Sometimes I feel like breastfeeding is just easier for everyone else and still a daily struggle for me at 2 months. Does anyone else feel like they've got it all wrong? What has been difficult for you, and when did it get better (if it did!)?
-
Having to cut so much out of my diet was really difficult. And having a high needs baby that had to literally be attached to me all. day. long was excruciating at times.. I suffered from being "touched out" the first 7 months before being able to find any resolve. Gah! Now it's pretty easy breezy.
-
We dealt with difficulty latching at first and a lot of nipple pain for about 6-8 weeks. Then it just started getting better all of a sudden and now it's easy breezy (LO is 8 months).
-
Breastfeeding was a nightmare until three months. I had oversupply that left me crawling the walls in pain every time I nursed, caused repeated bouts of mastitis and created a foremilk imbalance that made LO miserable and cranky all the time. Pretty much as soon as it was supply driven rather than hormonal it became so much easier.
Hang in there! I hope it gets better for you soon. Its so tough when it feels like everyone else breezing through it but there's a lot of us who struggle in the first few months.
-
My milk came in late and then I had oversupply issues but things settled around 6 weeks.
-
The worst part for me was the cluster feeding. I expected it to be hard, but it was even harder then I imagined. For a week straight LO was attached to me from 7pm-11pm. DH was working nights that week too so I didn't get a break at all. Other then that I've had no issues which I feel super lucky.
Hope your experience gets better!
-
Insecurity in general- is my latch good enough, is she getting enough, is something in eating upsetting her tummy? The feeling that something I work so hard to give her could be hurting her, even in the short term, is pretty terrible, even though I know formula would be just as likely to upset her stomach if that's even what it is.
That and the isolation sometimes- I'm fine nursing wherever, but don't want to make people uncomfortable, and if we are putting her down for a nap or for the night it's best if we are alone in a dark room. It gets boring and I feel like everyone is having fun without me.
-
M's suck is so strong that she visibly bruised my nipples so I have to stop BF and resort to pumping while the girls heal.
-
Poor latch, tongue tie, and lip tie. My DS was born via vacuum birth, so his face, neck, and jaw were sore so he didn't want to open wide, making latching even harder. Now at 4 months its easy, but we just took it day by day. You'll get there!
-
The first few days were tough with having blistered, painful nipples... but at almost 5wks, nothing terrible, just an overactive let down resulting in quite a bit of spit up.
-
bad latch for sure. this caused torn up nipples, and an open wound that wouldn't heal due to a staph infection. I pumped and bottle fed from week 2 - 5 because I couldn't take the pain of latching.
even my (very experienced!) LC was shocked by the state of my nipples when I went to see her for the first time.
i've just recently noticed that LO has a pretty bad upper lip tie (his frenulum comes all the way down between his top teeth), so he may have an undiagnosed tongue tie too, which definitely wouldn't have helped his latching!!
i think the pain went away and we really got into the swing of BFing after 3.5 months. until then it was definitely still a daily, painful, stressful struggle! but it will definitely get better!
-
Ohmygosh everything. She had a shallow latch, minimal sucking reflex and my nipples were torn up for a good 6 weeks. I spent over $1000 on lactation consultants, got her tongue clipped, and then finally was referred to craniosacral therapy when she was 8 weeks old, and it was only after that did it start getting better. I'm still nursing morning and night and she'll be a year old next week.
-
I wasn't able to breastfeed in the end; we had so many problems - flat nipples, tongue tie, bleeding nipples, mastitis in both breasts. Eventually, what little milk I had disappeared. For me, the worst part was dreading feeding my baby. When she cried, it struck fear into my heart. That wasn't how I wanted to feel about my baby....it broke my heart.
-
I had such a hard time at the beginning, I ended up pumping exclusively for a fee months. It was so painful, her latch blew, we just didn't find a good groove until she was 4 months old. I swear it's because her mouth just had to get bigger.
-
@Cherrybee: I remember the anxiety and I carry a fair amount of guilt over how I felt for the first few months of LO's life
@grizz: being sucked out by ventouse made my LO a very sore and angry wee poppet, fortunately we had several sessions with an osteopath which helped us immensely!
OP - to be honest it took a good 4-5 months to really get nursing sorted but after a year of bf'ing, I can honestly say that it has been so, so worth all the pain, tears and struggles! We dealt with delayed milk, lip and tongue tie (cut at 7-8 weeks), two months of thrush, lots of spitting up, a nursing strike at four months due to teething, crappy latch as said teeth came through and just a generally bad latch.
