There was something in the paper a few weeks ago about parents who breastfed themselves being trained to help other mums at groups and things. Will see if I can find the article? Although it was definately something to do the Children's centres so maybe you will find out about it when you go to Blenheim Louise?
I had to express all my my milk for William as he wouldn't take it directly - wished there was more help around for people like me? Would have been nice if the breastfeeding support groups also made people like me feel welcome. I felt like a failure firstly as I gave up at 4 months but would have carried on if I didn't feel so out there on my own?
Breastfeeding Support Thread
Re: Breastfeeding Support Thread
When i had alice i was told she needed fluids and wasn't getting them from me, so they gave her a bottle of formula. i asked to express so at least she could have it from me, and they where reluctant to give me anything muttering about serialising stuff. I ended up getting the bits needed for the pump, but no pump its self even though i kept asking. we ended up night feeding from me till 6 weeks when it was getting clear i was drying up.
Id heard rumours you could hire pumping equipment, but even though i asked i never heard anything back.
with lewis, i was determined. i was going to give it a better go. I read up on breastfeeding, didn't get bottles and formula in just in case, made it clear to the mw's that a bottle was not to go near his lips!
Lewis spent the first 3 hours of his life with me and adam. loads of skin to skin, loads of attempts at feeding and successful 5 min feeds. Then they wanted to take him to SCBU (he wad grunting, and born at 37+2, with pregnancy issues, and the fact he was in distress at one point in labour they wanted to check him out. 30 hours he was in, and they allowed to continue to let me feed him - loads more skin to skin (his o2 levels where fine), i said i didn't want him to have a bottle, and they bent over backwards to allow me to feed him. calling me off the ward when he was crying. when he was finally allowed back on the ward with me i asked the mw to cup feed him a few mil of formula so i could get some sleep - i had been up and down and hadn't slept at all really for 48 hours. He took loads, and slept for 5 hours! best sleep ive ever had!!!
No one could tell me why his feeding was hurting more than i remembered with Alice. It wasn't till we got home, and about day 10, my HV told me that he was tongue tied. we decided not to have it snipped, and TBH once we mastered it, it was fine feeding him. a lot more windy than Alice, but LOADS easier than a formula fed bubba!
6 months was my aim, and we are still going strong
if he is still feeding from me at 2 years i think i will reduce his day time feeds, but still allow him to feed in the evening and at night if he wants to.
Id heard rumours you could hire pumping equipment, but even though i asked i never heard anything back.
with lewis, i was determined. i was going to give it a better go. I read up on breastfeeding, didn't get bottles and formula in just in case, made it clear to the mw's that a bottle was not to go near his lips!
Lewis spent the first 3 hours of his life with me and adam. loads of skin to skin, loads of attempts at feeding and successful 5 min feeds. Then they wanted to take him to SCBU (he wad grunting, and born at 37+2, with pregnancy issues, and the fact he was in distress at one point in labour they wanted to check him out. 30 hours he was in, and they allowed to continue to let me feed him - loads more skin to skin (his o2 levels where fine), i said i didn't want him to have a bottle, and they bent over backwards to allow me to feed him. calling me off the ward when he was crying. when he was finally allowed back on the ward with me i asked the mw to cup feed him a few mil of formula so i could get some sleep - i had been up and down and hadn't slept at all really for 48 hours. He took loads, and slept for 5 hours! best sleep ive ever had!!!
No one could tell me why his feeding was hurting more than i remembered with Alice. It wasn't till we got home, and about day 10, my HV told me that he was tongue tied. we decided not to have it snipped, and TBH once we mastered it, it was fine feeding him. a lot more windy than Alice, but LOADS easier than a formula fed bubba!
6 months was my aim, and we are still going strong
if he is still feeding from me at 2 years i think i will reduce his day time feeds, but still allow him to feed in the evening and at night if he wants to.
Re: Breastfeeding Support Thread
The hospital were great for me and let me use all the really high tech stuff whilst there for expressing but had to buy my own after I cam out.MrsG wrote:When i had alice i was told she needed fluids and wasn't getting them from me, so they gave her a bottle of formula. i asked to express so at least she could have it from me, and they where reluctant to give me anything muttering about serialising stuff. I ended up getting the bits needed for the pump, but no pump its self even though i kept asking. we ended up night feeding from me till 6 weeks when it was getting clear i was drying up.
Id heard rumours you could hire pumping equipment, but even though i asked i never heard anything back.
.
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weezypops
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Re: Breastfeeding Support Thread
I had a lot more trouble with my second too. With Felix it was sore for the first week or so, but just getting used to it sort of sore rather than anything more. We soon fell into a nice pattern and all was good. Like most new mums I went through the phase of thinking he wasn't getting enough before realising he just wanted to cluster feed in the evenings and was generally fussy around then. I think if I hadn't read up about cluster feeding I would have probably thought I wasn't producing enough milk, so I was really lucky to have a great forum I posted on at the time with lots of very helpful mums who had been there already! I breastfed Felix until he was about 13 1/2 months, when I became pregnant with Iris and it was too sore to carry on.
