Can a baby be born on a strike? Please help me!

[Ansett]

My baby is 8 days old and is not breastfeeding. I wanted so much to breastfeed, I read all the books, took the class, I was so excited as the end of my pregnancy neared. But she will not latch on. When I try to breastfeed her, she gets so upset and ends up screaming at the breast. There is nothing physically wrong with her, and nothing wrong with my nipples. She doesn't want to open her mouth wide enough and flails with her arms, and gets very upset when anyone tries to hold her arms or help her open her mouth wider.
She started with a problem thrusting the nipple out of her mouth with her tongue, and not keeping her tongue down. So a lactation nurse in the hospital had us do fingerfeeding using my expressed colostrum to teach her to keep her tongue down. She was still rejecting the breast and losing so much weight (almost a pound in the first three days) so we continued the fingerfeeding as my milk came in. I have no "let-down" reflex that I can tell, so it takes a while for the milk to get going, even with pumping. It's like she has no patience to suck unil it comes.
I saw another LC two days after getting out of the hospital who advised me to do a lot of skin to skin contact. She said that a baby can get just as addicted to the fingerfeeding as a bottle, so she's having me use a bottle for feeding. I'm to try to take the bottle away avery so often and try to slip my nipple in there. I do that and DD will lick it and mouth it, maybe a halfhearted suck or two, then get upset if I continue pushing my nipple, like usual.
I am so exhausted physically and mentally. I haven't cried this much in years. I am pumping every 2-3 hours a day and every three hours or so at night (the last LC insisted that I try take a little break at night to get 5-6 hours of sleep at night - I was pumping every 2 hours around the clock). I can always pump 2 oz at a sitting, often 3 oz., and occasionally 4. Does this sound sufficient? It keeps up with her needs during the day, but at night she wants to feed constantly, so I have to supplement with formula.
My little girl is so beautiful and perfect, and I really want to BF her. But I can feel myself giving up. There is no reason I can see to believe that anything will change.
Some background: My baby was overdue and so I was induced. I never dilated past 4 cm, and baby started having late decelerations on the monitor, so the OB said we needed to do a c-section. Turned out she was big (8lb 4oz) and face-up and was not able to come down. I have a small pelvis. The edidural flowed up too high during the surgery and paralyzed my arms and fingers so I wasn't able to even hold her for many hours after. Then I was nauseous, weak and dizzy for the next two days so I couldn't get up to care for her. In fact I didn't trust myself to hold her without dropping her. So we got off to a bad start and missed out on the crucial bonding. In fact she feels like I'm holding someone else's beautiful baby.
Can anyone offer any helpful suggestions?

[Viriditas]

First of all,
I don't have a lot of good advice, but I couldn't read and not respond. You're doing such a wonderful thing for your baby, working so hard to help her learn to nurse. One thing I did notice from your post, you said she doesn't want to wait for letdown? Something I read on kellymom.com was to pump until the milk starts flowing and then offer the breast.

I can only imagine how difficult and discouraging your situation can be, but don't lose hope yet! 8 days is so, so early still! I've heard many stories of babies with problems breastfeeding who caught on later than that and went on to be nursing champs. I'm sure others will be able to give you much more useful advice than I can. I just wanted to offer my

[mayamama]

Man, first I want to say . I think we went through about the same thing. As far as the BFing is concerned, get yourself to a LLL meeting stat. I see you're in OKC. I found this information about the OKC LLL and it looks like there are LOTS of numbers you can call. There seems to be a meeting going on RIGHT NOW! Maybe call one of them in an hour or so. I found my LLL leader to be the best help and the most patient at helping me get my DD latched on. Good luck. And come back here to see what other mamas have to say.

[BakerALM]

A baby only learns to breastfeed by Breastfeeding

"A baby only learns to breastfeed by Breastfeeding" Dr Jack Newman

Oh poor mamma! I totally understand exactly what you are going through, so much so I can feel the tears in my eyes. Your emotions sound exactly like how I was feeling when my babe was first born. From my first hand experience with my babe I can see that your babe is confused. Within 8 days of being born she has been taught that milk comes in 2 different flavors/smells(bm and formula) and 3 different containers (breast, finger, bottle). I know you started down this road to help teach your baby to bf properly but it is also very confusing for a new babe. Most babes take time just to master bfing never mind bottle and finger feeding.

Will your babe take the breast at all, even for a few sucks, even if it is improperly? My babe went through similar problems with all the different feeding devices being thrown at her that within just a few days after birth she would not even accept my nipple at all. She became very scared of it and when I began to turn her to face my chest she would begin to scream.

No matter what I tried at the time I could not get her back to the breast. So I EPump, it sucks and I hate it with all the strength I can muster but at the same time I don't see formula as an option I am willing to succumb to unless it was medically impossible for me to produce milk.

