The Breast Feeding Support Thread

spottybananas

Where I had my son the lactation consultant is only available during business hours. So if you have your baby at 6.30pm on a Friday and have bf problems you're pretty fecked! (And she's not even nice/any good even when she is there)

melissak

kandr10 wrote: »

How do you know that that's not the case for this phn? I just hate the way they're all tarred with the one brush. Yes some are considered useless but it's not all.

To answer your question tinker bell, when I said text book breastfeeding, I meant a case where there are few problems latching, it's established quickly with no problems generally. Your advice may work in that case but as you rightly pointed out, it's so different for everyone. If I had followed your advice back in the day I wouldn't have got as far with feeding. I needed to give a few bottles of formula and to have all feeds given by bottle for the first 3 weeks, by my husband while I pumped. I used nipple shields unsupervised and pumped from the start rather than waiting 6weeks. I was also told to feed every 3 hours from the start which goes against a lot of advice but it was necessary in our case. When I saw that feeds were being spat up I stopped and consulted with my phn who supported my decision since weight was climbing. I needed her support as she was able to check weights and health of my baby generally to confirm I was looking after her ok.

Now would I give all that advice to a friend? No! It was a very particular circumstance and I don't know what may or may not be going on with other people. The only advice I would agree on is to see a lactation consultant as early as possible.

I'm not trying to tar anyone. The phns i had were nice and helpful but i wss lucky to have a friend who had breastfed and she gave me practical nitty gritty stuff advice which was hugely helpful. This advice comes from hands on experience that some phns are not getting due to low rates of breastfeeding.

LegacyUser

To my knowledge, breastfeeding is not part of PHNs training for the job.At least so I've been told.

melissak

BusyIzzy wrote: »

To my knowledge, breastfeeding is not part of PHNs training for the job.At least so I've been told.

Is this true? Maybe something they could look into. How can they promote breastfeeding with no training? With the best will in the world they will find it difficult

kandr10

My local breastfeeding group was led by the phns. Is that not usual? Would be strange if they didn't get trained in some way to do that.

melissak

Even doing that would be training in its own way tbf

jlm29

They don't all run those groups. My PHN has a special interest in breastfeeding, and did a course In it recently- she was fantastic great support, and with good info. I'd really have appreciated her on my first! The reality was, that because she had an interest, she probably needed that course less than others, but may have fed back to her dept through inservice or something.
Phns seem to train mainly on the job- they come from another area of nursing into public health, and spend a good bit of time with other phns training up. I think it's luck really- your PHN could be a surgical nurse by training, and have no more interest in breastfeeding than the postman does, or they could be a midwife by training, who has breastfed 3 babies themselves. As new mothers, we forget that phns don't just meet new mothers and tiny babies, they see a huge range of patients "from the cradle to the grave". It's not an excuse, but it is a reason why they're not always much of a resource, and a reminder of why it's really important to have other local links, and supports in place before baby arrives.

Jen44

Sorry now speaking as a nurse myself it is simply not true that PHN's get no training in breast feeding. In fact a lot of PHN's are registered midwives. Whether they have an interest in it or not is another thing but it is definitely part of the training program. Its a pretty intense course and a very very difficult area of nursing to get in to which is why most people wouldnt even apply until they themselves were already at a high level of training. Most are dual qualified as in mid wives and general or paeds nurses.

jlm29

Jen44 wrote: »

Sorry now speaking as a nurse myself it is simply not true that PHN's get no training in breast feeding. In fact a lot of PHN's are registered midwives. Whether they have an interest in it or not is another thing but it is definitely part of the training program. Its a pretty intense course and a very very difficult area of nursing to get in to which is why most people wouldnt even apply until they themselves were already at a high level of training. Most are dual qualified as in mid wives and general or paeds nurses.

I didn't say that they get no training in breastfeeding- i said some of them have no interest in it! I should have specified- mine was doing an extra course, which she told me she had had to fight to be put on- I don't know the details, but it was obvious it wasn't being offered as standard.
Phns who come in from general or paeds nursing might not have a huge amount of breastfeeding experience- its unfortunate, but it's true. I am in no way slating phns (or any other nurses), I'm just making the point (probably badly)- that they have a huge amount of ground to cover, and can't be really good at everything!

Jen44

I take your point on board. I suppose that i just wanted to clarify that it is indeed a part of the training.

LegacyUser

Sorry that was something I was told in a breastfeeding group myself - which is why I said it was "to my knowledge" - I'm open to correction.