With Iris, she took to the breast really well - I think actually too well! I was in agony feeding her for the first ten weeks or so and if I hadn't had such a good experience of breastfeeding Felix would probably have given up. It was quite a humbling experience and made me realise it's not always an easy thing to do. After going through various possibilities - thrush, mastitis etc. and none of them really fit the bill, I realised that I had an overactive letdown, and that Iris was clamping down when she latched on which was making the nipples sore, then she'd developed a lazy latch because she wasn't having to work to get the milk at all, so that was making it worse and the nipples were raw and bloody. On top of that, the overactive letdown meant that when it happened it felt like pieces of glass moving through the milk ducts. It was really unpleasant, but once I found out what was wrong I was able to put it right and things started to look up!
I'd like to carry on until Iris weans herself, whenever that will be. We've had some issues recently with her sort of chewing a bit which has been quite painful but it was made worse by the fact that she was still eating every 2-3 hours all day and night. We encouraged her to have some cow's milk at night instead and it's made everything a lot easier!
With Iris, she took to the breast really well - I think actually too well! I was in agony feeding her for the first ten weeks or so and if I hadn't had such a good experience of breastfeeding Felix would probably have given up. It was quite a humbling experience and made me realise it's not always an easy thing to do. After going through various possibilities - thrush, mastitis etc. and none of them really fit the bill, I realised that I had an overactive letdown, and that Iris was clamping down when she latched on which was making the nipples sore, then she'd developed a lazy latch because she wasn't having to work to get the milk at all, so that was making it worse and the nipples were raw and bloody. On top of that, the overactive letdown meant that when it happened it felt like pieces of glass moving through the milk ducts. It was really unpleasant, but once I found out what was wrong I was able to put it right and things started to look up!
I'd like to carry on until Iris weans herself, whenever that will be. We've had some issues recently with her sort of chewing a bit which has been quite painful but it was made worse by the fact that she was still eating every 2-3 hours all day and night. We encouraged her to have some cow's milk at night instead and it's made everything a lot easier!
Re: Breastfeeding Support Thread
ouch! i hate the chewing!! i can handle the odd nip, but the chewing really hurts!!
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rachel jane
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Re: Breastfeeding Support Thread
Jesus Louise hats off to you i would of given up that sounds awful. I only managed 9 days with Connie and the pain was soooooo bad i gave up and with Ted i only did a few days because i was kind of put off by my last experience but with Gus i think because i was in hospital for a week i perserveered with the breast feeding and it was painful when he latched on at first but then got a little easier but the last few days he has been feeding allll the time and i am quite sore although i'm not cracked and bleeding and PRAYING that doesn't happen. I am finding it so time consuming and poor connie and ted didn't do much yesterday because i was just sat feeding the whole time and also i just cannot feed and cover myself at the same time and i don't know what i'm going to do when that time comes, i tried the other day in the roslin but ended up feeding him sat on the toilet!
Also while i am aware breastfeeding is meant to be best, i had a lady at the swimming pool yesterday preaching all the benefits of breastfeeding and then how bad bottle feeding is and makes your child ill and not intelligent and i felt like walking away from her people like that can get on my nerves, then i felt a bit better because her breastfed child wasn't put up into the next swimming class and Ted the bottlefed child was and got his 5 metres!
Also while i am aware breastfeeding is meant to be best, i had a lady at the swimming pool yesterday preaching all the benefits of breastfeeding and then how bad bottle feeding is and makes your child ill and not intelligent and i felt like walking away from her people like that can get on my nerves, then i felt a bit better because her breastfed child wasn't put up into the next swimming class and Ted the bottlefed child was and got his 5 metres!
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weezypops
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Re: Breastfeeding Support Thread
Rachel, he's probably going through a growth spurt and is trying to get you to produce more milk - hopefully it will pass quickly but there's nothing wrong with giving him a bottle of pumped milk if you want a break. If you pump between when he'd normally feed, it should keep your supply up fine, it's just if you replace too many feeds with bottles that your supply dwindles, especially during a growth spurt when he's trying to up your production. The odd one here and there is fine.
In the early days when I was breastfeeding Iris I felt really guilty that she was taking so much time away from Felix, but in the end it's just a month or two that it's this intense, in the long run I doubt they'll even remember. Also, it might mean you can't give him to someone else to feed as easily but think of all that time you've saved washing bottles, preparing formula, shopping for it - it's just a different use of the time!
