Not opening mouth wide enough

[mara16jade]

My baby is about 2.5 weeks old, and we're still having horrible latching issues. Sometimes it's fast, and other times it can take me 20-ish minutes to latch him....and then it can take 1.5-2 hours total to feed him and put him back to bed.

Is this common with newborns? I've shed so many tears over latching him these past few weeks.

Would a nipple shield help? It seems his upper lip curls inward and he also doesn't open his mouth big enough.

 

[Maxy1]

If the top lip keeps curling under you should have him checked for lip tie. That was a big thing with my DS. I kept having to roll it up with my finger throughout the feed.

With my newborns it usually takes about 40 mins to feed and 20 -30 mins to wind and get back down. All babies are different but your experience sounds exhausting and too long to me.

IME with lip tie nothing really helped apart from him figuring out how to latch which still wasn't great but he got lots of milk so he was happier:thumb up: Once it was fixed it was way better.

 

[Maxy1]

Oh and with the mouth not opening wide enough - if it is a problem use the weight of your breast to push down the chin when he latches. DD doesn't open her mouth much at the start because of a fast let down, but it hasn't been a problem since about 7 weeks old.