I am feeling very sorry for myself and very useless today 
I am really struggling with BF and latching on despite having saw BF helpers a couple of times. They always seem to help at the time but putting it into practice at home is a different story. I have gallons of milk and she is gaining weight fine so must be getting enough but it is so stressful.
My left nipple has a HUGE crack going halfway round it and is really really painful so she suggested yesterday expressing from this breast for a few days and feeding the expressed milk- I did this yesterday and through the night and it was great.
One of the problems I have is it is really difficult to get her to latch on. I know all the theory and stuff but putting it into practice is a different story. A lot of the time now I will get her on on what I think is a good latch and she sucks for 10 or 20 secs then throws her head back and screams and the goes back on again. She seems most happy if she is not latched on right. The other thing is she frantically waves her arms around in front of her face so I need to try and hold these back to get near her mouth or try and swaddle her which she isn't impressed about. I just don't understand why when she seems to be latched on ok she doesn't want to stay there. When we are at the support people she always seems to latch on much more smoothly which defeats the object of seeing them really. I sometimes wonder whether maybe she isn't hungry and I am trying to force her on but she does open her mouthand look for it. There is also plenty of milk so its not that none is coming out.
The whole thing is just such a battle and I am starting to feel really down about it. Feeding her the expressed milk from the bottle was just such a joy compared to the wrestling match.
Can you just express milk and feed it that way instead?
Sorry, I am having a real pity party today
I am really struggling with BF and latching on despite having saw BF helpers a couple of times. They always seem to help at the time but putting it into practice at home is a different story. I have gallons of milk and she is gaining weight fine so must be getting enough but it is so stressful.
My left nipple has a HUGE crack going halfway round it and is really really painful so she suggested yesterday expressing from this breast for a few days and feeding the expressed milk- I did this yesterday and through the night and it was great.
One of the problems I have is it is really difficult to get her to latch on. I know all the theory and stuff but putting it into practice is a different story. A lot of the time now I will get her on on what I think is a good latch and she sucks for 10 or 20 secs then throws her head back and screams and the goes back on again. She seems most happy if she is not latched on right. The other thing is she frantically waves her arms around in front of her face so I need to try and hold these back to get near her mouth or try and swaddle her which she isn't impressed about. I just don't understand why when she seems to be latched on ok she doesn't want to stay there. When we are at the support people she always seems to latch on much more smoothly which defeats the object of seeing them really. I sometimes wonder whether maybe she isn't hungry and I am trying to force her on but she does open her mouthand look for it. There is also plenty of milk so its not that none is coming out.
The whole thing is just such a battle and I am starting to feel really down about it. Feeding her the expressed milk from the bottle was just such a joy compared to the wrestling match.
Can you just express milk and feed it that way instead?
Sorry, I am having a real pity party today
I had and still have lots of problems with breastfeeding (never seemed straightforward to me!) and I did try to exclusively express for two weeks. I'm telling you it's veeeery hard work!!! I agree, feeding EBM is soooo much easier but I couldn't bear waking up in the middle of the night to express milk. We eventually switched back to breast, with all its problems. Well done to the girls on this forum that managed to exclusively express for as long as they did (I got some very good support from them back then), but I just couldn't do it! 
