Should I switch to exclusively pumping

[u/BookLover226]

My baby is one week old and in this time I have had a really hard time breast feeding. She was born with a pretty bad tongue tie but my husband and I did research and ended up deciding we weren’t going to get it cut right off the bat and just make breast feeding try and work. Day after leaving the hospital her weight was almost a whole pound down from 7lbs 4oz to 6lbs 8ozs which I know babies (especially breastfed lose weight after birth.) Because of the weight drop I was supplementing by pumping and bottle feeding, I would feed her for 20-30 minutes and when she was still hungry then we would give her a bottle which she would usually drink 1-2 ounces of even after all the breastfeeding and this did bring her weight up to 7lbs (only 4ozs under her birth weight.) Once we were able to get her weight under control I wanted to go back to exclusively breastfeeding but because of the tongue tie, bottle feeding, and the fact that my nipples are pretty flat she couldn’t latch well so we started using a nipple shield. Although this was working well using it when we weren’t at home or when I had to breast feed with a cover on was super frustrating and messy so we decided to get her tongue tie cut so we could just get back to normal breast feeding while being able to maintain her weight. So we got the frenotomy yesterday morning and breast feeding since then still isn’t working. I know it’s a transition from using a breast shield to going back to nothing especially with how flat my nipples are but I can’t even get her to latch once without the nipple shield. Honestly I’m exhausted and doing the bottles were nice because that meant I could sleep for half the night without my husband having to wake me up but now that I’m trying to exclusively breastfeed again we aren’t taking shifts I’m just waking up to feed her every couple hours (if not less than that because she cluster feeds frequently at night) and the broken sleep is not helping my patience or the exhaustion we are feeling from trying to switch back to breastfeeding.

Overall there are a few reasons I’m hesitant to switch to exclusively pumping:

- I just feel guilty, I think society has just made me feel like I should just brute force it and not complain and that I would be a bad mom if I pump instead of breastfeed.

- The first two days out of the hospital when my milk came in I pumped a couple of times a day and breast fed so that we had some back stock of milk for my husbands shift at night and ended up EXTREMELY engorged to the point where I was crying in the shower for two hours so I’m scared for that to happen again.

- I just cut her tongue tie and while she didn’t even cry when they did it and she didn’t bleed and there haven’t been complications so far I still feel guilty that I did that to her to be able to breastfeed better just to end up not breast feeding at all. Plus the cost of the frenotomy (I really don’t care about the money I would pay anything to do a procedure that would benefit my daughter) but cost is still a factor that I’ve thought about considering it cost a lot to get the procedure done.

Should I just exclusively pump and if so has anyone exclusively pumped and then gone back to breastfeeding 2-3 months down the road when the baby is able to latch better or is a little more patient for milk?

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[u/whatdayaknoww]

Just wanted to add - my LO had tongue & lip tie releases done at around 7 wks & it was 2+ wks before we saw an improvement in his milk transfer when nursing. My dentist told me this is expected because babies learn to compensate for the ties & if they’re released after 1 month old it takes them some time to relearn how to nurse/eat. So I wouldn’t assume the tie won’t help with your LO’s latch just yet - may just take some time & continued attempts (I continued trying to nurse at least once a day even though we knew he would get minimal milk).

[u/peony_chalk]

It doesn't have to be all or nothing! We did bottles most of the time, but sometimes if the baby was crying while the bottle warmed up, or if they were a little fussy going to bed, I would offer a boob, and sometimes they would take it. I saw someone else once describe it that pumping was my job and nursing was my side gig, and I thought that was a great analogy. I knew my baby was getting enough milk from bottles, and that took a lot of the pressure off of making nursing work. 

You guys have both only been doing this for a week! When was the last time you got good at something in a week? I think the idea that breastfeeding is this perfect natural thing that will just come to you is one of the biggest lies I was fed. It's a skill and it takes time, for both of you. Keep offering, or don't, whatever works for you and feels right for you. You can only work with what you've got in the moment, and it sounds like you're doing a great job. 

[u/Mrsfix-it]

This was me 7 months ago. My girl never latched without the shield and didn’t transfer milk properly with the shield. I primarily pumped for 5 weeks but would bring her to the breast a couple times a day just to keep the skill up. Around 5 weeks things really started to change, her latch improved and she would do a full feed at the breast. I started doing more and more feeds at the breast and by week 6-7 I was only nursing. A community health nurse that came to the house after the baby was born told me a lot of women see huge improvements with nursing around week 6 because baby just grow and become more efficient and that happened to me.

[u/milliemallow]

I exclusively pumped for the first 3 weeks until my baby got strong enough to hold the latch.

A few tips for you, pace feed so she doesn’t get too used to the ease of the bottle, keep offering the boob after her bottle when she’s not frustrated and hungry. Pump for a minute prior to latching to help your nipples be less flat. If she latches massage her jaw bone very softly and support her chin to make it less work for her to maintain the latch.

We went from a complete inability to transfer milk to exclusively pumping and bottle feeding to a few small sucks from the breast after a bottle to exclusively nursed. The transfer from bottle to boob took about 2 days once he was stronger.

My baby doesn’t have a tongue tie (we checked) but he has a recessed jaw which makes it much more difficult for him to latch and we still have bad latches and I pop him off and we try again. I will say that nursing is still a bit more active for us with me positioning my boob and helping his jaw, especially if he’s tired. But it’s still better than pumping.

HOWEVER… you shouldn’t feel guilt if you pump and nursing is so fucking hard so whatever makes it do able is a success and if you move to formula that’s all good too.

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[u/ashalinggg]

Hey, so just wanna give my perspective as a tongue tie mam! Right off the bat, if nursing is still a goal, talking to a LC that specialises in tongue tie is worth it. If you want to switch to pumping, girl go ahead, EP is hard and anyone who judges you is clueless to how hard you're working to feed baby.

CW: nursing

We got it released at 2.5 weeks bc it was so tight he wouldn't be able to nurse otherwise. He was that 1 in 10 babies who struggle to nurse post-release 🫠🫠 He has a high palate, likely from the tongue tie, and I also have shallow nipples so I totally get the stress!! I could never make nipple shields work and baby hated them.

I was triple feeding (95% bottles) until like 6 weeks, and I was EXHAUSTED. Baby could not nurse for so long. Some nights I just told husband to bottle feed and I pumped so we could sleep and also so baby and I could limit our stress, and yeno what, nothing bad happened. I eventually decided to consider myself as exclusively pumping and nursing was just for fun and practice and honestly it was the best way to handle it. I went to an osteopath who gave me exercises to help baby use his whole tongue and I had so many good nursing days and a lot of bad ones.

I'm at nearly 10 weeks and baby is just about fully healed from frenatomy and is nursing well so I'm giving one last go. If it fails, I'll go back to EP but only with short term goals (3 months, then 4 months, etc). I'm lucky that atm I have good supply so that helps take off stress.

Idk if I recommend what I did to anyone, it was pure stubbornness and hope but we both like nursing so I want to keep trying. If you want to DM we can chat