Hang in there mama and remember that how breastfeeding looks at two months will be completely different to how it is at six, nine and even twelve months - you're doing great!!
-
Thrush. We got it early at 10 days old. Fear of losing my supply and hoping she's just an efficient nurser. I hate the toe curling pain at latch-on.
-
I had an over active letdown. DS would trigger the letdown, and then I had to pop him off while it was spraying everywhere. It was nice to have a good supply, but that part was really hard to manage. It settled down once he got to about 3-4 months.
-
The horrible pain during and after feeding. This went on for over 6 weeks until lo's tongue tie was clipped. It is only now starting to get better, and I am a little sad that I still don't love breastfeeding.
Equally hard was the complete lack of support from my partner and his insensitivity to the struggle I was going through. He was more concerned that I had my boobs hanging out to get some air than the fact that I was having vasospasms. I so envy all those who's partners have been supportive even when they couldn't possibly relate to what you were going through.
-
Oh yeah, I also had those panick stricken moments when I would hear her waking up. I really feel sad that I was not able to enjoy the newborn days, and I am seriously contemplating not breastfeeding with subsequent kids.
-
Having to stop
my supply was never great, and despite supplements and such my LO no longer gets enough to eat during a nursing session. I'm down to two nursing sessions with a bottle in between at night before bed (and 3 pumps during day). It sucks.
-
Being the only one that can feed her. Sometimes in the middle of the night it would be nice to have DH feed her! She still comfort nurses a lot, so the times DH has given her a bottle of expressed milk she still wants the boob for comfort afterwards.
-
@lawbee11: same here, so there's no point in Dh getting up with her. It is pretty annoying! Now if she wakes up when I know she isn't hungry yet sometimes I make him get her.
-
LO's sucking reflex didn't come naturally and even bottle feeding proved difficult at first. He only latched on once or twice and sucked very little. I ended up EP for 13 months.
-
The pain, not knowing if the pain was normal, and not knowing if the pain would ever get better. IT DID. Breastfeeding FINALLY felt ok at 8.5 weeks, and got better from there. I had always heard 6 weeks was the turning point so I was SO discouraged that 6 weeks came and went and I Was still in pain. Hang in there mama!!!
-
Feeling like a milk cow and being the only one to feed her. Yeah DH could give her a bottle so I could sleep in but I would still have to pump.
-
@KOzsari: everything. My LO had a tight jaw at birth from fetal positioning, and after spending well over $1000 on LC visits, going to BFing support groups twice a week, getting her tongue and lip ties clipped, going to cranial sacral therapy that I have to pay out of pocket.... It never improved. Even when the LCs put her on my breast (and I tried 3 different LCs just to see if one would be a magic bullet for us), she couldn't latch correctly and would completely tear up my nipple within about 2 minutes.
As an exclusive pumper, the hardest thing is not being able to leave the house for longer than 4 hours if I'm on oublic transport or walking, or pumping in the car if I'm driving somewhere. Also having to both feed my LO and pump after in the middle of the nigh is so much worse than just BFing. It's a PITA in general.
-
Each stage brings different difficulties:
Weeks 1-4 cracked, bleeding nipples, poor latch, low supply due to blood loss, ended up using nipple shield to let nips recover and supplemented with formula.
Weeks 5-9 by then we'd weaned off formula and were still using the nipple shield. Felt like my life consisted of nursing and then whatever else I had time for.
Weeks 9-12 finally weaned off shield!
Weeks 12-15 Has my supply tanked? Baby only nursed for 5 minutes one side every 3.5 hours--turned out he'd just gotten super efficient
Weeks 15-now (20) growth spurt, nurses every 1.5 hours and super distracted unless in dark/quiet room.I love breastfeeding, but it's like when you get used to the new normal it changes AGAIN!
-
@yin: we had that too! A bad suck reflex... The therapist worked in that but it still isn't great with a bottle. Makes me sad because my babe still only drinks 19-20 oz a day from a bottle, which isn't enough. =(
-
SO many challenges. I had flat nipples, DS had a poor latch and clipping the tongue tie didn't do much for either of us. I saw a lactation consultant on several occasions and it never helped much either. I ended up with raw/cracked/bleeding nipples for several weeks. DS also nursed every 90 minutes for at least the first 3 months, so I was completely exhausted...Once we got over those initial hurdles, and believe me, I wanted to give up all the time, it became more manageable and I nursed until he was 13 months. It was definitely the most challenging thing I've ever done.
Reply
Subscribe to our newsletter
- Google Plus
- Stumbleupon
- Twitter
- Facebook
- Pinterest
- Favorite0
28 comments