New mom - baby wont latch on, missing feeds, feeling so guilt

[Misha79]

Hi
I have newborn 5 days old. She is adorable but giving me lot of trouble in breastfeeding.
We are also seeing lactation consultant for that and have experimented with lot of things - Breast feeding, With, NippleShield, dribble with Syringe on nipple or direct into her mouth, Bottle, finally Supplemental Nutritional System (SNS) which is tubing attached to a supplement milk in cylinder and nipple.

My girl is sleeping 95% of time, won't wake up or cry for food.
Then she will not suck on my nipples. She will do it once twice thrice with nipple shield and when flow would not come fast enough for her, she will stop , sleep or cry and then sleep.
With bottle( expressed breast milk or formula), syringe, or sns tubing to nipped shield, she gulps down very fast.
Putting finger into her mouth with sns tube, she sucks so vigorously.
So she knows how to suckle to get food but won't latch on.

I have good flow coming in because of pumping and let down also. For stimulation, we also started sns-tubing.

Now, I put her on breast with SNS tube with FF/stored breast milk, then later I express with pump and about 15ml in 10-15 mins.
In her feeds, We finally get so frustrated and tired that to complete feeding session, we directly give her with syringe or finger & sns tube.


Feeding her is like an excercise for both of us taking upto 2.30 hrs sometimes.
We both are losing our sleep. Feeding time is like exam time for us and we get so terrified when it nears.

In last 24 hours, my poor baby was feed half times. It should ne 8 times but she was fed just 4 hrs.

Last night we slept and forgot to wake up at 4am to feed her and she wont wake up on her own.
I have been crying whole day today on this.
With delivery tears, sore bottoms, incontinence, bad hemorrhoids, constipation, lack of sleep things have gotten worse.
I can not stand for 2 min without wetting myself without even knowing it. I can not sit 2 hours as my bottoms hurt so much. I can not lie down a lot as i have things to take care of.
Please please help....


PS:I previously posted in wrong 'Formula Feeding' forums so repasting it here.

 

[cflower04]

Oh Misha I am so sorry to hear all this. May I suggest you sit on a pillow firstly, begin some sort of pelvic floor exercises (it'll take a few days to see a difference), perhaps speak to your doctor about pain killers (even paracetamol) and cream for your piles. For the constipation, ask your doctors about stool softeners, drink plenty of liquids including prune juice.
As for the breastfeeding I'm not really sure how to help... Perhaps consider supplementing a little... Or taking to bed with your little one for lots of skin 2 skin.

 

[Night Flower]

Is your baby tongue tide?

Was the lactation consultant able to get baby to latch when you were visiting with her?

 

[irish_cob]

You def need to get checked for tongue tie, by an expert! So many people told me my baby was a lazy baby and that she wasn't tongue tied but guess what? She was tongue tied, a really thick meaty posterior tongue tie and that's what was stopping her latching on. Poor thing was not lazy, she was starving hungry and trying to feed but her tt was stopping her. Most health professionals aren't brilliant at recognising tt, you need someone who is very experienced.

 

[luna_19]

My lo didn't latch until he was two weeks old. We had a similar schedule where I would try to latch for a bit then express then feed. I gave in and started bottle feeding after about a week because syringe feeding was stressing me out. We stuck with it and suddenly one day he latched on perfectly and we never looked back. I know bottles aren't the greatest thing when you are trying to establish bf but I really believe they saved us simply by saving my sanity and speeding up feeds. Good luck you can do this

 

[Misha79]

I checked with couple friends, not seen doctor yet. She is not tongue tied thankfully.
We are not doing tubing/sns anymore ..only sometimes.
I pump and also combi-feed with formula. Sometimes she latches on.
Its weird, mostly in the evenings she would latch on and will not leave me. Will start crying like anything and wont stop.
She does not feel full for hours and then if i give the FF in bottle, she is happy.

I am worried if she does not get anything from me or its some kind of early growth spurt..
Daytime or night, she usually wont latch on. I am still giving her 50% of feed from formula and I feel bad about it.