Nervous about breastfeeding after baby #3 experience!

[Jezzielin]

Hi ladies!

I'm pregnant with baby number four, and even though it's early on I will little bit worried and looking for any advice. I breast-fed all my children but unfortunately with my third baby we had to stop early and she only got about six months because she tore up my nipples so badly. Her latch seemed good but I think I had possibly gotten some kind of yeast infection which caused my nipples to crack and bleed every time she hooked up. . I think that's the case because I got so chapped and I finally ended up getting some cream that seemed to help the situation but by then the damage was already done.

Eventually I couldn't even automatically pump and had to manually pump extremely slowly to continue even trying.

Needless to say, my supply drops significantly and eventually I had to stop. While labor was painful, this seemed just as much painful between her hooking up to my damaged boobs and pumping straight blood.

I'm so scared this is going to happen with my fourth and starting to dread the idea of breast-feeding what is probably our last baby. Maybe it was just bad luck that I got some yeast infection - but has anyone experienced this and was nervous about the next one? Any advice on maybe how I can prepare or do better to prevent this from happening again?

 

[Eleanor ace]

Oh God yes. With my 1st BF'ing was easy once we got past the initial hiccups of supply issues and pain at the start while my nipples got used to bf'ing. I was sad when he stopped bf'ing at 1 and was looking forward to that special bf'ing relationship with my 2nd. Well hot damn if I didn't have to sit on my hands so I didn't rip her of my breast at every nursing session. Loved the special bf'ing relationship, hated the uber sensitive and painful feeling of feeding her. She got oral thrush after having antibiotics and I got it on my nipples and we kept passing it to each other before the treatment worked, and that really didn't help. She stopped bf'ing cold turkey at 9.5 months and although i was sad because it stopped suddenly and I thought that might b the end of bf'ing forever (my DH wasn't sold on a 3rd child then) it was such a relief not to have my poor nipples go through multiple daily torture sessions. I was really apprehensive about bf'ing LO number 3, I was kind of dreading it to be honest. It is so much better! My nipples are sore but no where near as bad as with number 2. No bleeding unless she bites, no cracked nipples, no thrush. I have nursing aversion sometimes but I can distract myself through it.