As for covering yourself up, I used to with Felix but have never bothered with Iris. I get that everyone's comfort level is different. If you want I could give you my 'hooter hider' (yep, that's really what it's called) - it's a breastfeeding shawl I used to use with Felix and it's really good. I'm sure I still have it around somewhere. It's nice and light so you don't feel like you're smothering the baby, and has a ring at the top so you can see what they're doing. Much easier than using a blanket.
As for the breast vs. bottle debate, I think what a lot of people forget is that it's just statistics. Yes, breastfed babies as a whole are healthier etc. but that doesn't mean each individual baby will be. Breastfeeding won't make a sickly child perfectly healthy, and bottlefeeding won't make a healthy child sick, but breastfeeding can help push a child in a certain direction, if that makes sense - like a child who is prone to illness could be better off for being breastfed because of all the antibodies, though it won't make him perfectly healthy. Putting one child against another for comparison is pointless because there are so many other factors to take into account. People like that give breastfeeding a bad name, just like people who talk about breastfed babies becoming clingy, needy or ridiculously, gay
give bottlefeeding a bad name.
In the early days when I was breastfeeding Iris I felt really guilty that she was taking so much time away from Felix, but in the end it's just a month or two that it's this intense, in the long run I doubt they'll even remember. Also, it might mean you can't give him to someone else to feed as easily but think of all that time you've saved washing bottles, preparing formula, shopping for it - it's just a different use of the time!
As for covering yourself up, I used to with Felix but have never bothered with Iris. I get that everyone's comfort level is different. If you want I could give you my 'hooter hider' (yep, that's really what it's called) - it's a breastfeeding shawl I used to use with Felix and it's really good. I'm sure I still have it around somewhere. It's nice and light so you don't feel like you're smothering the baby, and has a ring at the top so you can see what they're doing. Much easier than using a blanket.
As for the breast vs. bottle debate, I think what a lot of people forget is that it's just statistics. Yes, breastfed babies as a whole are healthier etc. but that doesn't mean each individual baby will be. Breastfeeding won't make a sickly child perfectly healthy, and bottlefeeding won't make a healthy child sick, but breastfeeding can help push a child in a certain direction, if that makes sense - like a child who is prone to illness could be better off for being breastfed because of all the antibodies, though it won't make him perfectly healthy. Putting one child against another for comparison is pointless because there are so many other factors to take into account. People like that give breastfeeding a bad name, just like people who talk about breastfed babies becoming clingy, needy or ridiculously, gay
give bottlefeeding a bad name.-
rachel jane
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Re: Breastfeeding Support Thread
Thanks Louisei just had the midwife round and she mentioned they have a growth spurt around this time so at least i know its normal. I do agree it is good not washing all the bottles and stuff and i have ordered one of the meduela electric pumps but am not sure when you can express from a few people have told me not till 6 weeks which is when you breast feeding is established?
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weezypops
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Re: Breastfeeding Support Thread
Yes, it's best to wait but I tend to take the approach that it's better to pump too soon than give up because you're exhausted!
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rachel jane
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Re: Breastfeeding Support Thread
Yeah true, its not arriving till end of next week so will see how often he is feeding then!
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BrandonsMum08
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Re: Breastfeeding Support Thread
I also wasnt very successful feeding Brandon. Lasted 5 weeks exclusively, then just done night/morning feeds until he wanted to stop on his own at 4 months, probably because of lack of milk as thats when he started getting greedy and i would imagine for the amount he wanted, i would have had to feed him exclusively.
With Ruby i really persevered, and fortunately the feeding seemed to be alot more successful, and easier. Not sure why. It was VERY painful though. On the days where it was too painful to feed myself, i pumped what i could and gave to her in a bottle, and then carried on feeding myself. It seemed to be more painful at the start of a feed only when i was full. Then i had the problem of sore nipples. I just curled my toes and *tried* to ignore it.
Rachel - well done for persevering this time. If you manage to get through these painful times, i guarentee you will feel so proud of yourself. As much as i hated the pain, when it went, i did feel so so proud of myself for getting through it.
I also thought id probably end up stopping around 5-6months, but shes now 7 1/2 months and im still feeding. I do bottle feed as well but i still feed her a few times during the day, and at night if we wakes up, and her first feed of the day is a full breastfeed without a bottle.
With Ruby i really persevered, and fortunately the feeding seemed to be alot more successful, and easier. Not sure why. It was VERY painful though. On the days where it was too painful to feed myself, i pumped what i could and gave to her in a bottle, and then carried on feeding myself. It seemed to be more painful at the start of a feed only when i was full. Then i had the problem of sore nipples. I just curled my toes and *tried* to ignore it.
Rachel - well done for persevering this time. If you manage to get through these painful times, i guarentee you will feel so proud of yourself. As much as i hated the pain, when it went, i did feel so so proud of myself for getting through it.
I also thought id probably end up stopping around 5-6months, but shes now 7 1/2 months and im still feeding. I do bottle feed as well but i still feed her a few times during the day, and at night if we wakes up, and her first feed of the day is a full breastfeed without a bottle.
