Girls I'm this close to giving up My baby is 8 weeks old now and I'm combination feeding... well I say combination feeding but it's mostly formula with the odd bit of breastmilk because in the first 3 weeks he wasn't nursing effectively, lost weight and my milk supply took a nosedive. I've only recently discovered that the reason for this is likely his tongue tie. We had it divided on Saturday but no improvement in the feeding yet... I guess it's quite late for a frenulotomy and he has to completely relearn how to use his tongue

We're taking him for an osteopathic assessment tomorrow but I could use some reassurance!

Has anyone been in this situation and had a happy ending?

I'm grieving my loss of a breastfeeding relationship so much I try to breastfeed him still and just follow a bf with a bottle of formula but it's so frustrating to see him fall asleep 2 mins into a feed or tug and tug at my nipples in frustration because he can't get the milk out.

Just need to hear from people with similar stories I suppose.

Anyone??

MY LO had a tongue tie but had it corrected at 3 wks.
When you breastfeed can you use a feeding tube? I would suggest giving him side R then side L and if he still needs more then go back to side R and use a feeding tube. Then he is breastfeeding as much as possible which will build up your supply and by getting food thru the tube on the third time he gets that extra which will encourage him to BF because he is getting more.
And when he is done eating then pump to up your supply. Then you can use what you are pumping for supplementing instead of formula
Eat oatmeal and drink lots of water
There are some exercises I believe that you can do with your LO to help him learn to use his tongue properly

Slowly rotate fingers around the outside of the lips to entice
your child to suck on your finger and help create a new
sucking pattern. Pressure during sucking should be on your
finger nail post surgery , not only on your knuckle.

Also if you can go to a La Leche league they are a great help with BF.

Thank you for the advice! :]

I have really been considering trying a feeding tube. Mainly because I feel like the bottles are becoming a real enemy to breastfeeding because my baby gets so irritated with my boobs now for not producing a constant stream of milk I wish someone had suggested feeding tubes in the beginning but I at the time I didn't even know there were other options aside from bottles and my HV said to give him a bottle of formula after a feed so I did. Gahh.

How do you clean a feeding tube?? And do you just syringe milk into it?

Oh well. I can't help thinking if my supply were good I wouldn't have such trouble keeping his attention on the breast but he really gets fussy most feeds unless he's sleepy (and then he just falls asleep)... he tugs and squirms and yells at me and hits me with his fists. He pops on and off waiting for milk that never comes because I need him to keep sucking to trigger the next let down and he won't. It really makes me want to cry sometimes when I bf him

My supply is pretty low and I'm taking fenugreek, pumping and eating porridge every day to try to increase it. I get frustrated though that I can't always pump as much as I want to because he won't settle and needs rocking to sleep and the next thing I know an hour has passed and I've missed a pumping session! I'm doing my best though. I've gone from pumping only 1 oz total per session to 2-3 oz total so it's better but still pretty low...

His latch is still terrible post-frenulotomy. I've been trying to get him to suck on my finger as per that exercise you mentioned to retrain him but most of the time he won't have it! Argh. Not sure what to do about that.

I hope the osteopathy will help. If it doesn't, I think I'll have a really good go at increasing my supply so I can exclusively express (maybe try to get my GP to prescribe domperidone I think it's called?) and if that fails then I think I'll have to give this up. I've been trying soooooo hard and it's very draining.

I couldn't just read and run here. I'm not sure if my experience helps in any way at all, but it might help??

My eldest DS is now 2. I exclusively bf until he was 17 weeks, when I started weaning him (very slowly) because he was just feeding ALL the time. Even after starting weaning he continued the very frequent feeds so at 5 months I introduced a bottle of formula a day. I just couldn't go on like that. After a month this went up to 2 bottles, then from 7-9 months we just did night feeds and my milk slowly dried up, so we stopped bfing completely at 9 months. Literally just after I took ds to the HV clinic for a weigh in, and a fantastic HV there pointed out his tongue tie.....

What??!!!! No-one (midwives/hv's/docs) had spotted this before! I could have cried; in fact when I got home I did! His weight gain hadn't been too bad at all and I felt his latch was ok, so how did I manage to feed him for so long with no diagnosis of TT? Even now I really don't know; maybe it's why he was feeding so frequently, maybe it's why my milk gradually dried up (I know that there are plenty of women who manage fine with supply on one feed per day).

The odd thing is my youngest DS , now 5 months, has only the absolute mildest case of TT, the doc confirmed not enough to interfere with feeding, yet after a good start his weight dropped through the centiles and overall, generally feeding has not gone as well in comparison to my first DS. In fairness there have been other issues like quite a bit of illness this time round, but I think what I'm trying to say is that even without TT, some babies just don't do as well as others. Not s.ure if this makes any sense, or helps, but...

