Feeling so overwhelmed. Getting a slow eater back on the breast.

jencook25

I would love some advice please, especially if you've been in a similar situation to me before. I'm currently trying to get back to exclusively breast feeding. Currently DS gets about 90% of his feed from expressed milk, the rest off the breast. To give you a bit of background, I had a really rough delivery, and couldn't sit for two weeks. Therefore I began breastfeeding laying down, but my milk didn't flow very fast laying down compared to sitting, so feeding took a while. Add to this that's DS had jaundice, so didn't have much energy, and I have huge boobs, and flat nipples, making working for milk even harder. After a few days of struggling, a midwife had me express milk and feed it to him, and finally he started producing nappies, confirming my concern that hat he wasn't getting enough from me. So I decided to mainly express, just until the jaundice was gone. Except by e time the jaundice cleared up, he developed a nasty staph infection on his face, so again I waited until at cleared up. That took us to me developing a really bad nipple thrush infection (so bad chunks of skin were coming off my nipple, so much so it temporarily changed the shape of my nipple) as well as mastitis. So AGAIN, breastfeeding was put off until these two cleared up (it was just too painful and I was too tired, emotionally it was too much). So now all our rashes are gone, and I can sit again (woo!). Little man is now 4 weeks old. From expressing, I know that my supply is there, and he latches well now, but he just can't get the volume out to satisfy him. He will go on the breast and suck really well. For a minute or two. Then doze off, wake up, suck for a minute, look around, detatch, suck, etc. I can feed him for an hour each side and he will still be hungry, and my breasts not empty. This week I've been trying to breastfeed during the day, giving 15 mins on each side, then express the rest and bottle feed him (as by this point he is just so sleepy). I usually express 120ml if I haven't breastfed. When I do breastfeed, I only get around 50mls out, so 8 assume he's getting around 70mls out. However the 50mls I get out expressed doesn't seem to fill him up sometimes- I'm thinking the effort he uses feeding makes him extra hungry. He can have up to an extra 70 ml after a breastfeed, on top of the 50 I express out ( which if my boobs are dry by then I give him in formula). The other thing is sometimes he gets really worked up at the breast. Today for example I forgot to breastfeed an afternoon feed, so gave him 120mls in the bottle (so he should have been full and settled) gave him a little rest (20 mins) and put him on the breast. He got so worked up sucking through! Red face, hunches shoulders, fists clenched and shaking. I ended up giving up, giving him his dummy and settling him, and putting him down. I really want to stop relying on the pump and be able to exclusively breast feed. How best should I tackle this issue??

wyomama0427

Wow! Sorry you've had so much trouble, I give you major points for still trying to breastfeed! Have you tried feeding him after a nap? My LO does this when he is even remotely tired so I wake him up after a long nap, talk to him for a bit, change him, and make sure he is wide awake before I feed. Otherwise he falls asleep too.

wyomama0427

Also, I feel like I should add that my LO got his first feed from formula,I couldn't breastfeed at first. When we came home and my milk came in he couldn't latch and if he got too worked up he would wear himself out. I haven't been in your shoes but the best I can say is keep trying! It took us a few weeks but we are finally figuring out what works for us.

MamaHolland

They get fussy and worked up. They start turning their heads the wrong way. You just have to be forceful (lack of better words) when they are crying it's actually a great time because their mouth is wide open so you stuff the nipple and breast in their mouth and hold it there then they will latch.