Help me help my sister?

[cappuccinosmom]

I am at a total loss. My poor sister had her heart set on nursing, and as she's going back to full-time school when her baby is 6 weeks old, she was looking forward to nursing being that one thing to hold her and the baby together, to reconnect after being apart all day. I know they can stil lbe bonded without it, but I'm sure some of you know what I mean.

She had a very rough start, crash section, general anaesthesia, horrible "help" from the hospital nurses, and the baby was given a bottle while she was trying to establish breastfeeding. Then he was losing weight, she was pushed into bottle feeding, and then in the midst of all that started getting cracks on her nipples and severe pain.

She has pushed through all of that and tried and tried. She still continued when every latch caused her to cry with the pain. She saw a LC. She's been pumping. She did everything she was told to do but gradually got pushed further and further into supplementing and now the baby does not care to bother with nursing. He wants his "easy" bottle and a tummy that's full quickly. And she has shifted to pumping only because of the pain and the slow rate of healing of those cracks. She called the LC again this morning and was told that getting her milk supply back up is pretty hopeless at this point.

After that she was just devastated, sobbing. I am so sad for her, but I don't know what to tell her or how to help her.

[PatioGardener]

how old is baby now? where is your sister living? sounds like she needs a new (good) IBCLC. it is not too late!

nak

[cappuccinosmom]

He's 1 month old, living at home with the whole family, so we could help her if we knew how. She actually met by chance another LC today who was more hopeful than the last one.

[emilysmama]

I don't think it's too late to get her supply up. My dd spent her first 10 days in the NICU, and then I spent the next 2 weeks pumping to get my supply up. It may be that there is yet enough supply to make it seem worthwhile for the baby to go to breast, but she can change that with pumping. Even if the baby won't suck enough to get the supply up, a double electric pump can. I did it! I don't think that she can't.

I had to pump every 2-2.5 hours round the clock, whether baby was awake or not. Every three hours was not often enough for me. If the baby will nurse, then getting rid of the bottles and nursing frequently is the best way to get the supply up. But even if the baby won't nurse, then the pump can at least get the supply up to where the baby will be willing to nurse. Your sister doesn't necessarily need to pump forever. Just long enough and frequent enough to get her supply up.

In the end, my dd was a strong nurser, and eventually weaned herself at the age of 3 years old. At the beginning however, it seemed to me that my baby was never going to nurse, and that I would be pumping forever. But it wasn't like that at all!

Encourage your sister to hang in there.

P.S. Encourage your sister to try different lactation counselors. I went through 4 or 5. Only one really knew what she was doing in my situation.

[cappuccinosmom]

Thanks, that's very encouraging!

I will let her know about pumping. My mother is concerend for her health so discouraging pumping round the clock. Sigh. The poor gal has just been bombarded with every possible opinion on the subject, which doesn't help.

[tinybutterfly]

I am going to move this out to the main breastfeeding forum where you may get more answers.

I hope everything works out for your sister and her little one.

[AislinCarys]

It isn't too late! It might need a lot of work, a lot of help, a lot of support and more, but it isn't too late. DD lost weight at 4 weeks, and that's when we realized I had supply issues. So we didn't actually start working on it until DD was about 5 weeks old, and saw an LC at 6 weeks.

It took 5 months before we could stop supplementing (with donated milk). But DD still breastfeeds a lot at almost 2,5!

Tell your sister not to give up hope! I was told that I unfortunately may have reached my max supply (around 10 weeks), 3 months later, when we were just starting with self-feeding solids I could stop giving extra milk, and DD has been growing fine ever since!

[Nazsmum]

I don't have much time right now. I'm sure you know this but LLL is free and very helpful. Please call them. It is not to late.

[LaughingHyena]

I just want to say to your sister for keeping trying, pumping is not easy.

I found taking my manual (avent isis) pump into the bath was one of the best things for me. I was more relaxed and got more milk that way.

Taking the baby into the bath was good too, just relaxing and hanging out in a calm environment, if she fed that was a bonus, otherwise we were both clean!

[stephbrownthinks]

Hopefully the new LC is working out. I just wanted to suggest maybe trying a nipple shield? That saved me when I was having cracked and bleeding nipples. Plus its more "like a bottle" for the baby. It wasn't hard to wean off of the nipple shield for us once I healed up. Good Luck!

[ErikaS57]

Absolutely not too late. In fact, I doubt it ever is. I was down to 4oz/day after I got my gallbladder out (DD was 5 weeks old). It only took 2 weeks (pumping 12x a day, a few of them power-pumps) to get up to 24oz/day at which point I didn't need to supplement anymore. Within a few months, I was up over 40oz/day, topping out at 46.