New mum....failing :(

Quillion

Hi hope you are feeling a little better now. When my son was born in April 2005 he was 5 weeks early and a lazy feeder. I expressed and got almost nothing. My baby at 3 days went into an incubater for jaundice and was given breast milk from me and then topped up with formula so he did not dehydrate. The hospital were good but after a week with hardly any sleep i lost my temper and said that baby would feed from me first and be topped up on formula milk.
I came home from hospital continued to express and feed my baby. I ended up taking domperidone to increase the milk supply but continued to top up sometimes just an ounce but at least i knew he was feeding and getting the milk he needed.
I fed my son this way for 21 months. I am pregnant now and am hoping to breast feed but we will see what happens this time. If i have to do half and half again then so be it as long as the baby is growing and healthy that is all that matters.

Have a good sleep chick and please don't beat yourself up over this. Enjoy your baby xxxx

gardenia101

I hope you have managed to get some sleep hun. That is the most important thing for a mum with such a young baby IMHO.

When I had my fisrt 12 years ago (where did that go?) I felt an utter failure as I'd had to have an emergency C-section with a GA. I hadn't even managed to have my baby "properly" so what kind of a mother was I going to be? As I'd had a GA my milk didn't come in properly (so I was told) . But the hospital I was in didn't keep any formula as they "weren't allowed to promote it" so I had no choice but to keep trying to BF a hungry baby who was getting more & more distressed as she got hungrier.

The next day my OH went out & bought a carton of formula & bottle &, after much disapproval from the ward staff, he tried to feed our baby. She wasn't having any of it - still the most stubborn creature I have ever met . So I soldiered on & the ward staff ignored my tears of pain & frustration.

One of the big secrets of BF is that it can be bl**dy painful when they latch on. Even though my baby was latching on correctly, the initial pain was so severe I used to dread feeding & I'd sob for the first few minutes of every single feed. This went on for the first two months - for every feed. I would have given anything for someone to take her away & give her a bottle, but despite several people trying many times, she just wouldn't. We had every type of bottle & teat on the market including some sent from rellies inthe US - nothing worked.

It put a huge strain on our marriage - I was so tired as no-one else could do the night time feeds & I don't think I slept for more than 4 hours at a stretch for almost 9 months. I did go mad - I can see that now, but couldn't then. I used to fantasize about sleep, I'd go to a local church & nap during the service as I felt safe enough there to "leave" her unattended for a few minutes. My OH (who slept like the dead each & every night of all this) couldn't understand why I was so tired, which didn't help.

It took me til she was 3 months for the pain to stop & for me to enjoy the convenience of BF (I'm so slack I'm sure I'd never have got around to doing bottles properly & at least you can't lose your own breasts :rotfl:). But it was a problem when I needed (not wanted but needed) to return to work. Little s*d wouldn't take a bottle from any of the 7 experienced nursery staff, so I used to spend my lunch eating a sarnie in a cab, then being plugged in, then cabbing back to work - cost a fortune on top of nursery!

Same for my son (another CS) & although it was "easier" in that my milk came in straight away (& I was a bit older & wiser) it was still painful for the first few months....DD used to want to feed her little brother & it would have been lovely if she could (& would have prevented many tears as she couldn't - hers & mine).

There are big advantages to bottle feeding - nutritionally complete, & someone else can feed the baby. Don't underestimate this - my OH used to say I was leaving him out - how I'd have loved for him to be able to feed her (& he did try). Your baby will already have got a lot of the antibodies from your milk/colostrum as some of it will have gone in & they only need a little. My DD has asthma & the most horrendous eczema (now controlled) even though she was too stubborn to have anything other than BF for her first 6 months. So it doesn't always work out like the books say it will...

No leaking breasts - mine used to fire off with little warning :eek: & I could merrily get through 10 breast pads a day, more on a bad day at work if someone shouted or bought in a crying baby. & it hurts when they go off & there isn't a baby to shove on one. On bad days I could have quite easily grabbed any baby & shoved them on just to ease the pain (never did though).

You won't get asked to leave if you try & BF in public either. I was told I was disgusting, even though I was trying to be discrete & not actually showing anything at the time.

I would have cheerfully swapped to the bottle if I could have & got more sleep. As others have said, a rested mum is so much better for your baby. An exhausted mum isn't great - I wish I could get back the years I spent in a dazed fog.

Enough rambling - I wish you well & sleep when you can. Enjoy these precious days & whatever you do when youre a mum will annoy somebody who will feel the need to comment. You became public property when you got pregnant, remember? :rotfl:

Candy53

You're not a failure. When my first baby was born he wouldn't take to the breast either. There was alot of pressure put on mothers from the nurses in the hospital to breast feed, but when I got home with him he rejected my milk.
I cried alot thinking he was rejecting 'me', and felt a failure as I thought my milk wasn't good enough for him.

After trying yet again, and him crying, I went to buy some baby milk, and he drank nearly a whole bottle! He was then content, and slept solidly for 5 hours.

I realized then that for some reason my milk wasn't right, but it didn't matter anymore. I was so pleased he had drank the baby formula, and was then satisfied. It allowed me to get some sleep too! It was more important to me after that, that he was feeding properly and thriving.

Candy