Breastfeeding is making me miserable
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Anonymous
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My baby is three weeks old and my "breastfeeding journey" thus far has been so stressful. I've met with a lactation consultant twice and she has me pumping six times a day to increase supply and offering small supplemental bottles of breastmilk after I try to breastfeed. My poor daughter screams while I try to nurse her. I feel so inadequate and whenever I try to look up breastfeeding issues online, I feel worse about myself because the tone of most advice seems so judgmental to anyone who needs to supplement. I have cried over this.
I guess I'm just hoping for some commiseration. I am lonely and feel so bad that I can't provide for my daughter. |
Anonymous
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If you aren’t enjoying it - please just stop. You don’t need to breastfeed. You are enough. Enjoy your newborn.
(I love breastfeeding and my advice would be different if you wanted solutions) |
Anonymous
| It’s not all or nothing. I hard a hard time with my supply for ds. Things got better for me when I just accepted that I could both breastfeed and give him formula. I would do both during the day, and at bedtime, nurse first, then “top him off” with a bottle of formula. |
Anonymous
| Fed is best! |
Anonymous
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Three weeks is early. Is this your first?
It takes a good 4, maybe 5 weeks, to settle into breastfeeding. This is especially true if you or baby have any difficulties. With my first I had so many problems, and baby wouldn't take a bottle and was losing a ton of weight. We had to syringe feed her for like two weeks! But breastfeeding improved and it was awesome, I'm glad I stuck with it - especially since mostly it's NEWBORNS that are hard, whether you're breast or bottle feeding. Hang in there. It gets so much better. |
Anonymous
Sending you big hugs. It feels like it shouldn’t be this hard, but it sometimes doesn’t work out. It’s not because you didn’t try! You really can switch to formula, your child will be fine. My kids are in middle school and I have NO clue which kids were breasted and which were not. If people are judgy then let them be judgy—your parenting will be judged over the years. May as well develop a tough shell now. 
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Anonymous
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Seasoned breastfeeding Mom here on baby #2. I exclusively breastfed / pumped my first child for over 2 years and the beginning was hell.
My second was in the NICU so I had no choice but to supplement from the beginning. Could I torture her and us while attempting to go back to fully breastfed? Absolutely. Am I going to do it? No. Do I feel guilty? A little. The lactation consultants in the hospital were like, hey, you have to pump all night long while she's in the NICU. After 24 hours of active labor there was no way in hell I was waking up to pump either. They also wanted me to pump if she didn't feed every 3 hours. I'm not doing that either. I have a bit more confidence in my strategy only because I breastfed for so long. I'm not sacrificing my sanity for supply. It's ok to supplement. Eventually I'm going to also start back on regular birth control which they tell you not to do too. I'm not risking a other pregnancy and didn't have supply issues on regular birth control last time. In other words, I take the advice with a HUGE grain of salt. Not everyone has to have the same breastfeeding journey. In fact you are doing great by managing everything as best you can! Just keep repeating that and eventually you'll feel it. |
Anonymous
| I'm so sorry you're feeling this way, OP. I've been where you are and I know how sad and defeated I felt at a time when I should have been trying to enjoy and get to know my sweet baby. You can absolutely stop nursing. You can also supplement with formula if you don't want to stop nursing yet, but need a break. Either way is fine; sending hugs. |
Anonymous
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One of mine never latched no matter how many nurses, doctors, and lactation specialists we saw. I pumped for as long as I could manage it, but eventually it was getting in the way of bonding. We were both happier with the bottle.
Years later a speech therapist discovered that he had no sensation in part of his mouth and guessed that he never latched. He'll be off to college soon, and has suffered nothing for having had a bottle as an infant. Feeding your daughter is providing for her. There is more than one way to feed a baby. |
Anonymous
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Been there, done that and more. Just stop, OP. I kept at it for months and it drove me crazy. I ended up feeling resentful toward my daughter and finally threw in the towel. I should have done it so much earlier. I killed myself to pump 4-6 oz a day total. When I had my son, I tried for just a couple of weeks. Same story so I quit.
My mom successfully breastfed 4 kids including a set of twins and it didn't even occur to me that I'd have any issues. I felt horrible at first, then badly, and now 5 + years later it's not even a blip on my radar. It so doesn't matter, OP, how your child gets fed. |
Anonymous
I was lot less miserable when I gave up nursing in favor of exclusively pumping. I too feel inadequate and frustrated when trying to nurse and my daughter was just screaming, and biting instead of latching (it felt like biting when she desperately close her mouth on half a nipple ), not to mention the pain in my poor nipples. For exclusively pumping I rented a pump from hospital ( the freebie from the insurance wasn't cutting it) and did some "power pumping". That did the trick. I get enough supply to keep her happy plus the peace of mind of knowing how many ounces she has each day. |
Anonymous
First, STOP. You are providing for your daughter! She is fed and growing. She feels your love and is secure. Being a mother is so much more than mammary glands. Second, you are early in this journey. - I had a terrible time for the first four weeks and supplemented but then it got miraculously easy and I nursed for 15 months. - My SIL hated nursing from the first day and pumped for six months and was happier. - My BFF had a super easy time and a great supply but had to stop at 4 weeks because of severe anxiety and the absolute need to go on strong medication. - My sister adopted her baby and was formula fed from her first bottle. And we’re all good Mother’s. |
Anonymous
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You may want to consult with a speech therapist or an ENT. I had problems breastfeeding both my kids. We got by sortof with the help of a really excellent lactation consultant at the Washington Breastfeeding Center in downtown DC (are they still there?). Problems were due to:
Child A - very low muscle tone in mouth Child B - tongue tie Reflux and food allergies were also contributing issues with both, so may be worth looking into those as well. If this doesn't work, there is NO SHAME in bottle feeding. Pumping multiple bottles a day sounds miserable. Just supplement with formula. Try the hypoallergenic ones. |
Anonymous
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Thanks so much everyone. Yes, this is my first child. She's getting exclusively breastmilk, but a lot of it is via bottle, which of course means a lot of time pumping. I am of two minds about it - it gets in the way of bonding, but does offer the peace of mind of knowing how much she's getting. Another layer of guilt is I feel like maybe she's rejecting nursing because she prefers bottles now and it's all my fault.
I didn't go into this with some philosophical opposition to formula, but I guess I ended up drinking the kool-aid. I guess I should set a date to consider a new plan if it continues to be this hard/sad. |
Anonymous
| Use formula. No reason to go through that. |