It sounds to me that you are doing everything possible to make breastfeeding a success but my advice for what it's worth, is to make sure your lo is getting enough nourishment... whether from breast, formula, both or some expressed milk. I totally understand the guilt... giving that first bottle of formula to my eldest was tough. He's fine now though!! Good luck hunni xxx

My eldest had and still does have quite a severe tongue tie and despite him having massive feeding problems, no-one ever noticed. He had to be readmitted to hospital at a week old and they pretty much made the decision to switch him to formula, they didn't have open visiting hours for parents in those days so getting in to express milk around thr clock was pretty impossible and they wouldn't let me feed directly as it would interfere with his treatment. He also had a severe lip tie. I did manage to get back to almost EBF as soon as we got home but his weight gain in the first year was never great even on formula (at 7 months he just refused to feed from me anymore). It is only because my youngest had the same TT issue that we realised the problem my eldest had, only one community midwife spotted the issue, a hospital midwife when he was born plus two paediatricians who did the checks after birth never spotted it, thankfully for him though it looked bad it has never really caused issues feeding. They don't really snip TTs in this area and even referring to other areas where they do is rarely agreed to so he never had it snipped, thankfully it has stretched by itself and while his weight gain hasn't been huge ever, it has been pretty decent and he has grown more in height and head circumference than average, he is much taller than any of my other boys at this age. Good luck and if you aren't able to get back to EBF please do not beat yourself up about this, you have still given your baby a great start and what has happened is not your fault xx

hi there i feel your pain
my LO was TT and had it divided at 4 weeks. before that BF was extremely painful, he'd get very frustrated and scream at the breast, it was horrible, i'd cry while feeding him, it was getting me soooo down. i thought after the division things would get better almost immediately, but it took a while to see an improvement, and even then his latch was still not 100% pain-free, but was definitely bearable. then, when i started to feel more confident, i had to have a biopsy from my left breast which affected my supply quite badly, and had an impact on LO's weight gain too
had a consultation with a LC who suggested to have a baby-moon, ie to spend 2-3 days doing nothing but BFing to try to boost my supply. she suggested lots of skin-to-skin, laying in bed BFing, having a bath together, etc etc and it did help as my supply got back to normal after a couple of days! maybe you can try something similar using a lactation aid (the tube) if your LO still finds BF stressful.
She showed me the assymetric latch - have you tried it? it works much better for us. Look up 'exaggerated or flippe latch' too.
Also, are you taking fenugreek on its own? it seems that if you take it in combination with blessed thistle it has more effect. I am also pumping after every feeds to make sure my breasts are properly drained.
Oh and she also told us that LO has a high palate (a developmental consequence of the TT) which also affects his latch - do you know if your LO has it too?
We too looked into osteopathy and had our first appointment today. she reckons she can help relax his jaw and make his tongue more flexible. said there was quite a bit of compression in his skull due to the birth. was your birth wthout complications? i had to be induced at 42weeks, and then had a forceps delivery, so quite a bit traumatic for LO. it seems this can affect their sucking reflex among other things.
i'm really hopeful the treatment will help. it's been good so far as LO slept much better this afternoon.
hope it works for you too!!

OP my sons tongue tie was divided at 6 weeks, it was 10 or 11 weeks before our tongue tie symptoms improved (the pain was the worst). I posted MANY threads on here saying how awful the feeding was and how I wanted to quit. Once the tongue tie was snipped I was lead to believe improvements would be quick but it was pretty slow progress really- were still bfing at 6 months and it's brilliant, I loved it on those cold mornings no bottles to make up etc!! It will get better but only you know whether you can wait for that or not! You've done so well to get this far, for me it nearly ruined those first few weeks so I know how hard it is to overcome x

As far as cleaning the tube you can if you have a syringe push warm soapy water thru it and then clean water. Or you can suck the water thru it with your mouth and then push it out.
To use it you put the one end in a bottle and the other end you slide into the corner of his mouth toward the top of his mouth. You can also tape it to your breast so it doesn't move around so much.

And I agree with PP spend a day or two in bed skin to skin. And I was told by LC to take fenugreek and blessed thistle 3 of each 3 times per day. They work better in combination together

Thank you for all your input!

So it sounds like I can expect it to take a few weeks for things to get better.

Should I be breastfeeding as much as possible in the meanwhile? I just can't bring myself to do more than a couple of feeds a day because it's emotionally so hard I just feel like crying when I do it because he acts like he really hates my boobies.

It's lovely to hear that some people have been through this and come out the other side happily breastfeeding.

I'm feeling pretty depressed about it though. Last night's breastfeeds didn't go so well... he went right back to 'gumming' instead of sucking, and I don't think he got very much because he woke up ravenous an hour later and took a whole 6 oz of formula.

I think it's the trying and trying and trying that's so depressing. The pumping is exhausting, I hate that it takes quality time away from LO. I hate that I feel stressed about my supply dropping out if I don't do it.

But I do feel like now that the TT is gone I ought to give it a proper chance...

I've been trying to get him to suck on my finger and am doing tongue exercises with him to help him to learn how to suck properly but it isn't working. He just gums on my finger. I have to laugh sometimes. He just looks ridiculous going NOM NOM NOM. Sometimes he can get the proper suck going for a second or two but he goes back to nomming again!! Do you think it's worth persevering with the exercises? Is there anything else I can do to help him learn??

I wonder if I can decrease pumping sessions and still maintain a semi-decent yield? I want to be able to really focus on being a good mummy to my baby but I don't want my milk supply to dry up. What will happen if I drop a few sessions? I don't have a great supply anyway but will I still get a similar yield as long as I keep the sessions regular?? Right now I'm pumping every 2.5-3 hours, except at night when I just pump once. If I went down to every 4-5 hours, how would that affect my supply...? Anyone know?

Hey thanks for sharing your experience - yes my LO has a high palate too. My birth wasn't without complications no. I was induced at 42 weeks like you and I had an assisted delivery (ventouse) which failed on the first 2 attempts, he really didn't want to come out! I saw an osteopath on Wednesday and he said that the ventouse attempts probably put some significant stress on his body and that he has a lot of tension in his palate and all around that area of his face. He didn't say whether he thought it would improve the feeding... I got the impression he thinks bf is doomed now that I'm using bottles and he prefers them. To be honest he might be right. I'm considering giving it a go though because it can't hurt... though it isn't cheap. Bleh.