 days of his life.. It can be very wearing and also flustrating as when he gets too hungry he goes mad and does not want to latch on properly... When he eventualy does its peacefull 20 mins though
I am gone through rugh few days with my nipples being cracked to bits and have to say that the only thing which safed my life were those breast shields.. they done the job just perfect and nipples healed fine.. it took about 5 full days though... Tobi is feeding every 3.5 to 4 hours and last s for max 25 mins... I guess thats not that bad at all...
On the other hand he has a trouble with colic.. boys are tend to get that apparently.. had him one day screaming for hours.. then had no other choice but go to get the anti colic drops which helped great.
I guess just keep it up for another while and see how you get on :-) Fingers crossed and keep me posted how you getting on. xxx

cbyrd

so after almost 3 days of regular pumping i have a small amount of milk again, enough for a small morning feed:) much to my husbands disgust:D I saw the phn today and she's recommended the comfort food for colic and constipation cos there's less lactose in it, and if its the lactose thats causing the snots backwash, and the dry skin it should help... 2 bottles into it today and already i can see the difference. he not as whingey and i can leave him bib free for more than the time it takes to change it i have to say i feel relieved and slightly vindicated cos everyone was looking at me like i was mad
So i've to go to the GP tomorrow for a referral to a pediatrician
but at least he's my happy baba again...:)

shortstuff

Mornin everyone, i've only just read down through all your posts now so glad to know i'm not alone :-).
i'm sorry i can't remember everyones sign in name, but for the mum who is breastfeedin every two hours kacie is the same, she's 15 weeks today and feeds every two hours on the dot during the day. the only stretch is between her spoon feeds, she gets breakfast at ten and will stretch out until one in the afternoon, then back to two hourly feeds until her dinner time at 7. After that she's sleepin until 3am the following morning, but i'm still finding myself exhausted during the day(she switches back to two hourly feeds from 3am onwards), anyhow i went a health food store a couple of weeks ago to get a supplement that is ok to take while breastfeeding and i was given "Epresat" it's made by a company called Salus and its only about a tenner for a 250ml bottle, it works absolutle wonders. I havent felt this good since i before i was pregnant( i was hugh and couldnt' move much so i was exhausted all the time).
AS for the feeding in public, i absolutly love it and wouldn't let anyones attittude stop me, i'm discreet when i think i need to be although i gave some poor little old lady a heart attack when i'd put a baby blanket over my shoulder and kacies head in a resturant one day as she though i was overheating the child and possibly unintentionally smoothering her.
that's my little woman awake and looking for her breakfast so i gotta go.
Hope the this helps someone anyway as there is nothing as bad as the constant tiredness.

Tan

Swizzles

Hey Ladies
Hoping one of you can answer my question..
So im going to try breast feed but i want to bottle feed aswell..I want to try and breast feed during the day and use the bottles at night(So i get a bit of a break) Does this make sense?Like should i keep a routine like this or mix it up ?
Also should i get a pump before hand??
Thanks

cbyrd

quick update... GP has said he's probably intolerant but is sending him to get tested anyway to be sure to be sure... he's doing ok on the new formula and a half assed feed from me in the mornings.. about 5 mins worth but it seems to be helping. there's still abit of spit up but nothing near as much... but she wants to be sure before putting him on a lactose free one..
i wonder is it just coincidence that he's showing signs of it, as the consultant told me before he was born that both of us would have to be intolerant for me to pass it on.. or was it because he wasn't exposed to it til he started the bottle...(me not eating any dairy)
hopefully he's not cos when we start solids it's going to make life difficult.. you wouldnt' believe how much food has dairy in it in some shape or form..

Das Kitty

I don't know if food intolerance is even hereditary at all or if there's any evidence that it is.

Babies change so much day to day in the first 6 months I think that almost everything that we attribute to some reason could all just be coincidence.

The thing about lactose is that Human breastmilk has the highest lactose content in the animal kingdom so it doesn't really make sense that it's that (to me anyway as a non-doctor). There are other types of dairy intolerance that it could be.

As a baby's digestive system is developing over the first year a lot of the times foods they have trouble with are only fleeting.

If the comfort milk is working don't change over, whatever works!

---

I have James on two bottles a day now this week and I'm so glad I made the decision because now that he's teething he's shredding my nipples, latching on and off up to 30 times a feed. There is literally skin hanging off my left one at the moment! The little vampire!

My milk has reduced a good bit too. I give my last breastfeed around 6 and pump before bed at midnight and only get around 100mls out.

I think I'm going to introduce bottle number 3 as the second feed of the day in a week or so and gradually wean to that morning feed, then bring that second bottle closer to the first as the milk diminishes. I think in a funny way I will miss the closeness but in every other way I won't miss it at all. Rotten walking around all day with painful nips!

shortstuff

Das Kitty wrote: »

I have James on two bottles a day now this week and I'm so glad I made the decision because now that he's teething he's shredding my nipples, latching on and off up to 30 times a feed. There is literally skin hanging off my left one at the moment! The little vampire!



!

My PHN advised a friend of mine when she was getting severly cracked and bleeding nipples to try rubbing some of her own breast milk onto the affected nipple, apparently there is something in the milk that encourages healing quicker as well. Don't know if it actually works as i havent suffered from them but hey anything is worth a try i'm guessing even if you are reducing the amount of breastfeeds per day.

Grawns

Das Kitty wrote: »

I have James on two bottles a day now this week and I'm so glad I made the decision because now that he's teething he's shredding my nipples, latching on and off up to 30 times a feed. There is literally skin hanging off my left one at the moment! The little vampire!

