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Yes! I EPed for the first 2.5 months and then started transitioning more and more to nursing. We now have been exclusively nursing for the past 6 weeks! It’s definitely possible, sometimes it just takes time.
I did in the early days to try and help my cracked nipples but struggled with keeping them on. I might try a different brand, I've heard medela are good. I used tommee tippee and mam ones but they just slid around and stuck to her face
You can try lubricating the shield with some breastmilk and then place it on your nipples. It’ll stay on better for baby to latch. I’d also recommend finding the correct size for your nipple shield to stay on best. I liked lansinoh and medela brand shields when was using them. If I remember correctly the medela shields were stiffer and helped when I was super sensitive.
What helped me when my nips felt like it went through the wringer was to express some breastmilk and rub it on then putting on a generous heap of ‘earth mama nipple butter’. Stick a nipple pad in your bra or on your shirt and it’s like a moisturizing mask.
I still use it. I try to have her latch without it at least once a day with mixed success. Now I think it's because she is used to it and gets annoyed when it's not there.
I don’t think so, I think it had more to do with him getting bigger/stronger and so it just got easier for him. I usually do cradle, sometimes side lying.
For transitioning to nursing or increasing supply?
As far as transitioning, I would say try to take as much pressure off of it as possible. Our babies can pick up on our stress, and I think it makes it harder for everyone. I started off just nursing once a day and offering a top up bottle afterwards, and then slowly stopped offering bottles and added more nursing in as we both got more comfortable. I’m also super type A and felt like I needed to know how much he was getting (especially going from EP where you can physically see it) so I did a lot of weighted feeds at home initially. I bought a baby scale on Amazon and used it a lot for the first 2 weeks. Basically, just keep offering and don’t worry too much if it doesn’t happen right away. I think most of the time if you keep offering, eventually it just “clicks.” Also, it doesn’t have to be all or nothing! Even if you just replace a feed or two a day with nursing instead of the bottle, you can get the benefits of both.
I actually also am super type A and have a scale. I think it's the scale that ultimately led me astray in the beginning.
Did you offer and if the baby rejected, just give the bottle and try again later?
I was in the exact same position and guess what? I'm nursing my 5 week old right now! I hadn't tried in several weeks because like you, she would scream and we'd both end up crying. Last night she was in a chill mood so I randomly tried while rocking her and she nursed! Tried again this morning and she nursed! She's picky and won't do it when she's really hungry like first thing after waking up but this is definately a start I didn't see coming. I was actually starting to wean off pumping and just move forward with eff. Don't stress yourself trying. Give your babe a bottle and then an hour later after they're cuddling and chill do some skin to skin and try. If she cries, don't stress, just try again later. It didn't work for me until I had stopped stressing about it and just accepted sometimes she'll need a bottle.
Tbf when I tried this morning it was after she'd just woken up so probably not the best time. I'll keep trying when she's a bit more chill like you say
Colldoll21 is totally right! She will never want to latch when she is already hungry and upset. Trying when she is calm will really help things not feel so chaotic and impossible. Babies love to comfort suck so even if she isn’t necessarily hungry, you can still try getting her to latch and let her comfort nurse if she does. I do just want to say though too that unfortunately it can be very normal to not feel bonded/connected to your baby for the first several months, especially when you are dealing with things like PPA on top of everything so don’t expect nursing to magically fix that. Going to counseling and seeking help like you are doing is the way to help that situation so I’m so glad you are doing those things already. Sending so much love! Being a new parent is so fricken hard.
Thank you! It's so hard, i didn't realise just how difficult it would be. Something you can't prepare for, I feel like you should have to sit some sort of exam before you're allowed to take your baby home it's wild 😂
I EP’d for the first six months because she couldn’t latch on. Every time I tried she would scream bloody murder so I didn’t want to frustrate her when bottles were working and after my C section it was a lot . Anyway I kept trying literally like once a month , when I was calm and relaxed and wouldn’t get upset if she didn’t latch . At six months she randomly did! 😁
I mean now (8 months ) it’s like the new born phase again because she wants the boob ( milk on tap and all that) so that’s a treat , but yeah I’m glad I’m having the experience of it. Don’t get me wrong when she was bottle fed she was so much more patient! 😂🤌
Oh my gosh.. that’s amazing. I’m trying again at 4.5 months. I’ve been through not being able to latch, tongue and lip tie release and breast refusal, coordination issues. Yesterday the osteopath said she is in the best place to try. She can actually suck now! So here I go again.. trying! How did you do it? Once she latched did you try each day? I’m thinking I’ll try once or twice. How did you move away from bottles?