Having said that, our PHN is a midwife, but I think she was a midwife many years ago and I don't know how up to date her breastfeeding training might be. She is also not a mother herself so she hasn't experienced it either. Not a big deal I guess, but sometimes experience might make up knowledge where training hasn't. She's not great on it. As you say I'd imagine they come from all different areas of nursing, so the same level of knowledge may not be fully guaranteed. You'd think that the training would ensure that it is though....

I'm having a bit of a Catch22 here. I'm trying to give my little one a bottle a day, to get her used to it and give my OH a chance to feed her. I'm not having much luck expressing for some odd reason, so I've been giving her formula. It's going well so far. I'm drinking fennel tea to help her wind. It's also increasing my supply, not that that was a problem before (can anyone see where I'm going with this?!). Has anyone got any tips on expressing?! I've no problem giving her expressed milk, I just can't seem to get very much out at all, but skipping a feed for a bottle results in a LOT of leakage. I've tried expressing at different times of day and I'm lucky if I get 2 ounces. It's odd because she seems to be getting far more than that out of me,milk is almost pouring out of me at odd times of day and I was expressing a lot more on my first child. It's like a mental block or something - I know the milk is there, it's just not coming out with the pump. It's a Tommee Tippee closer to nature electric pump, by the way.

Lucuma

Jen44 wrote: »

I take your point on board. I suppose that i just wanted to clarify that it is indeed a part of the training.

that's interesting to know. i saw the PHN yesterday for a weight check and while she told me not to supplement with bottles which was good, she also said re my babies weight ''you can see from looking at her she's just going to be a scrawny baby' .
when you're exclusively bf'ing it's not nice to have a medical person describe your baby as 'scrawny', it feels like a personal affront when you're providing 100% of their food, she could have chose a better word!

Jen44

perhaps lean would have been a better word! i remember the PHN running her hands up my babies sides saying oh look you can really tell shes a breast fed baby lovely and lean!

Lucuma

Yes I like the sound of 'lean' a lot more than scrawny !

hollymartins

Jeez I don't know if my son is lean, everyone comments how big he is for a two month old!

rainbow kirby

My son has spindly arms and legs but he's a big boy - not far off 75th percentile! He's just long and a total boobmonster.

IvyTheTerrible

My son was very lean, he didn't get chubby til he went on solids.
My daughter is already bigger than her brother was at this stage, she has folds of fat on her little legs! She must be more efficient at feeding than her brother was, or something because she feeds less often and for shorter times.

hollymartins

The last few days my boy doesn't seem to eat is often as he used to. He's 10 weeks old and up until now anytime he cried or woke from sleep he was hungry and would happily feed. Since the weekend when he's woken or cried I've tried to feed him and he screams his head off so I put him back down and he may take a soother or settle himself and nap for a little while. This morning he woke 3 or 4 times but only fed once for about 10 minutes. He is still probably eating every 3 hours now (as opposed to 1 or 2 hours). Is this just his appetite settling down? The amount of nappies he's getting through hasn't changed.

rainbow kirby

My son had an immense cluster feed last night... basically on and off the boob every 20 minutes from 4pm onwards with me literally alternating sides for the last 90 minutes up to 10:30pm to stop him from screaming. 8 weeks old - I hoped it would have eased a bit by now!

yellow hen

rainbow kirby wrote: »

My son had an immense cluster feed last night... basically on and off the boob every 20 minutes from 4pm onwards with me literally alternating sides for the last 90 minutes up to 10:30pm to stop him from screaming. 8 weeks old - I hoped it would have eased a bit by now!

I had that on Sunday and she was just gone 7 weeks.tough going.

hollymartins

I had those kind of days too, they're very draining especially when you feel you can't satisfy them

ja1986

Hello everyone,

Sorry for the late reply. As you can imagine I don't really have time for the phone with a new born and a toddler! I am feeling much better in myself thank God. I really did put down a bad week when I came out of hospital with the breastfeeding,infection,baby blues etc. I'm only feeling normal since yesterday.

Anyway,the reason my phn mentioned formula was because my baby was losing weight and she wasn't happy and that my nipples were literally bleeding into her feed and onto her clothes. I have to say my phn,whether she gave me bad advice or not ,made me feel much better about feeding. I put awful pressure on myself I was adement to breastfeed and when things went wrong I was very upset, but she made me feel better about myself. She wanted me to continue but just add a formula bottle here and there if the baby isn't settling.

,she done a repeat visit a few days ago and watched me feed again. One breast is sore all the time,throughout the feeding duration too. She thinks I'm not getting a good supply from it ,but I have bucket loads in my other. She told me to latch her on my sore One all the time first,to stimulate and then switch to my good breast for her feed.