Looking back on my bfing story I know what I did wrong for my babe. Many of the things we tried were good suggestions for babies in general but not my little determined, spunky, Lola. She wanted her milk now and fast. So what did we do wrong when we already had a slew of latch problems...introduce a bottle!! Ahhh, well I trusted LC's since I did not know anybetter. : Well things are different now. Once I had introduced the bottle life sounds alot like what you are going through, endless pumping, a babe who is never satisfied no matter how much BM you provide, endless screaming when trying to get her to BF, and a constant crying on your part.

Here is what I would do different...
put the bottles away for now and get yourself a FEW syringes that have a long pointy plastic tip (your IBCLC should have one). Also you will need a BFing helper atleast for a good few days 24 hrs a day. Fill the syringes with BM and set them aside (this will be messy), now start to position the babe to you breast, when she is on even if it is wrong have your helper squirt a bit of milk into the corner of her mouth with the syringe to calm her and show her that milk comes from here. Keep working to get her latched while continuing to squirt milk into her mouth while she is sucking even if it is incorrectly. This might hurt you since she is not positioned properly but hopefully it wont be for to long until she begins to be more willing to be positioned at the breast so she can begin properly BFing from the tap. It will help her to calm if she knows that milk comes immediately.

Also in between feeding at the breast you can feed using a cup/syringe. Just make sure that 99% of the feedings are done at the breast when ever possible and that the babe opens wide even if she is only going to have a syringe put in her mouth since the first part of a good latch is a BIG Open Mouth.

A friend of mind used this technique to over come similar difficulties for about 1mth. Her babe just could not get the latch correct and had no patience to wait for the letdown. Her Mom was an LLL leader for years and helped her though at most feedings until slowly the latch improved and she was more patient. They knew that if they continued to use a bottle the babe would never learn to BF properly since she already had such an incorrect latch.

As you can tell I am totally anti bottle( or more correctly I should say SUBSTITUTE Nipple of any sort, finger feeders, habermans etc.). Most LC's will tell you it is OK to use one to teach a babe. And I guess that is true in many cases or else that mantra would have died out years ago among LC (at least you would hope). But their are some babes who are really really determined to get fed their way, as fast and as easily as possible. For those babes a substitute nipple is a BFing Death Sentence. It is your job as a mother to determine what kind of babe you have on your hands since you are the only one who really knows your babe. Then you can work with your LC to find a better method to feed your babe until you can perfect BFing from the tap.

Huge hugs! Your babe is so little as everyone has said but they grow fast and you have to act now forcefully to regain ground in this kind of struggle. It will be very very hard, lots of tears will be shed but with the right help you can do this as a family. BFing a little one is so important as you know or you would not be here asking for guidance. Just remember to trust your instincts about your babe and to surround yourself with people who are dedicated to BFing not bottle, formula or EPing.


Wow that turned into a rant of my morals and mantra, sorry I just am still grieving my lost BFing relationship and when I hear a story that sounds soo much like mine almost 15mths ago I just could not stop typing.:

Lots of Love and support in these tough times.

[Amris]

Okay.

Take a day with your little one. First thing you want to do is get a pump, a cheap little hand pump will do if that's all you can find.

Get someone to come help you. Sit down in the tub and get the water a comfy temp for baby. Pump until your milk starts to flow. Have your helper give you your DD.

Try nursing in the tub, with the milk already flowing. This is sort of a "rebirth" concept. The water reminds her of being born, and you have skin-to-skin, and you also have milk already flowing.

Then try when she's sleepy as often as you can. Take as many baths as you can with her, and nurse as often as you can in the tub, skin to skin.

Best of luck to both of you.

[Sheal]

Asymetrical Latch

www.drjacknewman.com

Videos of asymetrical latch:

http://www.drjacknewman.com/index.ph...d=18&Itemid=42

It helped me to finally have the bond of BF'ing with my 5th child (my other babies were FF and bottle babies due to the problems you described in your post).

Ask your ped to look at the frenelum (may be tongue tied).

Sheal

[beanma]

i would make sure your baby desn't have a physical problem first of all. i know you said she didn't, but one mom on MDC had her 2nd daughter's cleft undiagnosed for an amazingly long amount of time -- weeks if not months -- because it was only in the palate and not visible in her lips. tongue tie is frequently missed, too, and can cause a baby not to be able to nurse effectively or cause the mom a lot of pain while nursing. if you definitively rule out physical problems in the baby, then i'd make sure your nipples aren't inverted and she should be able to get a good latch. once that checks out i'd investigate a SNS (supplemental nursing system) or LactAid (i think that's right). they're both systems where you put pumped milk in a bag/bottle that hangs around your neck and has thin tubes that you tape to your breasts/nipples. this enables the baby to suck at the nipple and get immediate gratification from the pumped milk and the sucking stimulates your supply.

i would definitely definitely definitely call LLL. all LCs are not created equal and sometimes LLL leaders know as much or more.

you can get your baby to nurse. some roads are just tougher than others, but you can do it!