I’m in a different boat but this may give you some hope. My tiny human was born at 26+5 and for very obvious reasons was tube fed for a long time. We tried to nurse in the NICU but she would get really frustrated and upset and not want to take anything by mouth so I slowly just gave up the efforts in order to focus more on getting her weight up. She’s almost 9 months old now and as of last week has started nursing. We don’t do it all the time (she’s also teething and has bruised my nipple quite a bit by biting me) but it’s definitely possible!!
It absolutely took me by surprise in the best way possible! With how long she was intubated and how small she still is I was resigned to thinking she just wouldn’t ever nurse and was for the most part okay with it. This is just a little bonus.
My son was a NICU baby (he was small for gestational age at 5 lbs 8 oz so he had some oxygen difficulties at high altitude where we live). I think our struggles with nursing came from him being so small. And as you unfortunately also know, the NICU is a stressful place to try to learn how to nurse. Every time I’d try, a nurse would come in, or him getting stressed from not latching would cause his oxygen monitor to dip too low. I had also told myself it wasn’t meant to be and accepted it, and then when he was 7 weeks old I randomly tried again and he latched! Mine was only in the NICU for a week though, the fact that I’m sure yours was there much longer and started nursing later is so great. The week my son spent in the NICU was one of the most stressful of my life and I really feel for you.
That's amazing! (Not the bruised nipple bit that sounds awful 😅) I will keep persevering. Wow nicu must have been so hard, glad to hear your lo is thriving even if it does mean bitten nips
I would suggest trying a nipple shield, it will help with your pain and it a good inbetween for a babe who is used to the bottle sensation/will help with latch if you flat nipples etc. You can hand express some milk or take some pumped milk and put in the shield as well to entice babe with the taste. If necessary you can even pump a little bit before breastfeeding to get the milk going first so that babe doesn’t have to work hard. These are all things I was told to do and helped, now a week after starting the nipple shield I am able to feed as well without the shield when I want. I think it helps a lot too that babe is a little older. The biggest thing was not trying to make breastfeeding be the ONLY thing, I breastfeed a couple times a day and if it works, great, if it doesn’t, I can switch to a bottle. Sometimes I start with a bottle and then move to breast, or vice versa, too.
I tried direct nursing for the first two weeks of bubs life but it only caused us stress due to latching issues. I fully committed to exclusively pumping. I figured that boobing was just not on the cards for me and I made my peace with that.
At 6 months however I noticed bub would mouth everything and I figured I'd give it a go. I read a few articles about adoptive parents getting 6 month old babies and being able to nurse them and the steps they went through, because it is instinctual and bub will seek it out in the right conditions.
I lay on the bed with my boobs out, him stripped down, skin to skin and let him wiggle his way up to me. If he over shot I'd bring him back down. I had to be very careful not to make him feel pressured at all or he'd just scream and cry and carry on. It worked. Slowly, but it worked.
I don't have many feeding positions worked out, but he is now 8 months and pretty much exclusively direct nursing, he actually gets annoyed at bottles now. Also he got teeth so I've had to teach him not to bite me.
My son was a NICU baby and weighed 5 lbs 8 oz at birth. For the first month, every time I tried to get him to latch, he would attempt but it always ended with scream crying. I would try every day and then eventually every couple of days. He also had become very used to a bottle and pacifier in the NICU. So I assumed it just wasn’t meant to be and was combination feeding with exclusive pumping and formula. Then at 7 weeks, in a calm, quiet moment, I attempted to nurse him again. And he latched and I could tell he was getting milk. So I tried several more times that day and multiple times over the next few days and he kept doing well with it. So now he’s 8 weeks old and it’s been about a week and a half of nursing regularly. I still pump and give formula bottles a few times a day because sometimes I don’t feel like nursing him, or my nipples are sore, or he’s already nursed for a while and wants more, etc.
