Will I only ever be able to exclusively express?

[spunky84]

Abigail has not been doing well with latching/sucking.

The first 24 hours, it was mostly licking. My midwife said that this was very normal in the beginning. Throughout the night that night (a little over 24 hours after birth), she was very fussy and cried just about non-stop. Figured that she was just very hungry.

One of the nursery nurses started helping & said that the problem is that the nipple needs to hit the roof of her mouth, and it just wasn't doing that. She brought me a nipple shield, which seemed to help at first.

We got a few successful feeds over the next 4 hours, but after that, Abigail would either fall asleep with the nipple in her mouth or would just cry. (We actually had 1 very rude nursery nurse who basically accused of neglecting her even though we were trying so hard to get her to nurse!)

Because of the lack of successful feedings, she wasn't peeing or pooping. By the end of the day she started becoming jaundiced. We started pumping to see if we could at least get something in her that way, though only getting a very little out (honestly just a few drops at that point).

Since she was getting jaundiced, we started feeding her whatever I could pump, even if just a few drops & supplemented with some formula. It looks like this is what we'll be doing until i can start pumping enough. I'm already starting to get a lot more, so it doesn't look like we'll need to do this much longer.

I worry that now that we've gone down this path, I won't be able to get her back to breast feeding. I'll be returning back to work sometime in October, so I'll be pumping at work for the time she is in daycare, but I was still planning on breastfeeding in the mornings, evenings and the weekends/days off.

Is there any hope of getting her to latch at this point? We have her first pediatrician appointment Thursday and I have a follow up with my midwife on the 10th, so I definitely plan on getting more information, but I feel kind of hopeless that we lost our opportunity to breastfeed and that they only way she'll get breast milk is to exclusively express now.

I'm kind of scared to even try and put her back to the breast as I'm scared of her not getting enough and where that's going to put her. With the expressing, I can at least see that she is getting something and how much she's getting. I really want to try and put her back on the breast, but I'm worried it's too late for that - and if we try, that it may compromise her health again!

 

[optimistic1]

I have no experience but I know its not too late to try. There is several woman on here that had the same problem and have successful moved on to the breast. Hopefully one of them see your post and can give you tips. Good luck!!

 

[afwifey]

My little guy turned 6 weeks yesterday. I am exclusively pumping, as he would only latch on with a shield and then when we would try to get him on he would get frustrated and my supply would go down, had to try to give formula but he wouldn't eat it, he got some in his mouth and would gag and spit it out. We tried to get him to latch for weeks and just had a really cranky baby, I decided to exclusively pump and have a very happy baby now. I had to tell myself that he is getting it and that is all that really matters.

 

[Barhanita]

my baby only had expressed milk till she was 2 weeks. Then she took my breast with a shield for a week, but it stopped working. So at 3.5 weeks she went back to the express milk. But at 4 weeks I switched her back to breast. Now, at almost 7 weeks she loves the breast.

My advice:
1) be prepared to work a lot on BF for a little while
2) invest into a lactation consultant (we saw 4 different once multiple times and went to a support group every week)
3) lot's of skin-to-skin anytime you can!
4) try a lot to latch her
5) protect your supply by pumping
6) get a scale so you know how much your baby is getting (I was weighing her before and after the feed and everytime I changed her, and logged it). My scale was $50

Everyone I knew, who was as determined as I was, and had this problem - was able to switch to breast. It is a lot of work though. And a lot of tears. But for me it was worth it so much. PM me with questions.

 

[Barhanita]

Also, 5 days is VERY young. So I think if you want to switch - you absolutely can.

 

[spunky84]

Thanks for the responses!

I'm okay if I have to exclusively breastfeed. I'd just prefer if I could breastfeed too. I even told DH in the hospital that if this is what we have to do, it's what we have to do, as long as she's getting breast milk.

I tried her back on the breast yesterday afternoon and she wouldn't take it. So I tried the shield and she'd just cry and spit it out. Regardless of what I do/how it turns out, I'm just trying to stay calm since I worry that getting upset/stressed/frustrated could make it more difficult.

The hospital did have a lactation consultant; however, she wasn't in with it being the weekend/holiday. We did have a helpful nurse to get us through those days. Abigail has her appointment with her pediatrician Thursday afternoon, so I'm going to see if she can recommend a lactation consultant - I honestly don't even know where to begin to look for one! If she can't help, I'm sure my midwife will be able to get me in the right direction. She's very supportive of breastfeeding (she's the one that actually made me feel better on Saturday when she wouldn't latch).

Barhanita, I will definitely try out those things. It's reassuring to know that you were able to get your LO back to the breast. Where did you get your scale?

 

[Srrme]

I pumped for 60 days while my oldest was in the NICU and during that time he was fed my expressed milk from a bottle. Once he came home we successfully switched to exclusively breastfeeding. I did the same thing with my second, except he was only in the NICU for 3 weeks. It definitely is possible to go from bottle to breast.

 

[Barhanita]

Barhanita, I will definitely try out those things. It's reassuring to know that you were able to get your LO back to the breast. Where did you get your scale?

Try to find LLLI leader in your region. Where are you, btw?

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