[celestialdreamer]

I couldn't read without posting. I have so been there! When my daughter was born she did the exact same thing with her tongue and ended up losing almost a lb and had to be hospitalized for dehydration. I felt like the worst mother ever and I wasn't able to pump enough for her so I was told by the hospital LC to give her supplemental bottles of formula. I felt at the time I didn't really have a choice and she wasn't doing well being cup fed. If I had to do that over again I would have possibly tried a SNS system or finger feeding.

My daughter didn't really start nursing until she was 6 WEEKS old. I am going to tell you what a really great LC told me...it is completely possible to get your baby to nurse, its just going to be a battle of the wills and a LOT of hard work. I ended up seeing a speech pathologist who worked with children from birth to 3 to help us teach her how to suck properly and move her tongue in the right way to get milk. Our ped really fought us giving us the referral but I was admant after hearing about that it might work from the great LC. You might try seeing if you can get a referral to do that ASAP.

I can vividly remember the heartbreak of feeling like my baby was rejecting ME. When she hit about 4 weeks old, after about 3 weeks of pumping round the clock, taking Reglan to boost my supply, weighing her before and after feedings...she actually was willing to nurse for just a minute. I cried my eyes out! By the time she was 6 weeks old she started actually being willing and able to empty my breast but had begun to prefer bottles. I decided that since I had been overpumping and had so much supply that I was going to to trust that she could keep doing it at every feeding because the milk flowed really easily. Taking that leap of faith to trust her and trust myself to be able to feed her from my body seemed so much harder than I ever imagined. The first day I went out without having to bring bottles of pumped milk was the day I had her 6 week photos taken. I remember crying tears of joy the first time I nursed her outside of my home. Sounds like such a silly thing, but it was a huge milestone to me!

I am sorry to have written such a novel, but your post reminds me exactly of my story with my first baby. She ended up nursing until she was 2 1/2 (much longer than I ever would have thought) and now pretends to nurse her little dolls. It was such a hard road to be able to nurse her, but so completely worth it. Please get in touch with your local LLL and look into getting a referral to a speech pathologist if you think that she is having problems with coordinating her tongue and mouth for proper sucking. Lots of hugs! Feel free to PM me if you have any questions!

[USAmma]

I'm so sorry for what you are going through. I too have been there. My dd never nursed but I was able to pump and feed her for 5.5 months. You are doing good to keep working with someone to get your baby latched on. For most it will happen if you keep trying and get some good support from someone who can help you through this. ((HUGS))

[AwakenedMama]

I'm so sorry you're going through this. No, your baby wasn't born on a strike. She has not learned to associate your breast with the source of her food. This link http://http://www.unicef.org/newsline/tenstps.htm lists the 10 steps to breastfeeding success recommended by the WHO, and if you look at it, I think you'll see in how many ways your early experience contributed to the problem. Your situation unfortunately prevented many of these things from happening. But it is not too late! It is still very early, your daughter is still fully capable of learning how to nurse.

Hopefully you will get more suggestions like the PP gave and figure out what will work for you. Your goal is to get your DD to learn to associate your breast with her food. Once that's done, you will be able to get your supply up quickly to meet her demand and then can have the beautiful nursing relationship you have dreamed of! One thing I would be wary of when she does begin to latch is then supplementing after she stops nursing. I've heard several moms say that their child learned that this was the way to feed, or, as a wise LC I know put it, thought of mom as the appetizer and the bottle as the meal. So I would suggest trying to find a solution that does not involve using a bottle to make sure she is full. Maybe using a supplemental nurser or just putting her back to the breast if she indicates she is still hungry?

BTW, you mentioned crying - I am one of those people who rarely ever cries, but after I had DD, I probably made more tears than milk. I think crying after delivery is a normal thing, and it is natural to attribute it to something (in my case it was that I felt much worse than I expected to be and felt like I would never be able to enjoy being a mommy before I went back to work), but I suspect you might still be crying even if you were not having these problems. Your hormones make you cry. Not that this helps, just try not to let yourself feel too down about it.

You are in the right place to get the help you need!!!

[melbb]

I just wanted to say that I am sorry for your problems. I have been in a similar situation. My DD didn't latch at birth. She also did tongue thrusting, so we trained her by finger feeding. But she also had blood type incompatibility jaundice for 2 weeks and was very tired and weak. Ice cubes weren't enough to get her attention. She finally latched at 3 weeks, but only with a nipple shield. But, she went on multiple strikes and went on permanent strike at 4 months. She just screamed at me and I ended up EPing to 16 months. So I understand how you feel. I cried many tears and still mourn the loss of that relationship.