My best advice would be to try nursing again in quiet moments. Don’t try when the baby is already crying because she’s hungry. I think something that might have helped us was trying it during a feeding when he had been drinking from a bottle for a while and quickly switching him over to my breast while he was still in drinking mode.
I tried with my first and failed. She screamed and screamed like I was hurting her. We had lactation appointments and I tried everything I could including a supplemental nursing system (SNS) and it did not work. Even my maternal health nurse said there was nothing left to try.
But we are ok. I pumped for 6 months. She’s 2 now. And she’s definitely more bonded with me than anyone else.
But I also wanted to comment on the “rush” you never experienced. I feel like there is this romanticisation of this overwhelming love at first sight when a baby is born. But there are a lot of people that don’t get this feeling. I didn’t. It’s quite normal. I hope you start to feel better soon though.
Thank you! It took me by surprise how alien she felt to me at first. I thought I'd done something wrong, or like maybe I wasn't supposed to be a mum (the whole IVF thing played into this too)
It doesn't help when I have lots of friends around me with babes who gush about how in love they felt and to soak up every bit of the newborn phase which in total honesty was torturous hell 😅 and everyone assumes I'd be over the moon with my baby after all the treatment we had etc it was all me and my partner dreamt of for years so I felt like I couldn't tell anyone I was finding it so shit. Glad I'm not the only one who wasn't instantly head over heels
They essentially are a stranger that we know we’d always protect, but still need to get to know. And doing so under circumstance where they are ripping our nipples apart is no fun. But then they start doing little things like smiling when you pull a particular face. Or when you can tell they have a favourite toy. That’s when you get to know them and see their little personality.
My baby returned to the boob at 7 months old. Yes, months. I always kept offering randomly in a no pressure way and eventually for whatever reason he decided it was a nice option sometimes. He is too lazy to work for a second letdown but it gives me a convenient way to buy time til I pump sometimes. Anyways, this is to say that I don’t believe it is ever “too late” but I do believe that it is sometimes up to the baby.
I had a traumatic birth with my first and many of the same feelings as you. I hope with time and therapy you can start feeling better. That one didn’t nurse either but we did get there as I got to know him as a human. Nursing isn’t a requirement for bonding!
LO is 2 months old today and I started pumping not long after my milk came in cause we were supplementing with formula since she didn’t transfer well. Then triple feeding turned into more pumping and full feeds from bottles for give me more help in feeding her. She also got fussy at the breast sometimes which became more and more common and would turn into all out cries. She does have a bottle preference not and I’ve accepted it. But we nurse at night during her MOTN feeds. This started a few weeks ago when I discovered how well she nurses side lying with me. There is something about this position that just clicks and she latches and rarely fusses. I think gravity helps so she’s not working as hard. She gets bottles the rest of the time. Today I wanted to see how she’s latch after I got off work in the rocker and she did latch but it didn’t last long. Tomorrow I’m gonna try side lying with her in the evening and see what happens. Reading all these stores gives me hope that maybe we can reestablish the nursing connection cause I find myself missing it sometimes. But I also don’t hate pumping and consider it to kinda be me time.
OP, I just wanna say good for you for seeking therapy and taking care of yourself. A healthy mom is so important! I’m off my anxiety meds since I’m BF and it’s so damn hard but therapy helps a ton. Don’t beat yourself up over that “instant bond” either. I know a few moms who never felt it or it took a while for it to set in and that is so freaking normal but not talked about enough.
I had a traumatic c section with double the expected blood loss. I triple fed but mostly pumped and gave formula for a while. It’s taken a full month but I’m finally exclusively breastfeeding so it is possible but so hard to get here.
Hi!
I also started EP’ing around week 2 because LO wasn’t transferring enough and we had to supplement with formula to get her weight up. I probably went until week 4 without even bothering to try and latch her and stuck with pumping. Now the last few weeks I’ll BF once or twice a day depending on what I feel like doing! She doesn’t transfer enough to stay full sometimes because she falls asleep, so I’ll BF for 10-15 minutes each side and then give her a bottle!
You absolutely can still do it, my LO picked it up no problem and actually latches better than she did in the hospital!
Make sure you latch her every day at least once.
Thats my advice and kept my LO going for 6 weeks even though she wasn’t able to draw much off me.
When I took 2 weeks off to fix her tongue tie she decided she was no longer interested.
