Is it too late?

[Syndilou]

Hiya, this may sound ridiculous but when I was pregnant the thought of breast feeding wasn't what I wanted to do and now baby is here and she is 5 days old I regret it so much! I would love to try but is it too late?
I still have milk and quite a lot with the ammount I'm leaking.
I just don't know where to start or what to do, MW are visiting tomorrow but I'm worried about time being against me.

Thanks in advance xxx

 

[ScotchEgg]

Hi I don't have any experience of your situation but if you're leaking milk it makes sense that you can feed.

My best advice would be to get onto YouTube and watch lots of videos about feeding and give it a go. Or if you've got any friends or family who feed or have fed get them over straight away to help you. That should get you through to tomorrow

Good luck

 

[Maud]

I am pretty sure you can still breastfeed; especially if you're leaking milk. Ideally you could do with someone to help you, but you might find you and your baby can work it out on your own.

Probably the best way to start is to go reclined and skin to skin (like when baby as born). Lay baby up your tummy and let them find your breast (they instinctively will wriggle and bob their way there but it can take a while).

Alternatively, the cross cradle position is the best for mother-led latching. You may need some assistance with positioning though - you want baby to lie tummy to mummy and nose to nipple. Baby should (but not all do) open their mouth if you brush their top lip with your nipple (hand express some milk onto it if you can to encourage them) and then you need to quickly draw baby onto your breast.

Some babies pick it up quickly but some take a lot of practice, so don't be disheartened if you don't succeed straight away. M sure your midwife will be delighted to help you out tomorrow.

Good luck!

 

[Syndilou]

Thank you very much for the advice I really appreciate it I'm going to give it a go this afternoon xxx

 

[T84]

Give it a go hon but if not have you considered expressing it and bottle feeding? I express cos bf wasn't working (although i did love it when she got latched on) but still felt it important that she got the goodness out the milk. x x

 

[BevG]

if you wanna do it then go for it, feed feed feed, have skin to skin, pump after feeds to up supply and so you can bottle feed the expressed milk. eat oats every day if you can, try fenugreek, see if the dr will give you domperidone and theres recipes for mothers milk tea and cookies on the net i think but really the key thing is to latch baby on and feed her from you directly as often as she wants for as long as it takes, if you have to swap back and forth between boobs thats fine. baby will feed often and for ages to up supply, this is not an indicator of how much milk your making and it dosent mean shes not getting enough its what shes meant to do and shouldnt last more than 8 weeks like that tops. amount of wet nappies and weight gain are the only real ways to measure supply so as long as baby gains weight, and i mean any weight not even large amounts and wets and poops your doing good. good luck and if it dosent work out then at least you gave it a try, no harm in trying

 

[Syndilou]

Thank you so much for all the advice ladies I thought of give a lil update, well MW Visited today and we got her to latch on which was incredible! I've now got to try and BF for 15mins on each and then too her up with formula and go from there! The MW was incredible she's even coming back tomorrow to see how we're getting on x x x

 

[Maud]

That's fantastic, well done and good luck!

 

[twinkles]

Brilliant! Well done!
I love a story like this! Amazing x

 

[ScotchEgg]

Excellent news

 

[Syndilou]

Well me and Isabelle tried for the first time last night, she got herself abit too worked up at the start as she was clearly hungry so I calmed her down with a bit of bottle first, once she calmed down she actually latched on on one side and was definitely taking milk I couldn't get her to latch the other side but as it was our first try by ourselves I was chuffed so so happy and we had a good night last night, slept for a good 4hrs woke up and had a poo and had some more feed and things were good! Xxx

 

[ScotchEgg]

That's amazing news, well done to you both

 

[Maud]

Brilliant

 

[twinkles]

Fantastic! Well done both! X

 

[BevG]

yay, keep up the good work, thats the way to do it, nice and simple and no stressing about it all

 

[GotMyHandsFull]

I'm so pleased you got her to latch on. How wonderful.

 

[Syndilou]

Thank you again ladies! We're getting there slowly, I've also been expressing to keep the flow up for when we're not so successful but it's so nice being able to feed her from me, I really wanted to do it for that exclusive bond and it's definitely there and makes me feel so good about being a mummy x x