If you are having to pump a lot, make sure you are using a hospital grade pump. Have you thought about using a SNS to try to encourage her to eat at the breast? I also had a LC say babies get attached to finger feeding. I don't know how true that is. But if you do use a bottle, use a Haberman feeder. It has low flow setting and baby must suck to get milk out. The nipple is also designed so that babe has to open the mouth wider, more like latching onto a breast. But like other PP said, you should really try to get her on the breast. But with a baby like that, you must balance things so that she doesn't get too frustrated. Forcing it can make things worse by creating an aversion to the breast.

Good luck.

[beanma]

Ansett, here's a link to lots of articles about newborn suck problems on LLL's website -- http://laleche.org/NB/NBsuckproblems.html . i really encourage you to call a LLL leader near you. an experienced leader is a goldmine of info and support.

this article on www.kellymom.com might be helpful, too -- http://www.kellymom.com/bf/concerns/...to-breast.html .

please contact someone again and ask about a SNS or other method to get the baby to your breast. YOU CAN DO IT!

[USAmma]

No, your baby wasn't born on a strike. She has not learned to associate your breast with the source of her food.

Sometimes they are kinda born on strike even before they have a chance to associate food with anything else. I had a lot of things stacked against me: my nipples are flat/inverted, my baby was stressed in the womb with a low h/b (was fine after birth), develped jaundice, and has sensory issues that were there from birth but I didn't know it at that time. I also did not have an LC. After 12 hours of trying to get her to nurse she was not in great shape and more jaundiced and I had to give her bottles. She didn't even try to latch on before the bottles were given, she did not recognize them as a source of food. Maybe it was the flat nipples that didn't feel or look like what babies look for in a source of milk by instinct. She dribbled milk from the sides of her mouth even with bottles and had a bad latch for months. I tried everything to get that girl to nurse. It just didn't happen. I know other mamams who got off to a worse start than I did and they made it happen with lots of effort. Just keep trying and try to get a good LC on your side as soon as you can. Good luck and keep us updated okay?

[Ansett]

I'd like to respond to each message individually since you have all been so kind to respond to my question, but there is just no time, as I'm sure you all know all about. Doing double duty (pumping, then feeding as well as all else) is very time consuming and frustrating. But I do want to address some things you guys said/asked.
She does seem interested in the breast. If I try to introduce it when she is tired or not starving, she will toy with it, lick a little, give a few halfhearted sucks, but will not get it very far in her mouth, and gets nothing out. Then before she gets too upset, I give her the bottle. I'm trying to erase the negative associations to the breast that I think she developed due to the aggressive efforts by the LC's and us early on. I have tried pumping first to "prime" my breast, but no different result. I was given a SNS by the LC in the hospital "just in case". We tried that last night, but she wouldn't even suck long enough to get the milk from the catheters - and was really annoyed by the feel of the catheter in her mouth (which I don't understand since she had no problem with the fingerfeeding). I did try the SNS at the first of the feeding when she was hungry, however. Probably should have bottle fed then used the SNS once she had some milk in her belly. I really thought the SNS was going to work.
I've heard of the nursing in the bath thing. I will certainly be trying that once her umbilical stump falls off.
We'll try the suggestion of the syringe squirting milk in the mouth during the breastfeeding attempt tonight. I don't see how we can feed her enough that way to get her full though as the poster suggested (discarding the bottle), since it sounds like most would get spilled.
What do you guys think about the amount I can express? Does it sound on track for the time I've been pumping? 2 oz at a 20 min pumping, often 3 oz., and occasionally 4.
I'll defiitely get in contact with my local LLL chapter, thanks mayamama.
Any other thoughts? Thanks for all the virtual hugs and support. I feel such despair over this. Someone made the observation that some of it is probably hormonal. I hope so. When does that pass?
So are there babies who just one day decide to start sucking the breast if its offered to them often?

[Amris]

I had a lot of problems breastfeeding, and I do mean a LOT.

I found that it helped us for me to give her a bottle, but then put her to breast before she was "full." Once the "edge" was off of her hunger, she was more willing to try for the breast.

So.. I would "prime" by pumping, then feed her from a slow flow bottle for a bit until she slowed down, then I'd try her on the breast.

One important thing is, don't do it when either of you is frustrated. Try it when you're both relaxed and calm. After she's almost full, when she's FIRST starting to show the merest signs of hunger (not ravenous), etc.

Don't do it when it'll just frustrate one of you, because that will just frustrate both of you.