Re: Baby is reluctant to latch and isn't transferring milk
WOAH!
That was pretty much MY birth and postpartum story.
I'll tell you how my lactation consultant AND how experience has told me; babies are smart. They know which nipples give them milk and which don't.
Saying that, I'll move into my story;
Desmond, wanted a natural birth, after 50 hours of induced labor at 42 weeks 2 days, had to emergency c-section.
Same as you--latched in hospital. Fed in hospital.
Got home--wasn't moving milk. Lost 10% of birthweight.
MANY MANY trips to lactation consultant.
Breast/nipple shield.
Didn't work, baby still wouldn't move milk.
Moved 1/4 an ounce in 30 minutes. Devastating.
Pumped every 2 hours on the dot. Bottle fed baby expressed breast milk for 2 weeks.
Baby went from 7 10 (birthweight was 8 14!!!) to 9 5 in those 2 weeks.
During the two weeks, what I found was that I would latch him with the breast shield.
My LC suggested only letting him latch n nurse for 15 minutes and then bottle feed him the ebm (expressed breast milk).
Confession; I stopped the shield. He wasn't moving milk with it, either.
I ended up just not even latching him for the first week. I really wanted him to gain weight. It was her idea that perhaps he was just behind the power curve. The second week, I latched him for 15 minutes at a time and bottle fed the ebm. Did that EVERY feeding.
The end of the second week of bottle feeding, she suggested I slowly wean out the bottle as he had gained a substantial amount.
I did one better and bottle fed one meal--and breastfed every meal on demand after that. He gained 4 oz in 4 days. And now we're EBF.
She suggested the SNS for me--and I gotta say..she did say for moms who can get it down, they loved it, for moms who can't..their babies got smart and used the tube as a straw.
I did NOT want the SNS. I wanted no more interventions.
So, in summation..pacifiers and bottles won't mess your kid up, bottle feed her LOTS of ebm to get her weight/strength up, keep putting her to breast every chance you get, see a Lactation Consultant, and understand that you aren't alone in these specific frustrations.
..it ended up my LO was just relearning to suck from his tongue tie.
Desmond Ringo Payton [5.31.12|8 lb 14 oz|22 in.|blonde|blue|beautiful|BACK TO BREAST 6.25.12]