It seems that I am destined to not breastfeed my child.
This afternoon, I had a nasty pain in my left breast, a lot like when you press on a buise, except that it was constant (but made worse if something touched it). When LO was nursing or when any gentle pinching pressure was applied to the nipple, it was also worse. As the day wore on I was exhausted and my breast felt a little hot to the touch, so I started to suspect a plugged duct or the beginnings of mastitis. I'm seeing the doctor tomorrow anyway, so I ignored it. Now, the general pain is gone, but it's still very painful when LO nurses that side. What is going on? LO's latch is terrible, yes; but this is a deep breast pain, not the kind of pain I've always had from her bad latch. We're both currently being treated for thrush, if that makes a difference.
LO will still usually only let me nurse her while in motion: if I try to sit or lay down, she arches her back, drops the nipple, and cries. We've tried swaddling her, having me sit down slowly, nursing in a side-lying position, and rocking while nursing. If she's in one of her Motion Moods - which I'd say happens about 70% of the time - there's no getting her to nurse any other way.
She's now started to spit up breastmilk, but only breastmilk: the formula we've put her on since moving to the UK is specially designed for babies with reflux and regurgitation problems, and she keeps that down fine. Every time I breatfeed her, she spits up, a lot.
The falling asleep at the breast is getting worse. To wake her, we've tried calling her name; talking to her constantly throughout the nursing session; patting her butt firmly but of course gently; taking her socks off; tickling her feet (which she normally hates); blowing air onto her face and applying a cool washcloth to her forehead and behind her ears. I've even tried tickling her nose with my hair, nothing works. So what happens is I start nursing her, and can hear her gulping milk down very quickly (I think I have a fast letdown). Once the intial 'heavy gulping' has calmed down, she falls right to sleep. I put her in her bouncy chair or swing. She sleeps for anything from five to twenty minutes. She nurses again for five. She falls asleep. My mother screams at me to "breastfeed her properly or give up" * . And repeat, until eventually LO becomes too frustrated to nurse, I'm upset, and LO is so hungry that she eats 6oz of formula, and my mother starts to rant about how I'm obviously not producing enough to satisfy my big baby.
*(Side note: REALLY, mother? You've seen me struggling with this from the day LO was born and not give up with it, even though it's making my life miserable and even putting a strain on my marriage, and the best support you can give me is 'do it properly' ? You... Uuughh.)
Also, I've never been able to find any good resources for supplementing. I can tell that LO is getting enough because she's happy, healthy, gaining weight, and her diaper output is good. But what I'm working on doing is pumping so that when LO won't nurse or it's too painful, I can give her bottled breastmilk. Obviously it will take time to get my supply back up enough that I can get her off of formula completely, though, and all I can find assumes that baby is getting only bottled breastmilk or only formula. I know that 6oz formula =/= 6oz breastmilk because breastmilk changes as baby ages, so I don't know how many oz I should be giving her; or whether she'll even be satisfied by that or want more because she's used to bottles being a 6oz formula feed.
I'm sorry to be so negative, ladies, but we've had one thing after another and all I've ever wanted to do is breastfeed my child. I'm starting to completely lose all hope that I can stick at this, and I so desperately need advice
(The good news is, now that I'm done moving, I can FINALLY find a LLL group, yay!)