I had a fantastic birth and in the delivery suite he just took to it and fed by himself and I didn't really think back in terms of my first child at all but for the first few months he seemed to be feeding well, he was gaining weight well, we didn't really have any particular problems until he was about three months old and then we hit quite a struggle point. I'd been on holiday in a hot country and I think I had an overflow of milk, and instead of feeding a lot which is what I expected him to do in a hot country he seemed to pull away and didn't want to feed very much, and that went on for a couple of weeks, and to the point where he was really struggling with me, and it was quite upsetting trying to feed him. And I went into the local breastfeeding clinic, there's a fantastic clinic in the local hospital, twice a week.
That was once you were home?
Once I was back home from holiday yeah. And I went in there, and the lady in there said, “Oh he looks like he's close to breast rejection” and I was quite panicked.
How did that make you feel?
Yeah quite panicky, particularly because he was refusing a bottle as well, and I'd tried expressing milk and giving him in a bottle and he wouldn't take that at all by that age, he did early on, he took some expressed milk early on, but by that age he was rejecting everything. So I was very nervous that, you know, I was going to have a real problem with feeding him at all.
How old was he by then?
He was about twelve weeks, fourteen weeks old maybe when I went to the clinic. And they were fantastic with me they said that, you know, there was a problem with the way he'd been latching on and in fact until that point he'd been almost sucking up the nipple by himself without really actively latching onto the, to the breast and he didn't have the same control of the milk flow, and they said that they thought it was really that, that he wasn't able to slow the milk down enough, and he needed to use his chin a bit more when I was feeding him, and it took a good two or three weeks of hard work to, to get it right again but from then on he was fine.
What sort of things did you do to entice him back to the breast?
I guess if he was reluctant I didn't push it I began to recognise that there were times when he'd been feeding before when it was really for comfort not for hunger, and so I let those times pass and, and really just waited till he was hungry, and I was very careful about the way I positioned myself, I probably used more cushions at that stage, 'cause you get a bit lazy with using cushions with one child I think and I used to just feed him anywhere and everywhere on my lap and, support him with my arms and, and by that stage my arms were quite tired as well so, I used to then be very careful about how I sat and used good support from the cushions. And was very careful about how I positioned his head, but even if I didn't think I was really latching him well, at least his chin was always on the breast then and, and he was, seemed much happier with it, within a week or two weeks he was fine.
Did you try feeding him in his sleep or anything like that to get him to latch on?
Not really no, he, I mean we kept the feeding patterns the same really and then he just took to it again, I think the help I had from the Breastfeeding Clinic was fantastic and, and it's run by two very, very knowledgeable ladies here, and they really tell you exactly what you're meant to try and do even if it doesn't always work. I went back two or three times and, and once a week or once every two weeks, after that we really managed to crack it.
Right, so you sort of led me to believe that you've put that down to the fact that you'd been away feeding in a hot country.
I think that's what set it off, in fact probably all along he hadn't been feeding in a brilliantly, technically correct way but, you know, I think fifty percent of the time babies don't, and I was just lucky that he continued to gain weight well so I'd never realised there was any problem.
What happened to his weight over this difficult period?
He really continued okay, he didn't.
So that wasn't a problem?
He didn't really seem to dip, maybe it just wasn't long enough for, for, for there to have been a problem but, no he did seem to continue fine, so the local health visitors who saw him weren't worried it was really a behavioural thing that he suddenly was pulling away and really struggling with me and getting cross when I was feeding him, so although I was probably quite persistent with him it wasn't a happy experience.
So it sounds like he was just about on a nursing strike?
He was close [laughs], I mean the use of the term, 'Breast rejection' was quite scary for me but, having been back to that clinic the ladies there were very straightforward in the way they speak, and I appreciate that now, and it, I, it was maybe a bit of a shock for me when I first arrived, but that's their style and they do it very well so now I really appreciate the way that they handled me, and it did mean that I worked hard at it rather than getting sloppy again, in my technique.
So in retrospect you appreciate being told up front…
Absolutely.
…but at the time…
At the time it scared me.
…it was hard?
Yeah, really scared me, but it meant that then I really did try hard and I went back to the clinic the next week so I knew that, I mean, as long as you know there's continual support I think you can get through a problem, I think if you know you're on your own and you come home and it goes wrong and then you've got nobody to speak to and no help then, then it becomes very difficult, but I had lots of friends who were breastfeeding and I was often out and about with friends feeding so I wasn't experiencing it completely on my own, and I think my husband was very supportive of our feeding so it did go well in the end. |
