Is it worth carrying on?

[Lulu_Laroo]

Since Poppy refuses to latch on (I've spent a lot of time trying to BF, including with the midwife who sat with me for ages helping me, I've tried nipple shields also but she just won't take the breast) I've been expressing my milk and giving her formula too, but I'm only getting around 1oz of milk from both breasts each day and I'm wondering if this amount is even beneficial for her at all? Is it worth me carrying on expressing?
My OH goes back to work tomorrow so I might spend some more time trying to express more, or is it too late to get a good milk supply now?

EDIT: I should probably add that she's totally ravenous at the moment - she just took 240mls of formula in the space of an hour.. I don't know if I should be allowing her to drink this much

 

[Maria1977]

My friends baby wouldn't latch on after a week of BFing fine. She switched him to forumla and he is thriving. It turned out when she went to a BFing group that when they watched her try to latch him on the way the hospital had showed her that the hospital midwives had been too forceful with her LO and he associated latching on with pain, so eventually it got too much for him and he flat out refused to carry on.

I would keep expressing, primarily to stop your ducts from building up a blockage. And every little bit to LO will be beneficial.

Your milk might dry up quickly, or you might keep getting milk for a while, it's hard to say. My friends milk dried up after 8 days of soley expressing.

Good luck hun.

If you did want to try and get LO back on the boob I'd try a BFing workshop rather than midwives!

xxxxxxx

 

[spice]

hun, i'm in the exactly the same situation, i'm only getting 2oz of milk out when i express and that's combined from both breasts (a day) and Flynn is a right little munchkin he's currently averaging about 4oz per feed but sometimes he goes to sleep for an hour and will then wake-up hungry and take another 2oz!
my OH went back to work yesterday and i don't know where the day went (or where its gone today) but i'm planning on trying toi express more often but for a shorter amount of time, i'm hoping that will help me produce more milk, but i'm not sure if i'm going to have the time to do this

the main thing is that Poppy is happy and healthy and that your happy with your decision! best of luck x

 

[Lulu_Laroo]

Maria is it not too late for a breastfeeding workshop then?

spice, I still haven't managed to express today as I got 2 hours sleep last night, and so slept when poppy slept this morning until 11am, got up, did laundry, washed and sterilised her bottles, fed her etc etc... phew! I've just sat down to check the forum and so will try and express now, but I bet she'll wake up wanting another feed again as soon as I start! xxx

 

[Maria1977]

Maria is it not too late for a breastfeeding workshop then?

spice, I still haven't managed to express today as I got 2 hours sleep last night, and so slept when poppy slept this morning until 11am, got up, did laundry, washed and sterilised her bottles, fed her etc etc... phew! I've just sat down to check the forum and so will try and express now, but I bet she'll wake up wanting another feed again as soon as I start! xxx

No hun, it's defo not too late and they are fantastic. I was really struggling when I just had the midwives but soon as they stepped in m and Oscar got right on it and he is now 8 months and still BFing fine.

Find our your local group, either online or ask an HV or midwife, they will get you a number.

The group here were so supportive, I had the same woman coming out to my house, I didn't even need to go to them which was so helpful in those first couple of weeks.

Good luck and let me know how you get on xxx

 

[Elfs Mummy]

i had tons of problems with M to begin with if you want to bf then i would say

Lots of skin to skin have her next you etc i carried M around in a sling so we were still having skin to skin but i could get stuff done
before giving her formula try the breast if she wont take it then just give her the formula then after the feed try the breast again
eat lots of oats

good luck hun of course its worth carrying on xx