Ready to quit BF'ing and go to pump & bottle - Page 2

[Angelorum]

I would start by asking at the breast feeding clinic, if they know of any professionals in your area that are knowledgeable about tongue tie.  It could be a ped, or a Lactation Consultant, or a dentist.  It's not really that uncommon of a problem for breastfeeding, I would think  they would have encountered people with it before. 

[Angelorum]

If that doesn't turn up anything, you can call a local LLL leader to ask, or post in your Tribal Area. 

[homemademom]

Originally Posted by Partaria 

what kind of healthcare person do i need to see to diagnose that? a dentist? or a regular ol' pediatrician?

It really depends. You could start with your ped, especially if they're bfing-friendly or a midwife, if you used one.  A lactation consultant would be another option.  The difficulty, ime, is finding someone to treat it in the least invasive manner. Peds often (from what I've heard) want to refer you to an ENT who wants to do a full blown surgery with general anesthesia!  We had a pediatric dentist do a laser technique on ours. But with yours, sounding like an obvious and classical case, it will probably only require a quick snip without any anesthesia at all.  A mw or LC may know of someone who can do that (or know how to do it themselves)

[APToddlerMama]

I haven't read the whole thread, but a few things...

Soothies--gel pads that go on your nipples and help a TON!  Drug stores, amazon, etc. has them

Time--I don't know too many women who weren't in excrutiating pain for weeks with bfing...I know I had a lot of trouble for probably two months.  I would literally be gripping the couch wanting to die every time DS latched...

A good LC.  I saw three different lactation consultants for probably a total of 7-10 visits.  DS was preterm and that was what it took to get a decent latch.  Don't feel like a failure if you have to keep going back.  It is hard to remember how to do it when you have a 30 minute session with an LC. 

Hang in there...it will get better.  If pumping takes the pressure off, do that for some feedings.  My experience was that pumping was really hard on my nipples but I know it isn't for everyone.  good luck! 

[Partaria]

Thanks, mamas. I'm going to try to start going to La Leche league meetings too to get some moral support. Lanolin is helping- good call there. It seems like during the day, things feel fine, but at night...I don't know what it is...it just seems harder to get a good latch and things are more painful.

Do you all wear a nursing bra to bed or go braless? I go braless, but I'm finding that either my shirt or the sheets or the baby end up rubbing my nipples and they get really sore at night...

[APToddlerMama]

Always wore a bra because the chafing was soooooo bad otherwise.  And the soothies in the bra at night helped a lot too. 

[~Adorkable~]

Yeah talk to a pedantic dentist about tougne tie

And I just want to add as a mom that both nurses and pumps, the pumping is a HUGE hassle! It is the Bain of my life every day, it makes me sore all the time and I'm in consent worry that I'll run out while im out and my babies won't nurse well. All the planning and keeping it cool and on and on and on....

It is by no means the easy way out, instead it adds hours to your already overloaded day.



(written as I sit and pump when I just wish I was sleeping with my babies..

[Marissamom]

for sleep: we cosleep and nurse side-laying in bed. I usually sleep topless (or wear a loose t-shirt pulled up above my breasts), have the sheet and blanket only at about baby's waist, and once baby finishes nursing I usually roll onto my back. 

[Partaria]

Thanks for all the feedback! Sounds like pumping isn't the answer. I was also reading that this early, it can sometimes mess with your supply- you get get too much or too little. I'm doing everything I can to stay away from it.

I'll have him looked at for tongue tie. Things are getting a little better. His first 2-3 latches on the breast are always just terrible. Feels like by the 4th try or so during a feeding, we can work something out that's not totally awful. Maybe it's his mouth getting bigger?

[neonalee]

We also co-sleep & nurse side lying. I wear the target nursing tanks to sleep with pads in them to deal with leaking.

Sent from my Evo Shift using TapaTalk, please forgive typos

[OSUvet]

Originally Posted by Partaria 

what kind of healthcare person do i need to see to diagnose that? a dentist? or a regular ol' pediatrician?

I just typed out a long response to this and lost it. In short, I have found that a knowledgeable pediatric dentist is best, but not always east to find. Let me know if you are in driving distance of Dayton, OH. 

Originally Posted by Angelorum 

You've gotten lots of good advice about things to check, so I'll just suggest that maybe you can find someone to give a "grow up" speech to your dh?  Or do it yourself if you want.  I would be really upset if my husband was acting like his discomfort over my pain was more important than my decisions about my  body.  You've got enough to deal with, with a new baby, and recovering from birth, and figuring out how to breastfeed without having to defend yourself constantly to someone that you live with.  I'd tell him to go in the other room if he doesn't feel like being supportive while you're nursing. 