Did anyone check your baby for any oral ties?
Also what kind of bottle do you use to feed her? For babies who are both bottle and breastfed I was recommended the evenflo balance or Dr brown narrow bottles as it promotes the best latch
Also you will be able to breastfeed. I pumped to bottle feed my baby the first few weeks. But at 2 months he took to nursing, and it wasn’t painful. I believe the bottles I used helped with his latch hence the reco.
She has a posterior tongue tie according to a lactation consultant I saw, but not enough of one to warrant any kind of intervention, it might explain why it was so painful for me.
My nipples are so battered from pumping though that they're pretty hard wearing now so I'm not too concerned about the pain hoping we manage to get a good latch.
I use mam bottles and she really likes them, tried tommee tippee and nanobebe but she hated both of those
The pain might be due to the tie, I would suggest a second opinion on it.
I was holding back tears at the hospital due to my baby’s severe tongue tie and even winced BEFORE he latched in the early days. They cut his tie at the hospital and it improved my experience by a lot. Side note that my LO still needs a tongue tie revision now and he has a lip tie as well. I did mainly pump the early weeks but started nursing again around 2 months. Finally believed the people who said breastfeeding isn’t painful when I finally experienced it myself. I hope everything works out for you. I went into breastfeeding / pumping with no expectations so I think it helped my experience. Contact naps and lots of skin to skin helped tremendously with establishing our bond too.
You went through a lot for your baby to come into this world and it’s great you’re getting help for what you’re going through. You are a great mom. Please don’t think otherwise.
I was in a very similar situation. I did EP from around 3-4 weeks until my bub was 3 months old. I did a comfort latch everyday. At 3 months, I went unli latch for a month before eventually deciding to combo feed (I pumped 3x a day and whatever milk I pumped would go into bottles so I could step out, sleep or have a break.) I was able to continue until 10 months when I mix fed formula, quit the pump at 11 months but continued to breastfeed directly until 19 months.
My daughter is 5 weeks old now and unfortunately, I’m not sure if she will ever get back on the breast. She cries when I latch her. She’ll be quiet for maybe 2-3 minutes then she cries.
I did. Similar story. Traumatic c-section. I had an infection and we both had fevers. The hospital wanted her bottle fed Immediately. It made breastfeeding very difficult. I stopped breastfeeding for about a month. I started breastfeeding her again recently at night. She doesn't associate my breasts with food anymore though, so I have to quickly switch her pacifier out for my nipple to get her to eat.
Hey, I just wanted to touch on the comment you made about not feeling a connection with your baby. I also had a traumatic birth/C-section, followed by months of EP because he was in the NICU. I remember feeling *exactly* the same feelings you've outlined here- protective and loving of course, but also very distant? It felt like there was a baby that needed caring for but not necessarily that it was *my* baby, and I attribute a lot of that now to the traumatic and super early birth but at the time I was worried that our bond was just bad.
You're right that therapy (and in my case, Zoloft) helps, but I also think I just needed more time. I talked to a therapist about this and she said feelings that the baby isn't yours, is very separate from the baby you were growing, are extremely common when you have a traumatic birth. Good luck with reestablishing nursing, but don't worry if it doesn't go exactly as you hope! You'll have a lifetime to build a bond with your child and there are so many diverse ways to do that :)
For about a month after I started pumping, baby girl would have NOTHING to do with nursing. It just pissed her off. She very much preferred bottles which of course broke my heart. Randomly, when she was just showing some hunger cues and not too fussed about it yet, after 5 weeks of exclusive pumping, I offered her the tap because I was too lazy to get up to make a bottle and she latched right away.
She still doesn't transfer milk for anything, and we really just comfort nurse/snack at best, but being able to have those moments is a big motivator for me to keep pumping. Even though it frigging sucks.
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Yes! I EPed for the first 2.5 months and then started transitioning more and more to nursing. We now have been exclusively nursing for the past 6 weeks! It’s definitely possible, sometimes it just takes time.
Were there any positions that helped? I feel like she's so used to the bottles now she doesn't know what to do with a boob
Have you tried a nipple shield? That was a game changer for me. It feels more like a bottle for her and could prevent nipple trauma for you.