I went to my hospital today where they have a breastfeeding class,and the nurse took me into a room and I told her everything. She basically said my babies latch is wrong on my sore breast. When she put her on properly it felt brilliant,no pain I couldn't believe it. It was the latch on that breast the whole time. My baby slept for 2 1/2 hours after that feed so I knew she got milk from me.

Anyway I got home delighted with life,my partner delighted for me and I go to feed her again and I can't get her to latch the way she did with the nurse. I'm seriously pissed now again. I thought I had it sorted.

holding

Go straight back to the nurse tomorrow ja1986 if it is at all possible, and don't leave her til you are confident in doing it yourself. If you can't do that, try out as many positions as you can until something clicks. Laid back nursing is supposed to be great - your baby's tummy is up against your tummy, and her head is facing your nipple head on. The position I found worked for me (like you, it was very sore for me in any position but one!) was putting two pillows on my lap, laying baby across them sideways, holding my boob in a 'shaped' position (so that it would fit baby's mouth easier first time), and just sitting like that til he was done. You'll find that in a few weeks this special position stuff will pass and baby will be an acrobat, it's just getting to that point can be the hard bit.

tinkerbell

Yay ja!! That's great, I'm so happy for you!

Definitely go back to the nurse in the hospital tomorrow and don't leave til you're confident. I had a similar problem at the start - I had an LC do a home visit and she helped with the latch but once I had to do it myself, I just couldn't figure it out at all. So she'd have to go over and over it again. She also had to call back the next day!! I was able to get the hang of it then after a while. Getting the right latch is hard but once you've done it a few times, you and your baby will know automatically how to do it. It just takes practice, lots of practice.

I really do sympathise - I know all too well that frustration in "but I could do it earlier and now I can't FFS!!" Hang in there

PS
A good tip is also to just get into bed and do skin-to-skin with your baby, that helps with milk production, etc.

ja1986

Hey ,
So yesterday I still tried to feed with my bad boob to keep the milk going and to practice my latch. Got a letter this morning off the phn with loads of various breastfeeding classes around me so I found one near to me and headed there today to get someone to show me the latch again.

Got there for the woman to tell me the group hasn't showed up for two months. I feel like everything is telling me to stop breastfeeding!! Even my family and friends are saying ah you've done enough time anyway.

I got home and she needed feeding again so I said feck it and threw her onto the bad one and I must have got the latch right because it didn't hurt one bit. So practice makes perfect I guess.

The phn rang this afternoon asking about my hospital visit and how the class went etc... I really feel like she cares about us which is nice . She said she'd call next week to see how I'm going.
There is another breastfeeding class on tomorrow morning that I'm going to head to so hopefully it's on and I can get this latch perfected.

I really want to thank everyone here for the bits of advice. This thread really helped me through a tough week.

tinkerbell

Ja - if you like, you could contact someone from La Leche or Ciudiu near you and see if they could assist with the latch. Definitely practice makes perfect. It's a brand new skill that both you and your baby are learning. It takes a while to master it!

Well I think you're doing great and the signs are there to keep on boobin! You've sought help and it's improving. Family and friends - just tell them it's your decision. I had the same - comments on "oh just give a bottle and stop breastfeeding". It's so annoying. The reality is that the first 6 weeks are really hard work but after that it is SO easy. Hang in there

ja1986

Guys would ye believe I went to a class todayLa Leche and she latched on perfect.typical.

yellow hen

ja1986 wrote: »

Guys would ye believe I went to a class todayLa Leche and she latched on perfect.typical.

That's great news. Well done you.

ja1986

yellow hen wrote: »

That's great news. Well done you.

Thanks! Because it's really making me stressed I felt like running into a wall this morning. Iv realised that the last few times she's latched on perfect was when I was sitting up straight on like a kitchen chair. I don't know if I'm just looking for any answer but today I'm gonna fix my posture and hope that's it .

Lucuma

ja1986 wrote: »

Guys would ye believe I went to a class todayLa Leche and she latched on perfect.typical.

I went to a La Leche mtg as well this morning, my 1st one. It's great that you're after getting her to latch well on your "bad boob" (!) Ha....I LOL'd at that coz I have one as well....1 has always been smaller than the other & I know from pumping it doesn't produce as much milk as the other one.

I found it really encouraging- the meeting. These long nights & days bf'ing feel a bit isolating at times like no-one else has to go through this hardship so it was great to just chat to other bf'ing Mums