Breast feeding advice/help needed

Thanks SweetLily. U've got mail... U can remove ur id from here now.

Thanks SweetLily. I have been consulting Paula (LC) and she has been absolutely fabulous. It is more of a will issue with my DS. I have to keep trying and hope he changes his mind one day :). Funny that you mentioned, Paula just suggested SNS 2 days ago, I am yet to give it a shot. KTS, sorry for hijacking your thread, but I hope you give all the options available to you a good thought.

If I may, my advise is give breastfeeding a shot. Nothing can be more beneficial for your baby than taking milk directly from you. My DS was born a little early and was in NICU for 3 days. He was given bottle and could not suck. At 8 weeks now, he's not ready to take the breast and I am not ready to give up. There's not a day that passes by when I don't try feeding for him and keep wishing that someday he might take the breast. Till then its hours with the pump for me :( quote'> Nams new, what you are doing is very selfless and takes so much work and dedication. Your baby is very lucky to have a mama like you. It is possible to get the baby on the breast even at 8 weeks. I am sure you have but have you talked to any of the local supporters or LCs that are on the list on here? Keep it up. It is totally possible for him to take the breast. Have you tried an SNS or at the breast system? <em>edited by SweetLily on 07/11/2011</em>

Hi KTS, My baby is EBF and I am exclusively expressing for my baby (not by choice). I felt I'll share my experience with you. Expressing is really hard work, with none of the benefits that breastfeeding offers you like bonding with your baby. You will be spending more time hiding in your room if you are expressing than feeding..... trust me, my in-laws are visitng too, and sometimes I feel I am cooped up in my room for half the time I am awake. Expressing can be tedious and painful. Also there is the additonal hassle of sterilizing, cleaning and refigerating. If I may, my advise is give breastfeeding a shot. Nothing can be more beneficial for your baby than taking milk directly from you. My DS was born a little early and was in NICU for 3 days. He was given bottle and could not suck. At 8 weeks now, he's not ready to take the breast and I am not ready to give up. There's not a day that passes by when I don't try feeding for him and keep wishing that someday he might take the breast. Till then its hours with the pump for me :( Whatever you decide, I wish you good luck. If you need any more info, do let me know. HTH.

There's some really great advice below. If I were you, I'd read it carefully, there's a lot there!

Congratulations on your upcoming birth! Excellent posts by kiwispiers and SweetLily. Good suggestion to connect with a Breastfeeding Counsellor near you to talk through any issues or concerns that you have (it's completely normal to worry about things, and a good idea to get information and avenues of support set up in advance). If you're in the UAE, have a look at the thread which Lexie has bumped for you (details of Counsellors and Lactation Consultants are in the first post). xx

KTS you are over-thinking it (as we all tend to do :) ) I would suggest you don't make up your mind in advance regarding breastfeeding. I thought I would be like that too, but its a weird thing,once you start breastfeeding a lot, you sort of disconnect from your breasts, in that they feel like a part of your baby instead of a part of you and you are a lot less reserved about the idea of feeding in front of others, it also changes the way you feel when others feed their babies. (you no longer feel the need to look at the ceiling when you talk to them). It is better you have a few weeks to yourself to get your head around it before opening the doors to in influx of guests though. It would be a real shame for your baby to miss out on the many benefits of being EBF just because they family couldn't wait a little. That said, you don't need to breastfeed in public to successfully exclusively breastfeed, having had a baby who was at first a poor latcher, and then very distractible, I have very rarely breastfed in "public". When at malls I generally pop into the changing room at a shop and at people's houses they are always happy to offer you a quiet bedroom. As far as you husbands family visiting, personally I think breastfeeding is more important, so if it was me I would delay their visit. Breastfeeding aside, you need to be very comfortable in your own home in the early days, able to sit around in your pajamas with your hair a mess, taking mid-day naps etc, I would have hated having my in-laws around so hiding away to Bf might be a welcome break :). You are right that you shouldn't pump in the early days, you won't get enough out as colostrum is very hard to pump and will probably hurt your nipples trying. I think exclusive pumping is not a good idea if you have the choice (i.e if your baby is willing to feed directly and you are not working), it is very hard to sustain long term as the pump does not stimulate your breasts the same as a baby. If you don't feel like you would be comfortable BF in front of others how do you think you would feel pumping in front of them, which takes even longer. ......most importantly, and I will write this in caps for emphasis. DO NOT GIVE ANY WATER BETWEEN FEEDS UNLESS YOU WANT TO STARVE YOUR BABY. Thats a very blunt way of putting it, but its the truth, in hot weather your body self dilutes your breastmilk to give it a higher water content, so if you give additional water via a bottle, you are giving your baby water overload, they will drink less milk as a result and so get less calories in a day, not what you want at all. Do not do this despite the advice of well meaning relatives who don't know the different "rules" for formula and breastfeeding. Exclusive breastfeeding means exactly that, no water, no honey, no sugar water, no juice, no cereal......... If you give any water or formula, this will send a message to make less milk to your breasts, resulting in a supply drop, so be wary of doing this if you want to be able to breastfeed past a few months. Having your husband spend 5 minutes giving a bottle or not will make zero difference in his bonding with the baby, I don't see this as a good reason not to breastfeed at all. He can hold your baby, bath your baby, change your baby, put her down for naps etc etc etc. I actually don't think breastfeeding is essentially for you to bond either, but there are so many other reasons for you to breastfeed, I think if you do some research it will motivate you to get past your shyness. As far as they confusion/preference for a bottle that can develop, most LCs will tell you that its best to wait around 6 weeks, for breastfeeding to be well established before giving a bottle but to give it before 12 weeks or you may face the issue of it not being accepted. Maybe you could delay the arrival of your husband's family until at least then?. I pumped initially due to sore nipples but took away all bottles of EBM at the 4 month mark as my wee guy was starting to reject the breast, I think giving it at att he start probably did effect the way he sucked on my breast, leading to sore nipples for longer... If you do think you would like to express rather than giving formula, you should spend the money on a good pump, I would buy the medela double pump. You can buy it second hand and buy all new tubing etc so only the motor is "used". Pumping can be tremendously time consuming, especially in the early days (you might have to do 3x 20 minute pumps to get enough milk for one feed). If I had realised this in advance I would have never bought single pump. (There are some women who get a great let-down for the pump and its much faster but they seem the lucky minority). If you really want to breastfeed, I would suggest that you try and do a short breastfeeding class before you give birth, it is also very important that your husband be educated on breastfeeding as the support of the husband has a big effect statistically on breastfeeding success. He can make life easier for you and be involved in the breastfeeding process by bringing you the baby, getting you comfortable (cushions, water, phone, food etc) and staying with you for company or keeping close by so that when you finish he can burp the baby and change their nappy. Its a good way to split the task as all that stuff takes just as much time as the actually feeding and its good for guys to do it from day one so they become confident handling the baby so don't let family push him aside. All the best and I hope you figure it out, its truly impossible to know how you will feel until you have that tiny little baby in your arms but I can honestly say, as a mother still breastfeeding her 15 month old, it has been one of the most challenging and yet by far one of the most rewarding/beautiful experiences in my life. :)