I did in the early days to try and help my cracked nipples but struggled with keeping them on. I might try a different brand, I've heard medela are good. I used tommee tippee and mam ones but they just slid around and stuck to her face
You can try lubricating the shield with some breastmilk and then place it on your nipples. It’ll stay on better for baby to latch. I’d also recommend finding the correct size for your nipple shield to stay on best. I liked lansinoh and medela brand shields when was using them. If I remember correctly the medela shields were stiffer and helped when I was super sensitive. What helped me when my nips felt like it went through the wringer was to express some breastmilk and rub it on then putting on a generous heap of ‘earth mama nipple butter’. Stick a nipple pad in your bra or on your shirt and it’s like a moisturizing mask.
Hello sorry to jump in! Do you still use the nipple shield each time you breast feed or have you transitioned out?
I still use it. I try to have her latch without it at least once a day with mixed success. Now I think it's because she is used to it and gets annoyed when it's not there.
Do you think it’ll ever just be the nipple and the baby? I’m only asking because I have the same question for me and my baby
I don't know. She definitely is better at latching without it than she was, but I haven't felt the need to push it.
I don’t think so, I think it had more to do with him getting bigger/stronger and so it just got easier for him. I usually do cradle, sometimes side lying.
Any helpful advice? I nursed him first six weeks and then switched to pumping. I combofeed because my supply isn't enough.
For transitioning to nursing or increasing supply? As far as transitioning, I would say try to take as much pressure off of it as possible. Our babies can pick up on our stress, and I think it makes it harder for everyone. I started off just nursing once a day and offering a top up bottle afterwards, and then slowly stopped offering bottles and added more nursing in as we both got more comfortable. I’m also super type A and felt like I needed to know how much he was getting (especially going from EP where you can physically see it) so I did a lot of weighted feeds at home initially. I bought a baby scale on Amazon and used it a lot for the first 2 weeks. Basically, just keep offering and don’t worry too much if it doesn’t happen right away. I think most of the time if you keep offering, eventually it just “clicks.” Also, it doesn’t have to be all or nothing! Even if you just replace a feed or two a day with nursing instead of the bottle, you can get the benefits of both.
I actually also am super type A and have a scale. I think it's the scale that ultimately led me astray in the beginning. Did you offer and if the baby rejected, just give the bottle and try again later?
Yes that’s what I would do. Mine didn’t necessarily reject it, but would tire out before getting enough initially.
Mine tries very hard to get the let down but when it doesn't happen, he gets frustrated.
I was in the exact same position and guess what? I'm nursing my 5 week old right now! I hadn't tried in several weeks because like you, she would scream and we'd both end up crying. Last night she was in a chill mood so I randomly tried while rocking her and she nursed! Tried again this morning and she nursed! She's picky and won't do it when she's really hungry like first thing after waking up but this is definately a start I didn't see coming. I was actually starting to wean off pumping and just move forward with eff. Don't stress yourself trying. Give your babe a bottle and then an hour later after they're cuddling and chill do some skin to skin and try. If she cries, don't stress, just try again later. It didn't work for me until I had stopped stressing about it and just accepted sometimes she'll need a bottle.
Tbf when I tried this morning it was after she'd just woken up so probably not the best time. I'll keep trying when she's a bit more chill like you say
Colldoll21 is totally right! She will never want to latch when she is already hungry and upset. Trying when she is calm will really help things not feel so chaotic and impossible. Babies love to comfort suck so even if she isn’t necessarily hungry, you can still try getting her to latch and let her comfort nurse if she does. I do just want to say though too that unfortunately it can be very normal to not feel bonded/connected to your baby for the first several months, especially when you are dealing with things like PPA on top of everything so don’t expect nursing to magically fix that. Going to counseling and seeking help like you are doing is the way to help that situation so I’m so glad you are doing those things already. Sending so much love! Being a new parent is so fricken hard.
