My son is almost 9 months old and only 17 pounds. I was told that he had a slight tongue tie when he was born but that we only needed to have it fixed if it caused problems with breastfeeding. Since he's been born I have learned more about tongue ties and upper lip ties. We have never had any problems breastfeeding and he hasn't had reflux issues or any of the more obvious TT/ULT symptoms. He has however always been a "slow" nurser and often falls asleep while nursing. And he is kind of gassy. And his weight gain has slowed down the past 6 weeks or so, even though he's been nursing at night more. The slower weight gain got me looking into his mouth anatomy again, where inrealized that he probably has an upper lip tie. I will attach the pictures I could get, though they aren't too good.
Has anyone had experience with this in an older baby? (9 months) Could this be part of the slow weight gain? We are trying to get a consultation with a pediatric dentist next week but is it worth the laser surgery? I have also ears it can cause speech and dental problems down the road if left as is.
I had my son's done at 3 months old. He was small, slow weight gain. Also nursing was extremely painful. I tried chiropractic care and that helped a bit but laser surgery helped a lot. It got even better as his latch habits improved to his new ability.
Firstly, your son is gorgeous! He looks great; I wouldn't be too worried about his size... but I know where you're coming from, my daughter is now 13m and she too is small for her age. I think she does have a lip tie, but we're the same as you, it never caused big problems breastfeeding, especially after 4-5m.
In my totally unmedical opinion it looks to me from the pictures that your son's lip tie is not very severe. Over the past year I've seen a LOT of kids who look like they have a lip tie - in fact in my experience it seems to be more common than not! So I wonder, maybe that's not the cause of his slow nursing and slow weight gain. Has he become more active in the last month, with crawling, sitting, etc? How is he with solids? How is your diet? You don't have to answer these questions, I just wanted to suggest that maybe if he is becoming more active and/or not so much into solids yet this may be a "natural" period of low weight which will just fade out as he grows and gets really into food and so on. Or if he is still nursing a lot, a clue to his small size might be in your diet, too. Absolutely not saying you're doing anything wrong, but I know I myself find it difficult sometimes to get enough calories and more to the point, fat, because I'm just so used to eating less fatty stuff and nuts etc. are expensive and blah blah. Just throwing out some ideas, I hope you get my drift.
Flyagaric, you're probably on to something. He has been army crawling all over the place the past 6 weeks and started pulling up on things 2 weeks ago. He's probably burning more calories. And I do have to remind myself to eat. I get so busy and I don't think of it sometimes! I should set an eating/drinking timer on my phone.
He plays with solids mostly...he will eat some but I think he's more interested in playing.
What kinds of things can I eat to beef up my milk? Probably just more of the same whole foods I am already eating.
Thanks for the encouragement! I will be more mindful of my caloric intake.
My daughter was delayed with starting solids because of a cyst under her tongue, found at 8 months and resolved with surgery at 15 months. She stopped gaining well at about 9 or 10 months. She was nursing like a fiend but wouldn't eat food because it was uncomfortable to chew. I had been committed to baby led weaning and so I never started her on spoon feeding, which was unfortunate for us.
It took a few years for her to start growing well again because of her food delays. I nursed on demand for over 3 years but milk just kept her going, not growing. She was in 2T-3T pants until she was almost 5.
Would he eat yummy stews and goos offerred on spoon? Just to help supplement while you figure out if he needs a surgical fix?
My midwife caught my daughters lip tie at birth and we chose to wait and see how she nursed and we ended up running into alot of problems. Took her to a specialist and she was diagnosed with both lip tie and posterior tongue tie which we had corrected with laser treatment at 15 days old. It was hard to watch at that age but over within 45 seconds and she nursed well immediately after. It took her nearly a month to re-learn how to nurse properly once she was able to use the proper muscles but we feel it was definitely worth it in the end. In her situation she would have had to have it corrected later in life or she would have run into problems with speech/dental problems.
I spoke with ALOT of people on this subject and did a ton of research, and we were so lucky to find out we have a dentist in the area who specializes in it...that is very important, to find someone who knows what they are doing properly because it seems there arent enough drs who know about this issue. My family dr who is a well respected holistic md wasnt really much help. And Ive heard about some drs who have done the procedure not clipping enough tissue and children having to have it done AGAIN later in life. From all of my reading and talking to parents it seems its easier on the child to have it corrected before their adult teeth come in(if its an issue that was caught late), they are able to handle the situation easier with local anesthetic and also understand more about whats going to take place during the procedure. And then Ive been told its better to have it done as early as possible because the tissue is so thin, easier to laser and it will be less stressful on a newborn (though Im not so sure about the last one). Some drs will use scissors and cut it, but it seems the laser is better to help cauterize and its a very quick procedure with the laser also. When the specialist does a correction on a newborn(my daughter was 15 days old at the time), he doesnt use local anesthetic for several reasons which kinda reminded me of the whole circ debate...ugh. But he also cant numb little nurslings or they wont be able to nurse with a tingling face after the procedure is done. We put our trust in him and understood it was the best thing for her and our nursing relationship. They wrapped her up in a swaddle blanket and placed her on the dental chair, I was sitting with her on the chair holding her right there with her. She started crying whenever he started pulling her lip up and examining her and he let her calm down a bit and then ever so gently took what looked like an ink pen, the laser, and cut the tie which quickly turned white like dead skin, no bleeding at all. Her tongue tie was posterior and set very far back(she would have never been able to french kiss or lick an ice cream come properly), her tongue had to be pulled up to release the muscle and free up her tongue. And again, no bleeding only white cauterized skin. To my understanding the scissor method can cause some bleeding and that is why they are switching over to laser. It was literally over and done in less than a minute and she nursed shortly after and I could feel an immediate difference. Upon returning home, for 3 wks, 3 times a day, we had to stretch her lip up to her nose and rub the area 3 times so that it wouldnt grow back together. And also with her tongue, I had to rub 3 times across underneath so that her tongue wouldnt heal back. Doing that was the HARDEST part for both of us! She absolutely hated it and I knew it had to be done because I didnt want to have to do it again...after about 2 wks it got easier though. It took her nearly over a month to re-learn how to nurse properly once she had full motion of her muscles. Her lip tie has since slightly grown back but not much and her tongue has plenty of movement. My son who is 3 now has a lip/tongue tie as well which we knew nothing about when he was born. But looking back we had all of the same problems then. Im choosing to take a wait and see approach and if he needs it corrected to wait until hes a few yrs older.
I hope any of this could be of some help to someone out there!
We just had our 10 week old daughter's upper lip tie clipped with a laser. Her weight gain has been normal, but breastfeeding has been very painful for me. Now I am finally healing as she relearns how to latch with her upper lip flanged.
I was very hesitant to get it clipped, but am very glad that we did. There are no down sides, besides the cost & slight pain of the procedure. (If you have insurance it may be covered.) It has helped us a lot with breastfeeding and will probably prevent tooth decay and orthedontic and speech issues later on.
I also spoke with several moms who had their children's lip ties clipped between 12 and 19 months. They had trouble nursing once baby's teeth came in due to the small latch and wished they had it clipped earlier.
The procedure was quick and relatively blood-less. We didn't even give our daughter tylenol afterward, as she seemed pretty happy. I'd definitely recommend finding a good pediatric dentist with experience clipping the upper lip.
Good luck!
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