Hey there, KTS. Ok. There is no reason why you and your little baby won't have a wonderful nursing experience. I would say that all the worries that you're talking about can be overcome. As far as nursing in public, it is possible that once you start nursing you will feel a lot more comfortable with nursing in public. It is very much accepted here and as a breastfeeding supporter I have talked to lots of moms and none have ever had a problem nursing in public. That said, some women are just not comfortable. You can use a cover very easily. There are lots of very cute nursing covers out there. When you're at home you can ask people to leave the room if you want or can cover up with a blanket. There are really a lot of options with covering so it is totally possible to nurse in front of other people and they wouldn't even notice you were doing it. There are so many other ways for your husband to bond with the baby. He can bath the baby or wear the baby in the sling. He can hold the baby as you nurse her or can very much cater to you as you nurse by getting you water, snacks, etc. He can read to the baby as she nurses. Very clear research has shown that fathers or exclusively breast fed babies can bond just as much as bottle fed babies. It is possible to exclusively pump your milk, even from day one. But this is a lot of work and you are right about it being very possible that the baby then only wanting the bottle once he or she is used to it. Exclusive pumping takes a lot of dedication. It is twice as much work and requires twice as much time. Rather than just relaxing and feeding the baby you must prepare your pump, take the time to pump, clean the pump, clean the bottles, prepare the bottles and then feed baby. It is also not as effective at keeping your supply up since baby is much better at getting the milk out than the pump will be. Simply put, if you nurse from the breast and on demand from the get go your chances of having a sucessful nursing relationship is far, far higher. A breastfed baby needs nothing but breastmilk for at least 6 months. No water, no juice, no cereal, nothing. You do not need to give the baby water. The people who said that to you are misinformed. My advice to you is to visit your local Le Leche League leader before the birth. They will meet with you for free and have fantastic information and will be able to give wonderful support after the birth also. http://www.llli.org/uae.html There is another wonderful group called Breastfeeding Q&A UAE. They have trained women who are able to talk through all of your concerns: http://www.facebook.com/pages/Breastfeeding-QA-UAE/150974098253197 Unfortunately breastfeeding isn't natural in our Western culture anymore. It is something that must be learned. The best thing you can do to ensure a great nursing relationship is to get great support BEFORE the birth. Once the baby arrives you will already have people in place that you can call when you need any advice, which most mothers do. I hope that helps. I feel you on being stressed about nursing. There is a lot of information and a lot of horror stories out there but it is totally possible to have a wonderful and fantastic experience with the right support in place. Hugs to you (and congrats on the upcoming baby!!).

don´t worry about it now. The decsion to do the breastfeeding to start with is the best you can do for your baby. Everything else will come step by step. You might find yourself not even being embaressed after some weeks or get sore nipples and give up on the whole idea anyway or... You have the right ideas about it. Everything else will come one way or the other.

I am a huge fan of Gina Fords book - "the contented little baby book". it helped a lot with routines and sleeping, but as part of that, it also dealt with breastfeeding routines. Her version is to breastfeed completely for the first two weeks and then introduce one bottle feed of expressed milk late in the evening - for the ten pm feed. That way your husband/family can be involved in the feeding. I did this with two of my kids, and found it to be perfect for us. None of my kids have ever been confused between the two, however my first child never ever took a bottle as I left it too late to try and introduce it (at 6 months). This was a problem as I could never leave her through a feed time until she was a year old and I stopped breastfeeding. I think you should find a way to incorporate the breastfeeding into your family life even if you have a houseful of folks. Perhaps pick a quiet corner and turn a chair around, or use a big shawl over you both. Good luck with it all!