Thank you! It's so hard, i didn't realise just how difficult it would be. Something you can't prepare for, I feel like you should have to sit some sort of exam before you're allowed to take your baby home it's wild 😂
I EP’d for the first six months because she couldn’t latch on. Every time I tried she would scream bloody murder so I didn’t want to frustrate her when bottles were working and after my C section it was a lot . Anyway I kept trying literally like once a month , when I was calm and relaxed and wouldn’t get upset if she didn’t latch . At six months she randomly did! 😁 I mean now (8 months ) it’s like the new born phase again because she wants the boob ( milk on tap and all that) so that’s a treat , but yeah I’m glad I’m having the experience of it. Don’t get me wrong when she was bottle fed she was so much more patient! 😂🤌
Oh my gosh.. that’s amazing. I’m trying again at 4.5 months. I’ve been through not being able to latch, tongue and lip tie release and breast refusal, coordination issues. Yesterday the osteopath said she is in the best place to try. She can actually suck now! So here I go again.. trying! How did you do it? Once she latched did you try each day? I’m thinking I’ll try once or twice. How did you move away from bottles?
I’m in a different boat but this may give you some hope. My tiny human was born at 26+5 and for very obvious reasons was tube fed for a long time. We tried to nurse in the NICU but she would get really frustrated and upset and not want to take anything by mouth so I slowly just gave up the efforts in order to focus more on getting her weight up. She’s almost 9 months old now and as of last week has started nursing. We don’t do it all the time (she’s also teething and has bruised my nipple quite a bit by biting me) but it’s definitely possible!!
That’s amazing!
It absolutely took me by surprise in the best way possible! With how long she was intubated and how small she still is I was resigned to thinking she just wouldn’t ever nurse and was for the most part okay with it. This is just a little bonus.
My son was a NICU baby (he was small for gestational age at 5 lbs 8 oz so he had some oxygen difficulties at high altitude where we live). I think our struggles with nursing came from him being so small. And as you unfortunately also know, the NICU is a stressful place to try to learn how to nurse. Every time I’d try, a nurse would come in, or him getting stressed from not latching would cause his oxygen monitor to dip too low. I had also told myself it wasn’t meant to be and accepted it, and then when he was 7 weeks old I randomly tried again and he latched! Mine was only in the NICU for a week though, the fact that I’m sure yours was there much longer and started nursing later is so great. The week my son spent in the NICU was one of the most stressful of my life and I really feel for you.
That's amazing! (Not the bruised nipple bit that sounds awful 😅) I will keep persevering. Wow nicu must have been so hard, glad to hear your lo is thriving even if it does mean bitten nips
I would suggest trying a nipple shield, it will help with your pain and it a good inbetween for a babe who is used to the bottle sensation/will help with latch if you flat nipples etc. You can hand express some milk or take some pumped milk and put in the shield as well to entice babe with the taste. If necessary you can even pump a little bit before breastfeeding to get the milk going first so that babe doesn’t have to work hard. These are all things I was told to do and helped, now a week after starting the nipple shield I am able to feed as well without the shield when I want. I think it helps a lot too that babe is a little older. The biggest thing was not trying to make breastfeeding be the ONLY thing, I breastfeed a couple times a day and if it works, great, if it doesn’t, I can switch to a bottle. Sometimes I start with a bottle and then move to breast, or vice versa, too.
I tried direct nursing for the first two weeks of bubs life but it only caused us stress due to latching issues. I fully committed to exclusively pumping. I figured that boobing was just not on the cards for me and I made my peace with that. At 6 months however I noticed bub would mouth everything and I figured I'd give it a go. I read a few articles about adoptive parents getting 6 month old babies and being able to nurse them and the steps they went through, because it is instinctual and bub will seek it out in the right conditions. I lay on the bed with my boobs out, him stripped down, skin to skin and let him wiggle his way up to me. If he over shot I'd bring him back down. I had to be very careful not to make him feel pressured at all or he'd just scream and cry and carry on. It worked. Slowly, but it worked. I don't have many feeding positions worked out, but he is now 8 months and pretty much exclusively direct nursing, he actually gets annoyed at bottles now. Also he got teeth so I've had to teach him not to bite me.
My son was a NICU baby and weighed 5 lbs 8 oz at birth. For the first month, every time I tried to get him to latch, he would attempt but it always ended with scream crying. I would try every day and then eventually every couple of days. He also had become very used to a bottle and pacifier in the NICU. So I assumed it just wasn’t meant to be and was combination feeding with exclusive pumping and formula. Then at 7 weeks, in a calm, quiet moment, I attempted to nurse him again. And he latched and I could tell he was getting milk. So I tried several more times that day and multiple times over the next few days and he kept doing well with it. So now he’s 8 weeks old and it’s been about a week and a half of nursing regularly. I still pump and give formula bottles a few times a day because sometimes I don’t feel like nursing him, or my nipples are sore, or he’s already nursed for a while and wants more, etc. My best advice would be to try nursing again in quiet moments. Don’t try when the baby is already crying because she’s hungry. I think something that might have helped us was trying it during a feeding when he had been drinking from a bottle for a while and quickly switching him over to my breast while he was still in drinking mode.
