breast feeding pain

[carries]

hello ladies! I have been AWOL for a while due to, well, having a new born, xmas and lack of broadband but am back!

As the title says I am experiencing pain when breastfeeding. Oscar has never latched properly and after trying all positions, skin to skin for an entire day, nipple sheilds and speaking to every expert going I have just accepted that at the moment its going to hurt due to his shallow lacth. I have been giving him 1 to 2 bottles a day (usually one formula and one expressed) just to give my poor boobs a break and this seems to be working ok.

My question is that once his latch improves (and I hope it does) I want to go back to exclusive breast feeding. Has anyone done this and how hard is it/how do you go about it?

Also any advice on when their latch gets better naturally?

 

[Serene123]

It's veryyyyyy hard to get them off bottles

 

[PeanutBean]

But you're both breast and bottle feeding now right? I've been using occasional bottles too and past 3 days half bottles because of a raw nipple. He seems to be switching between them ok and I don't anticipate any difficulties when I stop with the bottles tomorrow.

 

[dannyboygirl]

I been doing expressed n breast since birth...but she has rejected the breast at 2 weeks and I had to cold turkey(cut off bottles)her.(nipple confusion)..Then she started to latch again cuz she knows thats her main food source.kept giving her the breast...they learn..Now she does both anytime

 

[carries]

sorry not to be clear. He had exclusive breast for about 4 weeks. He has never latched properly so the health visitor doesnt seem to think its nipple confusion. Some days when the pain isnt so bad he doesnt have any bottles and most days its only one if he does have one. Im just worried more about his latch getting better than cutting out that bottle to be honest

 

[marley2580]

Have you tried sandwiching your breast to help him get a better latch? I had to do this with Kaya and it really helped

 

[carries]

yeah tried that. the little bugger just wont open his mouth wide enough. The HV suggested teasing him with my nipple inbetween feeds but not giving it to him until he opened his mouth wider! I tried that on friday along with being skin to skin but it all ended in tears, his and mine!

 

[PeanutBean]

As you know we've been having latch issues recently. Like with Oscar Byron simply won't open his mouth wide so I can't reward him to encourage him to do it more. I've discovered he sucks in my boob and uf he does that properly then it only hurts while he does that and not while he's feeding. After much care and coming on and off my nipples are much less sore and now I can tolerate this sucking to latch. Maybe Oscar is doing the same?

 

[emie]

Hope you dont mind me butting in but,the only way to continue is breast or bottle but not both soon your baby will get confused and proberly refuse the breast as its harder to draw out the milk, than from the bottle,some babies have a terrible time latching on all of mine did,all you can do is persiver,there is some brilliant nipple cream on the market that you can buy in boots the chemist called Lansinoh it was recommened to me by the NCT,also have you contacted the LA LECHE for advice their great...you can apply the cream before,after it really does help..I used it with my 3rd baby.