Hi
I've been hanging on grimly waiting for the pain to ease and bf to feel comfortable or at least not painful for the last while, but it just doesn't show any signs of letting up!
The first cluster feeding stage was agony but I thought once I'd got through that, the rest would be manageable. Now I'm six weeks in and although I seem to have lots of milk, I'm regularly topping up with one or two formula feeds in the evening because my boobs are too sore to feed from and I can't express fast enough to fill him (I probably could express more but I'd also like to shower/sleep/feed myself, and I don't usually know yet if he's going to sleep for a few hours or demand to be fed in one hour).
Please help! I'd like to keep going and eventually drop the formula altogether. The problems: Although there's brief pain while latching on, it's not usually uncomfortable while feeding, unless he starts messing about - changing his grip mid-feed and letting go of the breast and clamping down on my nipple. But he does tend to clamp on the nipple and twist his head away at the end of a feed, which bloody hurts. I've tried pulling his face into my breast to make him release the nipple to breathe, but I think he's still too young to understand the connection between nose and mouth and breathing!
It doesn't help that he feeds like a madman, very enthusiastically. After feeding, my nipples go white within a few minutes, and then sting. And I get sharp pains shooting through my breasts after he has fed, through the next three hours or so til he wants to feed again. If I express on one side but feed on the other, only the fed side will hurt. I've tried expressing only on days when there's been too much nipple trauma, but although I can pump almost 20 ozs, I'm just not fast enough to keep up with demand! My skin is very pale and sensitive, and I'm finding it very tough going.
I want to continue, I do love looking down at him and seeing how contented he is, but I'm so fed up of constant soreness. I'd heard that by six weeks it should have significantly changed for the better, but it hasn't and I don't want to resent the time spent on painful feeds when I could be enjoying him. I don't want to groan and dread it every time he's hungry sooner than expected, or beg DH to take him and occupy him so I can express while he cries because I can't bear to inflict him on my nipples again, though the guilt kills me and DH looks reproachfully at me.
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Infant feeding
DS is 6 weeks and the pain isn't stopping
40 replies
FlatFacedArmy · 15/11/2012 09:46
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