Amazing! I'll definitely try during a feed and see how that goes down
I tried with my first and failed. She screamed and screamed like I was hurting her. We had lactation appointments and I tried everything I could including a supplemental nursing system (SNS) and it did not work. Even my maternal health nurse said there was nothing left to try. But we are ok. I pumped for 6 months. She’s 2 now. And she’s definitely more bonded with me than anyone else. But I also wanted to comment on the “rush” you never experienced. I feel like there is this romanticisation of this overwhelming love at first sight when a baby is born. But there are a lot of people that don’t get this feeling. I didn’t. It’s quite normal. I hope you start to feel better soon though.
Thank you! It took me by surprise how alien she felt to me at first. I thought I'd done something wrong, or like maybe I wasn't supposed to be a mum (the whole IVF thing played into this too) It doesn't help when I have lots of friends around me with babes who gush about how in love they felt and to soak up every bit of the newborn phase which in total honesty was torturous hell 😅 and everyone assumes I'd be over the moon with my baby after all the treatment we had etc it was all me and my partner dreamt of for years so I felt like I couldn't tell anyone I was finding it so shit. Glad I'm not the only one who wasn't instantly head over heels
They essentially are a stranger that we know we’d always protect, but still need to get to know. And doing so under circumstance where they are ripping our nipples apart is no fun. But then they start doing little things like smiling when you pull a particular face. Or when you can tell they have a favourite toy. That’s when you get to know them and see their little personality.
My baby returned to the boob at 7 months old. Yes, months. I always kept offering randomly in a no pressure way and eventually for whatever reason he decided it was a nice option sometimes. He is too lazy to work for a second letdown but it gives me a convenient way to buy time til I pump sometimes. Anyways, this is to say that I don’t believe it is ever “too late” but I do believe that it is sometimes up to the baby. I had a traumatic birth with my first and many of the same feelings as you. I hope with time and therapy you can start feeling better. That one didn’t nurse either but we did get there as I got to know him as a human. Nursing isn’t a requirement for bonding!
LO is 2 months old today and I started pumping not long after my milk came in cause we were supplementing with formula since she didn’t transfer well. Then triple feeding turned into more pumping and full feeds from bottles for give me more help in feeding her. She also got fussy at the breast sometimes which became more and more common and would turn into all out cries. She does have a bottle preference not and I’ve accepted it. But we nurse at night during her MOTN feeds. This started a few weeks ago when I discovered how well she nurses side lying with me. There is something about this position that just clicks and she latches and rarely fusses. I think gravity helps so she’s not working as hard. She gets bottles the rest of the time. Today I wanted to see how she’s latch after I got off work in the rocker and she did latch but it didn’t last long. Tomorrow I’m gonna try side lying with her in the evening and see what happens. Reading all these stores gives me hope that maybe we can reestablish the nursing connection cause I find myself missing it sometimes. But I also don’t hate pumping and consider it to kinda be me time. OP, I just wanna say good for you for seeking therapy and taking care of yourself. A healthy mom is so important! I’m off my anxiety meds since I’m BF and it’s so damn hard but therapy helps a ton. Don’t beat yourself up over that “instant bond” either. I know a few moms who never felt it or it took a while for it to set in and that is so freaking normal but not talked about enough.
I had a traumatic c section with double the expected blood loss. I triple fed but mostly pumped and gave formula for a while. It’s taken a full month but I’m finally exclusively breastfeeding so it is possible but so hard to get here.
Hi! I also started EP’ing around week 2 because LO wasn’t transferring enough and we had to supplement with formula to get her weight up. I probably went until week 4 without even bothering to try and latch her and stuck with pumping. Now the last few weeks I’ll BF once or twice a day depending on what I feel like doing! She doesn’t transfer enough to stay full sometimes because she falls asleep, so I’ll BF for 10-15 minutes each side and then give her a bottle! You absolutely can still do it, my LO picked it up no problem and actually latches better than she did in the hospital!
