Side lying position = poor latch, pain. Why?!

[coldandsleepy]

My son will be 4 weeks old tomorrow. He came out of the womb wanting to eat and has been nursing more or less non-stop since then! My milk came in at 2 days pp and aside from a very minor bout of thrush in the first week, we've had a really, really easy time with breastfeeding.

For the first two weeks, I nursed him in the football hold almost exclusively, because I have large breasts (40 F or G) and the lactation consultant at the birth center told me this would probably be the only hold that would be comfortable. (Weird, but maybe she just meant it would be the MOST comfortable.) We've branched out since then and I switch between football, cradle, and cross cradle with ease.

Up until this week, I was getting up out of bed, getting my Brest Friend pillow, and nursing him in the football hold during night time feedings. Then about four days ago, I decided to start trying to nurse him in the sidelying position instead.

I've been feeding him from the bottom breast, using a rolled up towel to prop the breast up a bit. I cradle his neck with one hand, and sort of lean backwards at an angle to make it easier for him to latch on.

But for some reason, we can't seem to get latched on well. :/ His first couple of tries, he'll just sort of slide off the nipple, even if I'm shaping it with my hand. Then he will seem to be latched on normally, but then he'll pop off. He'll relatch, I'll think it feels good... and then he'll either forcefully pop off or he'll just kinda slide off, if you know what I mean. After seriously 15-20 times, he'll get a latch he likes... and it will seem like a good latch to me at first... and then after a minute or two of nursing, I'll start having shooting pains up the side of the breast that he's nursing.

The end result of all of his latching and unlatching at night is that for the first time really, my nipples HURT all day long. They still look great, no cracking or anything, but OW! Not to mention... I'm not so hot about the pain while he's actually latched on and eating.

Does anyone have any ideas on what we can do differently? I've tried feeding him from the top breast in side lying position, but that actually seems worse. Do I need to just keep trying? I don't want to keep doing something wrong and make the pain worse, but maybe we just need more experience?

I really, really want to make side lying work for us-- I'm getting a LOT more sleep this way, and it seems to be less of a disturbance for him too. But if it's going to interfere with our day time nursing, I'm not going to be able to keep it up and will have to go back to the getting out of bed method. :/

[skueppers]

It took me a while to get the hang of it with my first child, too. I just kept trying, and eventually around 4 months, it worked out for us. I was able to nurse my second child side-lying from the beginning.

I found that sliding my newborn up the bed to the breast, rather than down the bed to the breast, made a big difference in getting the right position.

I also have large breasts, but did not find it necessary to prop up my breast. I did find that I had to lean back a little, so that a pillow behind my back was helpful.

Good luck!

[lifeguard]

I am an G cup & really struggled with side-lying - we honestly only mastered it around 5 months. But before that we got the hang on bfing with him on top of me while I layed on my back. It sounds awkward but it worked well.

The third picture on this page shows it pretty well. I found I needed to put a pillow under my arm on the side he was bfing on.

[FREEmom1120]

dd is 12 weeks and side lying was not really an option until she was around 8 weeks. I had the same issue with pain and a poor latch when lying down. She just was not good enough at nursing yet, combine that with needing some extra head control...give it time. the weeks really do fly by.

[skueppers]

Originally Posted by lifeguard

I am an G cup & really struggled with side-lying - we honestly only mastered it around 5 months. But before that we got the hang on bfing with him on top of me while I layed on my back. It sounds awkward but it worked well.

That reminds me -- I used to nurse my kids lying flat on my back, with a pillow next to me, my arm on top of the pillow, and the baby cradled by my arm, head on my arm and body on the pillow. It sounds like it would never work, but it was actually great!

[jojoboy]

Ok - so I don't have the big boob experience, (mine are barely a C as a nursing mama), but I will say that I also had trouble with the side-laying, with both my boys. It's a hard position to get down.

One thing that helped me was to practice the side lying during the day when neither one of us was tired. When we were both tired at night, it was horrible - my kids would always have a lazy latch, or fall asleep halfway through, or whatever. Practicing during the day until we both got the hang of it helped us.

Good luck. Side lying is my favorite position.

[coldandsleepy]

Originally Posted by jojoboy

One thing that helped me was to practice the side lying during the day when neither one of us was tired. When we were both tired at night, it was horrible - my kids would always have a lazy latch, or fall asleep halfway through, or whatever.

That's a great suggestion, thanks! It seems like he does a LOT better with it in the day time... so, maybe we just need more practice during alert times.

I also found an older thread in this forum where someone suggested cradling the baby's head in the crook of your arm. That combined with sliding him up (rather than sliding him down) the bed worked out really well for us today. Yay!

Thanks for the responses, you guys have renewed my hope for side lying. Even if it takes a few more months to get it down, it's nice to know we'll probably get it some day!

[RomanGoddess]

Side lying can be hard with a newborn, as it all depends on the size of their head/your breast/position of mouth, plus you can't really see what's going on the way you can when they are in the cradle or football hold. Wait another month and things should improve.

[sunshynbaby]

I had trouble with that at first too. I kept trying periodically, and it finally clicked with us around 8 weeks (when he had perfected his latch). Until then, I suggest staying in bed, but sitting up with the brestfriend/boppy. That way you can slip back down and go back to sleep. That method really helped my sleep, though I ended up falling asleep sitting up quite a few times, lol!