MSE Pregnancy Club 28

sweetilemon

PS hope you and baby are doing well Kirsty poos

lauradora

No i still here......

Cold is on its way out just all aches and pains now

Looking forward to check up on Tuesday with hospital midwife. Reflexology tomorrow to see if we can get things going a bit :j

sweetilemon

lauradora wrote: »

No i still here......

Cold is on its way out just all aches and pains now

Looking forward to check up on Tuesday with hospital midwife. Reflexology tomorrow to see if we can get things going a bit :j

Glad the cold is going!! Makes things so much easier. I have physio tomorrow and a CTG on Tuesday so a similar week planned. Good luck with the reflexology! Hopefully it'll help with your aches and pains anyway.

lauradora

It definitely has, i feel brill now!! Just appointment tomorrow and i'll be feeling much better:p

kirtsypoos

sweetilemon wrote: »

PS hope you and baby are doing well Kirsty poos

We're ok thanks sweet!

I was planning to breastfeed but baby has a tongue tie and thanks to a few missed referrals it hasn't been sorted yet so he can't latch. I'm current;y pumping like a milking cow and supplementing with formula although hoping once tongue tie is sorted that I can manage to exclusively BF. Fingers crossed anyway - formula is expensive!

Hope everyone is ok xx

sweetilemon

kirtsypoos wrote: »

We're ok thanks sweet!

I was planning to breastfeed but baby has a tongue tie and thanks to a few missed referrals it hasn't been sorted yet so he can't latch. I'm current;y pumping like a milking cow and supplementing with formula although hoping once tongue tie is sorted that I can manage to exclusively BF. Fingers crossed anyway - formula is expensive!

Hope everyone is ok xx

Oh that's super tough, I hope they give you some help to get it sorted soon. BF will hopefully be a little less exhausting than all the sterilising, expressing then feeding!

FreddieFrugal

Hope it all works out Kirstypoos and you're able to feed the way you want. I'm sure you will, hope they get the tongue tie sorted quickly.

Last time we had problems the other way around. Son was latching fine but OH was producing barely any milk. At his five day weigh in he'd lost nearly a fifth of his body weight and he was only small to start with.

Poor thing had actually been starving for days so it's no wonder the nights were so awful and he was wanting to feed constantly!

We had to do formula but OH continued to try to get him to breastfeed first every time and did pumping afterwards. Saw breastfeeding consultant.

None of it really helped, he started to give up on latching after nearly 3 months so she gave up too.

She did start to make more milk after a while but it was never going to catch up with his required intake.


We reckon it was due to retained placenta. That can inhibit milk production due to affecting the pregnancy hormones and tricking the body into thinking you're still carrying.

That didn't clear up (last bits passed through) until after several weeks and that's when she finally managed to pump a few ounces.


It was exhausting, stressful and really upsetting for her. Having to do all the formula stuff - making bottles and sterilising AND breastfeeding AND pumping. They suggested a supplementary feeder as well but that would have required washing and sterilising after every feed!

She felt like she was just feeding and that was it.

The consultant even suggested a drug which can help stimulate milk production - but as a side effect- it was also well known for causing heart problems in the user.

Couldn't believe they'd actually recommend something like that!


Formula is expensive but it's not long that they're having it. DS is really healthy, has no allergies, has never really been ill - only had one bad cold.

There's such a push on breastfeeding - which obviously is important - but it can make it very upsetting when you have no choice but to use formula and yet everything you read trying to find support or advice just makes you feel like a monster for using it!

Especially upsetting when you'd always wanted and intended to breastfeed.

In reality that's all rubbish. There are benefits to breastfeeding but the most important thing is that your baby is being fed.


If we had something like that happen again we'd just switch straight to formula - no stressing, no unnecessary extra work that stops OH from spending proper time with the baby.

kirtsypoos

I totally agree Freddie, I got myself into such a state over the last few days feeling like I'm 'failing' that I know it has been affecting my time with the baby. I'm going to get the tongue tie sorted and give it another week, if we can't do it by then we will just continue with formula - I don't want my memories of the early days to be sobbing while I try and pump every other hour while donut cries in the bouncer because he isn't being held.

We have the breastfeeding support team coming out this afternoon and hopefully his tongue tie appt won't be too far behind.

Hope everyone is ok

SingleSue

It's many years ago now but I still remember the failure I felt when I couldn't breastfeed eldest son. Pre delivery I had expressed an interest in trying to breastfeed but little did I realise that they would hold me to that come what may.

We had tried for days but my son would just scream every time we tried to get him into the position to breastfeed, I was stressed, he was stressed and it was a very unhappy time. The pressure on me to battle on with the feeding was immense but in the end, with me desperate and eldest son losing weight at a rate of knots, I went rogue in the wee hours and 'borrowed' a bottle of formula from the trolley in the ward (it was provided in those days, not sure about now) while no-one was looking and fed him with that....I finally had a happy baby (and a very disapproving midwife team)

It turns out that due to his delivery (failed ventouse and a complicated forceps delivery), that the position for breastfeeding was causing him severe pain, hence the screaming and not feeding.

For my next son, I told them he would be bottle fed (whilst secretly planning to breastfeed) and so he was initially and then once in the privacy of my own home I attempted and succeeded in breast feeding him for 8 months.

For my final son I was wiser and more vocal and said I would attempt breast feeding but it if was clear it was not working then I reserved the right and freedom to switch to the bottle without delay and woe betide anyone who tried to pressure me to do otherwise....he was breast fed from the off until he was 14 months old.

sweetilemon

That sounds incredibly stressful Freddie and also sue! Kirsty I completely agree, best not to miss critical moments down to stress! My son Lucas was born yesterday weighing 8lbs 10oz. He's such a cutie. I too have started breastfeeding, just hope he doesn't lose too much weight.