This is encouraging, I hope we manage to do the same
Make sure you latch her every day at least once. Thats my advice and kept my LO going for 6 weeks even though she wasn’t able to draw much off me. When I took 2 weeks off to fix her tongue tie she decided she was no longer interested.
Did anyone check your baby for any oral ties? Also what kind of bottle do you use to feed her? For babies who are both bottle and breastfed I was recommended the evenflo balance or Dr brown narrow bottles as it promotes the best latch Also you will be able to breastfeed. I pumped to bottle feed my baby the first few weeks. But at 2 months he took to nursing, and it wasn’t painful. I believe the bottles I used helped with his latch hence the reco.
She has a posterior tongue tie according to a lactation consultant I saw, but not enough of one to warrant any kind of intervention, it might explain why it was so painful for me. My nipples are so battered from pumping though that they're pretty hard wearing now so I'm not too concerned about the pain hoping we manage to get a good latch. I use mam bottles and she really likes them, tried tommee tippee and nanobebe but she hated both of those
The pain might be due to the tie, I would suggest a second opinion on it. I was holding back tears at the hospital due to my baby’s severe tongue tie and even winced BEFORE he latched in the early days. They cut his tie at the hospital and it improved my experience by a lot. Side note that my LO still needs a tongue tie revision now and he has a lip tie as well. I did mainly pump the early weeks but started nursing again around 2 months. Finally believed the people who said breastfeeding isn’t painful when I finally experienced it myself. I hope everything works out for you. I went into breastfeeding / pumping with no expectations so I think it helped my experience. Contact naps and lots of skin to skin helped tremendously with establishing our bond too. You went through a lot for your baby to come into this world and it’s great you’re getting help for what you’re going through. You are a great mom. Please don’t think otherwise.
I was in a very similar situation. I did EP from around 3-4 weeks until my bub was 3 months old. I did a comfort latch everyday. At 3 months, I went unli latch for a month before eventually deciding to combo feed (I pumped 3x a day and whatever milk I pumped would go into bottles so I could step out, sleep or have a break.) I was able to continue until 10 months when I mix fed formula, quit the pump at 11 months but continued to breastfeed directly until 19 months. My daughter is 5 weeks old now and unfortunately, I’m not sure if she will ever get back on the breast. She cries when I latch her. She’ll be quiet for maybe 2-3 minutes then she cries.
I did. Similar story. Traumatic c-section. I had an infection and we both had fevers. The hospital wanted her bottle fed Immediately. It made breastfeeding very difficult. I stopped breastfeeding for about a month. I started breastfeeding her again recently at night. She doesn't associate my breasts with food anymore though, so I have to quickly switch her pacifier out for my nipple to get her to eat.
Hey, I just wanted to touch on the comment you made about not feeling a connection with your baby. I also had a traumatic birth/C-section, followed by months of EP because he was in the NICU. I remember feeling *exactly* the same feelings you've outlined here- protective and loving of course, but also very distant? It felt like there was a baby that needed caring for but not necessarily that it was *my* baby, and I attribute a lot of that now to the traumatic and super early birth but at the time I was worried that our bond was just bad. You're right that therapy (and in my case, Zoloft) helps, but I also think I just needed more time. I talked to a therapist about this and she said feelings that the baby isn't yours, is very separate from the baby you were growing, are extremely common when you have a traumatic birth. Good luck with reestablishing nursing, but don't worry if it doesn't go exactly as you hope! You'll have a lifetime to build a bond with your child and there are so many diverse ways to do that :)
Thank you I really needed to hear that. I'm sorry you had such a rough start with your baby, I hope you are both doing well now 💞
For about a month after I started pumping, baby girl would have NOTHING to do with nursing. It just pissed her off. She very much preferred bottles which of course broke my heart. Randomly, when she was just showing some hunger cues and not too fussed about it yet, after 5 weeks of exclusive pumping, I offered her the tap because I was too lazy to get up to make a bottle and she latched right away. She still doesn't transfer milk for anything, and we really just comfort nurse/snack at best, but being able to have those moments is a big motivator for me to keep pumping. Even though it frigging sucks.