My breastfeeding story Part 6: The turning point

In Part 5 of my breastfeeding story, I finished by writing about the weekend I introduced a bottle of formula for one of Little Man’s feeds. This was a really low point for me. I felt I was letting him down by feeding him formula when he should be getting breastmilk. But I was so worn out by the whole experience, I felt I had no choice.

It took me by surprise how much extra energy I had just by substituting that one feed a day. It was a feed that Charlie could do, and it was one less bottle of expressed milk that I had to pump. I didn’t know it then, but that formula feed would be the very thing that would give me the energy to continue breastfeeding. It gave me the break I needed each day, and allowed my body a chance to heal.

I still wasn’t satisfied with the Public Health Nurse’s dismissal of my worries about the way that Little Man was latching. She might have felt that it was too late now for him to learn to latch properly, but I wasn’t going to write off his ability to learn something new just yet! After all, what do babies do but learn new things every day?

So I searched and searched online. I spent hours on kellymom.com reading articles and advice about breastfeeding. I searched through parenting discussion forums for stories from people with similar problems. At this stage, I was actually starting to suffer a little bit from oversupply as a result of all of the pumping, and that was causing Little Man to splutter and choke. That proved to be very easy to deal with though. Following some advice online, I pumped a small amount immediately before feeding him to relieve any engorgement, and then I lay flat, and latched him on with him lying on top of me. This isn’t one of the feeding positions you’ll find in the standard breastfeeding leaflets! It was advice I read online in response to someone’s query on oversupply. Apparently the milk flows more slowly in this position, the letdown is weaker, and baby is better able to drink without choking or gulping. It worked really well. Soon all the feeds from my right side were normal breastfeeds, greatly reducing the amount of pumping I had to do. I was delighted!

But the latch still wasn’t quite right. I started watching instructional videos on YouTube to try to figure out where I was going wrong by seeing how other people’s babies fed. One of those videos explained how baby’s tongue should stick slightly out over his bottom lip while he is feeding. I was surprised to read this. I couldn’t ever remember seeing Little Man’s tongue. Then I read some more. I came across some information on tongue tie. I’d never even heard of this as a problem for breastfeeding. Apparently it’s something they check for by default in the UK, but it’s not dealt with in Ireland unless it poses a problem with speech when the child is older.

Babies with tongue tie may be able to feed, but often they encounter problems. They can have a poor latch, require a number of attempts to latch, latch on and off frequently, and they may make a clicking sound while feeding. Little Man did all of this. I just needed to see beneath his tongue to see if it was tied. I couldn’t get him to show me though!

Charlie and I spent an entire evening sticking our tongues out at Little Man and asking him to do the same. He just looked at us – and why wouldn’t he? Clearly, his parents had lost it! But at this stage, you’ve probably realised that I can be persistent! So we kept going, until finally, laughing at us at this stage, Little Man responded by sticking his tongue right out! I got such a shock! Obviously not tongue tied then!

But…here’s the crazy thing…the very next time I fed him, he latched properly! I thought it was a fluke, a one-off, but he did the same at the next feed, and the feed after that. And not just on the right side, but on the left side too! He was just over eight weeks old and he had finally learned how to feed. It was like our little game sticking out our tongues had made him aware of his own tongue, and after that he was able to feed properly. I still don’t fully understand it. But within another week the expressing had stopped and all the feeds save for that one formula feed in the evening were normal breastfeeds. We had done it! Even now looking back at it I can’t quite believe that it worked out in the end. Which leads me to the next part of the story: The good stuff!

Don't stick your tongue out at me!