My midwives were pretty useless last time...they all had different advice, and I was struggling to feed Erin, and they stressed me out more than helping! She had to be fed by syringe to start in the end!!
Oh god yeah don't talk to me about bloody midwives and feeding, we had a nightmare. So they kept telling me Sheamus had a great latch and was feeding fine, even though I could tell he wasn't. Apparently my position was the problem, one midwife actually wrestled my hands to where she wanted them while I still had cannula in, which proper fucking wrecked tbh. But he just kept screaming all the first day and night.
Middle of night one I was walking about in the corridor trying to calm him so he wouldn't disturb the other ladies on the ward, and one midwife actually tutted at me and said 'he's crying coz he's starving, feed him!' which was literally all I'd tried to do for the entire day and night. At this point I hadn't slept in like 48 hours either.
Next morning both my community midwives (aka absolutely bloody angels) came in for a visit, I was in a right state by then, so first thing they did was give him a formula cup and he was so calm after that. And they told me about expressed feeding which noone had bothered mentioning til then. From then he was bottle only forever, but half formula half breast milk feeds, and he absolutely thrived on it. Slept through from three weeks, always top of the growth chart, and such a merry little boy.
Turns out he has a lip tie (will be corrected when he's a little bigger) so he was never going to latch properly, though none of the hospital midwives ever thought to check this(!)
Lesson learned this time, I'll do whatever feels right and bollocks to the staff. No messing with these second time mummas; we know our babies better than them, right?!!!
