I posted a thread a few days ago about my 3 month old LO who is teething (6 teeth showing in very lumpy gums) and really struggling to feed - screaming in pain after 3 or 4 sucks on the breast in the day time, needing 20 minutes to calm down and then the whole thing starts again. He wants to be held constantly even when napping (he even cries hard when i put him down to change him) and he only sleeps when he is all cried out and his eyes are rolling, so although i've been expressing for 1/2 feeds a day since he was 2 weeks old, and have managed to express enough to keep him going over teh weekend, it isn't sustainable to express for all 4 daytime feeds as i'm on my own all day.
Anyway, it has been a week now and I'm getting really concerned about his fluid intake, plus he finds trying to breastfeed so upsetting/painful and so do I (when he does get on, his mouth feels like it has shards of glass in it, when he doesn't, I get upset). I'm exhausted and emotional.
I think adding hunger to the pain of the teeth and the tiredness from restless sleep isn't helping him at all - so i've decided to move him on to formula so that i can see exactly how much he is eating and he can feed from the bottle which whilst still painful appears to be easier for him.
I was SO cynical about BFing during our NCT BF workshop, I always said i would try it and see if it worked for us but never thought I would take to it, then I set a month, then 6 weeks, then 2 months etc as little milestones. We had such problems in the first 6 weeks with undiagnosed tongue tie causing LO terrible wind, and me lots of pain, this was snipped at 6 weeks and things improved massively. I never, ever thought I would feel so emotional about quitting - I've got such a massive buzz out of watching LO grow and develop purely off the back of my milk and I've so loved the closeness of feeding him and the bond it has given us. I'm sitting here crying writing this whilst DH gives LO his first bottle of formula.
Anyway, just wanted to get my feelings down. Good luck to everyone else and thanks for all the support.
x
Anyway, it has been a week now and I'm getting really concerned about his fluid intake, plus he finds trying to breastfeed so upsetting/painful and so do I (when he does get on, his mouth feels like it has shards of glass in it, when he doesn't, I get upset). I'm exhausted and emotional.
I think adding hunger to the pain of the teeth and the tiredness from restless sleep isn't helping him at all - so i've decided to move him on to formula so that i can see exactly how much he is eating and he can feed from the bottle which whilst still painful appears to be easier for him.
I was SO cynical about BFing during our NCT BF workshop, I always said i would try it and see if it worked for us but never thought I would take to it, then I set a month, then 6 weeks, then 2 months etc as little milestones. We had such problems in the first 6 weeks with undiagnosed tongue tie causing LO terrible wind, and me lots of pain, this was snipped at 6 weeks and things improved massively. I never, ever thought I would feel so emotional about quitting - I've got such a massive buzz out of watching LO grow and develop purely off the back of my milk and I've so loved the closeness of feeding him and the bond it has given us. I'm sitting here crying writing this whilst DH gives LO his first bottle of formula.
Anyway, just wanted to get my feelings down. Good luck to everyone else and thanks for all the support.
x
