Hi i'm new

Hi i'm new here,
My name is fran i'm 22 and i have two beautiful little boys. I succesfully fed my oldest son (now 3 and a half years old), for almost 2 years, i didn't have any problems.
However my second son is a completely different story, from the first night in hospital he didn't latch properly, he would feed then constantly come off and cry and go back on again. I persevered, at around 5 days old i was told to just put him onto forumla milk by a midwife as he was apparently (i couldn't see it!) slightly jaundiced and had lost some of his birth weight. She made me panick a bit so i did as she said, i fed him myself then i topped him up with formula, i did the twice but he threw up the bottle of formula milk. So i decided to not do what the midwife had said and started to express milk instead, so i started topping him up after feeds with expressed milk once at night and once in the mornings, everyday.
Hi weight though wasn't great he gains weight very slowly, and he dosn't feed well, he is constantly pulling off, crying going back, crying pulling off again. Then he has episodes where he will try to feed then just lay and pull his legs up. He has now dropped two centile lines on the weight charts, and we have been reffered to the peadicians about his weight.
Last week i started to notice i wasn't producing as much milk all of a sudden - where i expres milk everyday i can see how much there is usually and all of a sudden its just not happening, and the baby will feed - he sucks and sucks for a few minutes then bursts into tears of fustration - i squeeze and nothing is there.
I have tried evrythign i can possibly think of - i saw my doctor she was no help and just told me to put him onto formula - i said i did not want to do that so she said she would get him reffered to a peadiartician - i should have the appointment within 14 days - then maybe they can perscribe me soemthign to increase my milk supply - but by then i think it will be too late.
So now - against what i wanted to do, i have had no choice but to start giving him 2 bottles of formula milk a day, i am still trying to feed him myself as much as i can but there is still not much milk there.
Since he's had the formula he's started vomitting against quite often and his nappies are very very runny and whereas before he would have a dirty nappy once every 3-4 days its now at least 1 - more like 2 or 3 a day! I am also wondering if maybe he has some kind of dairy intolerance or something, but i am completely stuck on what to do and the doctor is no help at all.

Welcome to the forum,

We had a very similar problem post recently which im trying to find for you ,so will be back !!

I would say though that dont take an indication of what you express to be a correct measure of what your producing.
There could be many reasons for him to be fussing,thrush,fast flow or reflux problem. One of the experts will give you some questions im sure & then we will be able to get this sorted for you. Dont give up hope ,theres always a solution xx

First of all welcome :aww:

I am sorry your having problems.

As you know, breastfeeding is a supply on demand basis. So the less hes on, the less your breasts will produce.

Its important while your trying to figure out the problem that for every feed you are not doing yourself and inbetween that you pump or even better ( which I undertsand is difficult) putting him on with plenty of skin to skin.

Also for your milk supply try and get lots of oats in your diet, as these help increase milk supply naturaly (along with pumping and latching). You can get herbs to help but they are a very last resort after pumping,latching and oats fail, so we can talk about that if that comes about.


When he feeds does he seem uncomfortable? You said he comes off a lot and crunches his legs up? is that right? does he produce a lot of wind? How old is you son? if hes going through a growth spurt its quite common for them to become frustrated, but perserverance is the only thing that will stop that along with the constant latching. but your having problems so that doesn't help!

The reaction to the formula could simply be because its too heavy on his little tummy, its thick and hard to digest compaired to breastmilk but yes an intolerence could be possible.

Another thing is poke your tongue out at him, can he do it back without problems and mimick you?

Also how much dairy do you consume in your diet? anything spicy?

Hi,
thanks for the replies. My son, he's called Daniel, is 11 weeks old. I don't eat much spicy food, i do eat dairy however i did try to cut it out for a few days - he stopped crunching his legs up when i did this, but still didn't seem to get enough. He does have a lot of wind and always has done since birth. I do think the formula is too heavy for him, but i have noticed the only time he actually seems properly satisfied and sleeps for more then 10 minutes without waking up again is after he's had some formula milk. I really don't like to give him formula - its like a last resort for me but thats all the doctor would recommend to me. I have been eating lots of oats since saturday as i read on the internet that they can help, though so far its not had much effect yet.

Well your supply has dipped so it will seem as though hes not 'satisfied' also hes coming upto 12 weeks which is another growth spurt time, so its very common.

I think you should go back to eliminating dairy from your diet, and plenty of skin to skin and latching.

The formula will seem to satisfy him as I said because its heavy and takes longer to digest.

The only way you are going to get him back 100% breastfed is to get him on your breasts as much as you can and to also pump in between.
He will be very fussy and seem discontented but it will soon go once your supply is back up.
Along with eliminating the dairy to see if this helps with the fussing.

You need to emliminate it for longer than a few days to see if its really the cause, its only what the ped will suggest anyway im sure.

Also like Jane has said, what type of milk flow do you have? is it fast? slow. what is your let down like?

Have you tried different feeding positions? like the ones at the top of the forum?

Firstly ,Hi and welcome

Having a very similar age gap with my two children I was wondering how much you get to relax and rest to feed with a three year old. I mention this because I did find Emily more difficult to latch on if I was stressed out/rushing because of my DS. Also if you are rushing around a lot and are getting stressed about the weight gain etc then this can have an impact on milk production and also babies are very sensitive to this.

Do you drink plenty aswell?? Lack of fluids can impact as well as diet.

Hope the advice hear can help you continue to BF as you sound like you want to :aww:

:aww: welcome to the forum, hope we can help you through this!

hi and welcome hun x x x

How is it going? hope your ok :aww:

Lisa thats a good point about fluids, i found it really hard to drink water,cant stand it & i found that when my hubby forced me to drink gallons of that & barley water ,my milk improved a lot.

Hello and welcome :aww:
How are things now? :aww: