expressing milk

fsdss

heather38 wrote:

she prob will be ok but husband tends to panic if she starts crying and can't calm her down, bless him. i had planned a long relaxing bubble bath last night fed the baby before i got in 10 min later she started crying and he couldn't get her to stop so i had to get out and calm her down. she had wind and couldn't get it to go down and fill her nappy :rolleyes:
i don't want to leave the hairdressers with half cut hair!!:eek:

dont leave the hairdressers under any circumstances - let your hubby get on with it. baby's are particulary sensitive to mother being around when they are being breastfed even if you're in another room in the house. get dad to wind after feed whilst you're there - that'll give him experience.

DebtphobicDeirdre

You could just leave some cooled boiled water if you are worried or could do without the faff. Most BF babies would rather wait for you to come home- but don't rush, enjoy your time away and refuse to feel guilty. When I did MW training some years ago there had just been an earthquake in Georgia and they were still pulling live babies out of the rubble after about 10 days without milk. It was a lesson to us all to not panic about babies who were on the wards, not feeding after 4 hours. PS am not a MW any more so this is not advice.

rachnbri

Hope your trip to the hairdresser went well. For future reference though, depending on age of baby and how long you wasnt to continue breastfeeding, breastfed babies given an occasional bottle can suffer from nipple confusion, which can be detrimental to future breastfeeding. It might be worth giving expressed milk in a feeder cup or, if baby is really tiny, off a teaspoon.

veruccasalt

rachnbri wrote:

Hope your trip to the hairdresser went well. For future reference though, depending on age of baby and how long you wasnt to continue breastfeeding, breastfed babies given an occasional bottle can suffer from nipple confusion, which can be detrimental to future breastfeeding. It might be worth giving expressed milk in a feeder cup or, if baby is really tiny, off a teaspoon.

I bf my two and was tortured by this phrase 'nipple confusion' I wanted to give my first a dummy but was told this may cause nipple confusion, which was the most unhelpful comment any one could possibly have given me.
Basically, she just wanted to suck, and as soon as she found her fingers, thats what she did. And she breastfed completely happily for a year.

I really cant see how one feed from a bottle (assuming she will take it in the first place) is going to override weeks of being close to mum and the smells and memories of breastfeeding.

rachnbri

Sorry you had a bad experience - it sounds like no body took the time to advise you properly about this. For some (by no means all babies) switching from breast to bottle can be exceedingly difficult. This is not just because of the difference in texture, taste and shape between the nipple and a bottle teat, but also because extracting milk from the breast is a very different manouvre from extracting milk from a bottle. A baby has to actively work to get milk from the breast (which is good for jaw development etc) whereas from a bottle it tends to just flow. If a breastfed baby has a few bottle feeds it can make baby become lazy at the breast causing fussyness on baby's part and potentially discomfort for mum. This is why breastfeeding mums are advised to give expressed milk from a feeder cup or spoon.
Also it is a natural instinct for a baby to suck - this is to stimulate milk production. A breastfed baby will quite happily suck on the breast for comfort as well as nutrition.

Horasio

When I expressed, I did it into a sterilised bottled with a downturned sterilised teat and screwed the holder onto it and the little disc upright. You could always pour some boiling water over the unwashed teat to be sure and let it cool before feeding your baby if you are in any doubt. Blimey, that takes me back - I last expressed in 1988:)

Horasio

rachnbri wrote:

Hope your trip to the hairdresser went well. For future reference though, depending on age of baby and how long you wasnt to continue breastfeeding, breastfed babies given an occasional bottle can suffer from nipple confusion, which can be detrimental to future breastfeeding. It might be worth giving expressed milk in a feeder cup or, if baby is really tiny, off a teaspoon.

Mine sucked anything going - he wasn't fussy, so long as he got his food:D

heather38

thanks for all the advice. the bottles i have are those tommy teepee closer to nature that are breast shaped. not tried her on them yet but think she will be ok on them as she sucks her thumb (she is 6 weeks old) and has done since she was 24 minutes old!!

veruccasalt

heather38 wrote:

thanks for all the advice. the bottles i have are those tommy teepee closer to nature that are breast shaped. not tried her on them yet but think she will be ok on them as she sucks her thumb (she is 6 weeks old) and has done since she was 24 minutes old!!

My daughter was born with a slight weal on her little finger which, I was informed by the midwife) was were she sucked it in the womb!!

DebtphobicDeirdre

It is interesting about the nipple confusion tat Rachnbri describes. Breastfeeding advice can be difficult due to poor or absent research. Thi is changing but I'd love to hear about any good studies regarding nipple confusion as it is a difficult area to advise on. Most babies I saw in my MW days refused bottles if they were breastfeeding well, as did my own DD who took up a dummy aged 2 when she started a Day Nursery where lots of the other tots had them.