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bizzyb1983
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Re: Breastfeeding Support Thread
hi all!!
Am breast feeding my new daughter - but we are stumbling over a few hurdles with it. Isabelle is only 2.5 weeks old and am fully aware it takes a good while to get breast feeding properly established but my gosh its hard work!! I threaten to give up every day! and today has by far been the hardest - Isabelle is suffering what appears to be stomach pain - with painful wind, watery poo, she wont latch on for long - will pull away once she starts eating screaming! Its heart breaking to see that its hurting her. And exhausting for me lol!!
Am thinking that it could be my diet affecting my milk, so am going to try cutting a few things out and see how that goes - have narrowed it down to maybe garlic - as she gets really fussy when I have had it for dinner and she would go mental when I ate garlic when I was pregnant so maybe thats the culprit - if not maybe dairy?????? Am certainly hoping its nothing more than diet issues!!
Any ideas or advice are greatly welcome - and also I think i should try to find a good support group any ideas???
Lesley and a very fussy Isabelle x
Am breast feeding my new daughter - but we are stumbling over a few hurdles with it. Isabelle is only 2.5 weeks old and am fully aware it takes a good while to get breast feeding properly established but my gosh its hard work!! I threaten to give up every day! and today has by far been the hardest - Isabelle is suffering what appears to be stomach pain - with painful wind, watery poo, she wont latch on for long - will pull away once she starts eating screaming! Its heart breaking to see that its hurting her. And exhausting for me lol!!
Am thinking that it could be my diet affecting my milk, so am going to try cutting a few things out and see how that goes - have narrowed it down to maybe garlic - as she gets really fussy when I have had it for dinner and she would go mental when I ate garlic when I was pregnant so maybe thats the culprit - if not maybe dairy?????? Am certainly hoping its nothing more than diet issues!!
Any ideas or advice are greatly welcome - and also I think i should try to find a good support group any ideas???
Lesley and a very fussy Isabelle x
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weezypops
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Re: Breastfeeding Support Thread
I was lucky and never had any problems with my diet affecting breastmilk. I know that garlic/onions and dairy are the normal culprits. If I were you I'd start by cutting out garlic as it's easier than dairy and see how it goes!
Saying that though, how long has it been going on? Could it be that she's picked up a little bug or something?
Whereabouts in Southend are you? I know a lot of the Sure Start centres have breastfeeding groups you can go along to where you get the support of other mums as well as experts.
Saying that though, how long has it been going on? Could it be that she's picked up a little bug or something?
Whereabouts in Southend are you? I know a lot of the Sure Start centres have breastfeeding groups you can go along to where you get the support of other mums as well as experts.
Re: Breastfeeding Support Thread
When I had William - Breastmaits was really really big in Southend. I had trouble feeding William and they rang me every few days and offered to come round - they were excellent!
I agree tho - I was told garlic was a big no whilst feeding!
Hope thats all it is!
I agree tho - I was told garlic was a big no whilst feeding!
Hope thats all it is!
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chocolatepickle
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Re: Breastfeeding Support Thread
Hello all, I have a couple of questions for you BF experts!
I had my baby boy Max yesterday and got off to a good start BF straight away. He fed 3 times at the hospital and came off himself.
Now we're home it just seems harder! He only fed twice over night- for a while in the evening until 11pm and then not until 4am on off until 6.30am. Is that normal for the first night, due to tiredness from birth?
Sometimes when he's feeding he makes slurpy noises, i'm not sure he should be?
I know at the moment he's only getting colostrum, should i still hear him swallowing? I only do occasionally so i'm worried he's not getting enough.
I think we are having difficulties getting him latched on right as my nipple is sore while he's feeding often (not everytime, but a lot) and sometimes it looks squashed after, if he is not latched on correctly will he be getting ANY colostrum?
I know I should have stayed in hospital longer so i had help with these issues but i just missed Harry so so much I wanted to get home to see him.
Thanks xx
I had my baby boy Max yesterday and got off to a good start BF straight away. He fed 3 times at the hospital and came off himself.
Now we're home it just seems harder! He only fed twice over night- for a while in the evening until 11pm and then not until 4am on off until 6.30am. Is that normal for the first night, due to tiredness from birth?
Sometimes when he's feeding he makes slurpy noises, i'm not sure he should be?
I know at the moment he's only getting colostrum, should i still hear him swallowing? I only do occasionally so i'm worried he's not getting enough.
I think we are having difficulties getting him latched on right as my nipple is sore while he's feeding often (not everytime, but a lot) and sometimes it looks squashed after, if he is not latched on correctly will he be getting ANY colostrum?
I know I should have stayed in hospital longer so i had help with these issues but i just missed Harry so so much I wanted to get home to see him.
Thanks xx
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