So frustrated and in pain

[Nerdy]

My 5 day old seems to be nursing like a champ. He latches, nurses one side until he falls asleep, detached, snoozes for a couple minutes, and then wakes up asking for the other side. We have 6+ wet diapers and 2 or 3 dirty ones a day. He even showered me this evening with a large surprise pee mid-change. Clear Uribe, no smell, lots of it.

In short... I don't think he's dehydrated and appears to be gaining, is happy, naps great, etc etc.

My nipples, however, are screaming murder. The right one is consistently coming out lipstick shaped. It's cracked, blistered at the upper tip, and latching is a toe curling sensation for all the wrong reasons.

He is STUBBORN about latching his way. Gets frustrated, grabs with his hands, screams. I'm not sure how to fix this, but I don't know how much more I can take.

There's no pain while pumping. Just nursing. I'm massaging the nipple with lanolin post feeds and trying to make it happier and heel. I NEED to correct his latch.

Help?

 

[noon_child]

Have you tried laid back breastfeeding (also known as biological nurturing/nursing). It taps in to baby's feeding instincts, can create a deeper latch, helps stop the flailing grabby arms etc.

Also is he coming to the breast over hungry? I could never read feeding cues properly and now know there are loads I'd never heard of when I was feeding a newborn (like clenched fists, cycling arms, waving head from side to side) so my LO was always frantic at the breast and never gave herself time to latch properly.

At 5 days old a nurse in (stay in bed with your top off with baby with you all day and do laid back breastfeeding) can be useful because you don't have to read the cues and put baby to the breast because baby is already there so it's much easier to see when they want to nurse.

Laid back by isn't always easy to master and sometimes has to be tweaked to work for each individual motherbaby, but organisations like LLL or NCT etc can help (if UK).

Do you have support groups near you?

 

[AmandaBanana]

I was the exact same way.
It took about 2 weeks and now I have no pain while feeding.
Don't worry, it does get better.

What I did, is press his shoulders closer when he was feeding. It made my nipple go in a different angle. He didn't always like it at first, but it was the only way I'd let him have it. So he came around pretty quick.
I also used coconut oil on my nipple and I found that worked much better.
So good for you and baby too.

Best of luck!