Jaysus :eek: Give him some calpol or neurofen before breastfeeding him and he might stop with the attack. The worst thing I experienced was being bitten and yanked when she was teething. Sore sore sore! I am still nervous when shes feeding although she hasn't done it in months.

Das Kitty

Grawns wrote: »

Jaysus :eek: Give him some calpol or neurofen before breastfeeding him and he might stop with the attack. The worst thing I experienced was being bitten and yanked when she was teething. Sore sore sore! I am still nervous when shes feeding although she hasn't done it in months.

Yeah, he's pretty bad today and yesterday and have been giving him calpol (and taking panadol myself!). I'm actually wondering if he could have an ear infection it's so bad this evening. I came downstairs earlier and he was in his bouncer and if you saw an adult with the facial expression he had and their hands on their face like he had you'd say that person was in agony.

Going to the PHN tomorrow for his 3 month check and see what she says but I may have to bring him to the GP straight after.

Thanks for the tip shortstuff, I used to do that back in the beginning, what I didn't realise was that I had thrush and I was feeding the yeast on the lactose in my milk so I was making it worse!

Jaysus I've really been through the ringer on this, the only thing I haven't had (yet touch wood) was mastitis. Hopefully if I have another baby I'll do better and train him or her better from the get go.

Nevyn

I stopped breastfeeding at that stage as well, I felt I had done enough and I didn't like being used like a chew toy.

ebmma

Swizzles wrote: »

Hey Ladies
Hoping one of you can answer my question..
So im going to try breast feed but i want to bottle feed aswell..I want to try and breast feed during the day and use the bottles at night(So i get a bit of a break) Does this make sense?Like should i keep a routine like this or mix it up ?
Also should i get a pump before hand??
Thanks

my personal opinion - it doesn't make sense. I don't know if it does in the long run (I'm only breastfeeding for 2 months so far) but definitely not at the start. In the 1st days after birth you need baby sucking as much as it wants to bring on good amount of milk for you on day 3 or 4. and after that you need day and night sucking to establish good supply. If you feed during the day and not during the night you'll make less milk coz your boobs think that baby doesn't need that much. Also if milk doesn't get drained for several hours at night you can get engorged and risk blocked ducts and other unpleasant things.

feeding at night really isn't that bad. you'll be wrecked, but to be honest I think that's just having a newborn, regardless of feeding method.
get your partner to help - we have a neat little night routine now.
He picks baby up when he cries, changes him, hands him to me, i feed, hand him back, he settles the baby and i sleep.So i don't leave the bed - very handy while I was recovering after section.

hope I can help, if you have any questions just ask, it does get better after 6 weeks

simu

I see there are SMA ads on this thread - not very supportive of breastfeeding, is it?

(Yeah, they will claim that breast is best blah blah blah but let's face it, they'd go broke if breastfeeding became the norm).

ebmma

simu wrote: »

I see there are SMA ads on this thread - not very supportive of breastfeeding, is it?

(Yeah, they will claim that breast is best blah blah blah but let's face it, they'd go broke if breastfeeding became the norm).

SMA also has 'show me how to breastfeed' ad :rolleyes:
not going near that.

breastfeeding doesn't really have the best advertising campaign - 'breast is best' makes it sounds like an optional extra on top of the norm of bottlefeeding. I think more emphasise needs to be placed on it being normal.

shortstuff

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PIlJw5h_eNc

The above advert is for Cow and Gate formula, i was feeding Kacie earlier this morning when i was being shown on tv, i was thinking to myself should this type of advertisment not be made for breastfed babies as opposed to the following...

actually there is no following advert because i couldnt' find one. It's an absolutle disgrace, but how do we go about making people more aware and more comfortable with breastfeeding. Out of all my family and friends who have had children(there's alot in my family) there has only been 3 of us who have breastfed and so far i'm the only one who has gone past the first month. I've asked both family memebers and friends why they wouldnt' breastfeed and it was mainly down to self-conscioiusness, either in public or with people visiting their homes.

ebmma

was really glad I'm breastfeeding today. Was nice to be able to quickly calm little guy down after his shots. I felt like such a monster!!!

shortstuff

Oh i'm right there with ya ebmma, Kacie had her 4 month injections today and the poor little thing was in bits after wards, i felt so guilty because i'm terrified of needles so i had to get my best friend(Kacie's second mama:D) to stay with her while she was gettin them i had to go back into teh waiting room so glad i was able to feed her straight afterwards though, she settled down straight away and was full of smiles afterwards then. thank god for boobs

hacked

Oh my goodness...isobel is going through her 6 week growth spurt and is feeding what seems like every few minutes!!

ebmma

hacked wrote: »

Oh my goodness...isobel is going through her 6 week growth spurt and is feeding what seems like every few minutes!!

the easiest thing is to just give in. Robin's 3 week growth spurt was awful - I had no idea what was going on. He kept screaming and the only thing that would shut him up was putting him on a breast. And then again. And again.
He's going through the 9week one now and I founf I'm taking it a lot better because I just sit on te couch and keep him on. He fell asleep eventually:D

ani_mal

good way of reliefing the pain from sore breasts is:
take leaf of white cabbage, pierce with fork in several places, put it into the fridge for few minutes (to cool it down) and then on your breast. wear as long as you can.
when the pain persist, try massaging it or use warm water. when this doesn't help I recommend going to doctor as your canals might be inflamed or blocked.

But also watch this movie on you tube.

about breastfeeding
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cuu8UEXzVQ0&playnext_from=TL&videos=Cq7wm7VrhNA