Hang in there!

My husband had the same response, and I think something more gentle than "grow up" is needed. At least with my husband, he was not encouraging the bottle in disregard of my dedication to breastfeeding or the benefits of it. He loves me and as Partaria said was so tired of seeing me more miserable and in more pain than I've ever been. He wanted me to enjoy my baby. 

[Partaria]

Thanks for the responses. Unfortunately, I'm in Madison, WI so not within driving distance of Dayton, OH. :(  I'm going to look fora  pediatric dentist locally to examine him.

DH has stopped pushing me to pump and bottlefeed, though I know inside he sort of wishes we'd do that. He knows this is super important to me, and that pumping can cause more problems than it solves, particularly with supply, since we're jsut at 2 weeks here.

And yes, it's about seeing me in pain. It's hard to watch your wife cry every time the baby latches on to the breast. I think like a lot of men, he just wants to DO something to make it stop. But, god love him, he's at least learned now not to make those suggestions, and to just put his arm around me when I cry instead of telling me to quit.

[~Adorkable~]

how are you doing mama?

[Partaria]

Thank you for checking in. That is so nice!

Things are TONS better. All mamas who said "it gets better" were right. We never went to pumping and bottle feeding in lieu of breastfeeding. I stuck it out and didn't pump until DS was about 4 weeks. Then I would pump once a day and let DH give the little guy a bottle, just to give me a break from at least 1 feeding a day. Ultimately, I concluded I was too lazy to do pumping exclusively. I didn't want to mess with pumping and managing bottles and equipment all the time. I couldn't see myself being able to sit down to pump every 2 hours like I'd need to.

That said, I want to kind of recap my experience here, just in case any other mamas stumble onto this thread in the future looking for answers like I was...

To recap, I breastfeeding was completely awfully terribly painful for us. I looked into everything. I had DS checked for tongue tie. I had us both checked for yeast. I had myself checked out for mastitis. I even took DS to a cranio-sacral therapist, thinking maybe there was something wrong with his jaw or palette that I could not see. I went to a lactation specialist and had the latch analyzed. We tried all kinds of positions- clutch/football, cradle, cross-cradle, sidelying, laid-back.

None of those avenues actually helped us very much.

What did help was just the passage of time. I don't know if DS's jaw got bigger so he could just fit more breast in his mouth. Or maybe my nipples somehow toughened up. But now, at nearly nine weeks, things are not nearly so bad. It still smarts a little when he nurses. I won't lie- we aren't at "comfortable" just yet. But we've moved from excruciating to "some discomfort." And I can tolerate that. I hope that by two more weeks, it might actually be comfortable.

What has really struck me about this experience is my anger over what I see as false promises. I went to La Leche League meetings locally and encountered lots of other new mamas who were in tears, wondering why breastfeeding hurt so badly. They too couldn't figure out what was wrong. They too had read (and been told) that "if it hurts, you're doing it wrong."

I have to say that I strongly disagree with that statement and I wish that we wouldn't tell women that. (We isn't referring to anyone specifically here, just a more general "we.") For nearly a month and a half I was in tears, not only from pain of breastfeeding, but in wondering what the hell I was doing wrong, and what in the world I had to do to fix it. I drove myself nearly crazy trying to solve the problem, and beating myself up for not being able to nurse in total serenity right away, like I believed all other new moms did.

Now, I understand that many women do get thrush or mastitis or have bad latches. And yes, pain is our body's way of telling us that something might not be right. So in that sense, the whole "if it hurts..." is decent advice. But I wish new moms would also be told that sometimes, it just takes time. We were doing everything "right" for weeks, and I was still in pain. I would've avoided a lot of emotional pain if I'd been told what I feel is closer to the truth: "If it hurts, something might be wrong. But it might also be pain with a purpose that you have to push through."

So if any other new moms encounter this thread in search of answers, take heart. IT GETS BETTER. And if it hurts, by all means, get yourself and your babe checked out. But also realize that you might do everything right, and you might just need to push through the pain until you and your babe are old pros. It doesn't mean you're doing anything wrong.

[~Adorkable~]

A great update! Your are doing a wonderful job it sounds like. I too agree that this image O'd perfect breastfeeding being a completely natural thing can really undermine ladies for whom it's harder for one reason or another.

My issue was different but I also feel like I was doing it right and it still took my twin and me 6 months before we mastered things. Most women would have given up in either of our positions. Here's to sticking with it!!!!

[~Adorkable~]

And thanks for coming back and updating, too many threads don't ever get closure. I always wonder how the lady or baby is doing and yeah for the folks that find this thread down the road, they never know what worked or not. Thanks for letting us know.