Latch better at full breast - help!!!!!

[@llli*tonica.mom]

I just took a look at videos you sent. Thank you for those.
I am not sure how much paced feeding will have impact on him, except making additional frustration. He is already on slow flow teat. If we put medium flow teat he gets upset a bit. So, he is already more keen on slow flow.
I think he prefers his bottle because teat is firm (unlike my breast) and gives him stability, and flow is constant. No let down reflex to suprise him.
And he is pacing himself on bottle. If it gets too fast he moves away. And I can see him making pauses. Or somtimes he just sucks without really drinking.

[@llli*tonica.mom]

Update: I tried bottle feeding towards me. Omg! He fussed so much that he did not want to feed at all. Is this something to work on?

Question: how to do skin to skin during winter?

[@llli*maddieb]

I would suggest giving paced bottle feeding a try anyway, adjusting the position of the bottle as needed to increase or decrease flow (you might even be able to use a medium flow nipple if using paced feeding technique.) If baby is already regulating themselves, great, but since baby seems to prefer a slow flow anyway, I am not sure how paced feeding would be more frustrating. There are three major components to paced bottle feeding 1)baby's position 2) bottle position 3) caregiver offering pauses by changing the bottle position. So, using a slow flow teat does not do the same thing paced feeding does. I am not saying paced feeding will necessarily help now, but it is a feeding technique that is widely accepted as being useful in preventing breast refusal.

Bottles are the number one cause of breast refusal. Even if baby refused nursing before getting any bottles, subsequent bottle feeding is likely to increase breast disinterest. Bottles are not always avoidable, of course, but paced bottle feeding as well as avoiding overfeeding with bottles does seem to decrease the likleyhood of breast refusal after bottles.

I tried bottle feeding towards me. Omg! He fussed so much that he did not want to feed at all. Is this something to work on?

Well, a baby is not going to be able to breastfeed with their back to mom. So if your baby has learned to bottle feed facing out, that may be a barrier that needs to be overcome in order for baby to come back to the breast? But maybe not, this is not an exact science in any way. It is up to you how much you want to press that particular issue. If you want to try moving baby more towards facing you, I would suggest maybe try taking it a little at a time, slowly turning baby a little more each bottle?

Does baby tolerate being snuggled facing you when NOT feeding? I am wondering if the issue is the facing toward you or the body position baby is in? There are many, many, many ways to position a baby to nurse, and exploring those (if you have not already) might be a good idea. As a baby gets older especially, they usually can no longer tolerate being cradled when nursing. They need to have room to stretch our their body and tilt head back a bit when nursing. Cradling tends to cause the chin to tuck and the body to curl when baby gets 'longer.' So leaning back with baby on top, sidelying, sitting up while holding baby on a diagonal- etc. etc. As long as it is comfortable position for you and baby nurses, it is a "good" position.

[@llli*tonica.mom]

He is ok facing to me as long it is not nursing position.
And it is hard to keep him still in sitting position which is required for paced feeding.

[@llli*tonica.mom]

And please don't get me wrong about sitting and being still. I am not trying to feed him no matter what. But he is very unsettled baby when it comes to feeding. I could see in the eyes of different LCs when they saw his behaviour how they "gave up" on us. It is one thing working with an infant. And entirely different with crawling baby.

[@llli*maddieb]

Yes of course it is true that working with a newborn is different than working with a 5 or 6 month old, but an experienced LC would normally have plenty of experience with an "older" baby as well. How experienced are they with working with a baby with LM? Not much.

A baby does not have to be sat completely up to do paced bottle feeding, baby can be at a lean as needed. Just as with breastfeeding positions there are many bottle feeding positions things to try. I am not sure why baby has to be still... many babies move around a lot whether at breast or bottle.

[@llli*tonica.mom]

Leaning leads to his flailing of arms and having a positional instability. And him moving around usually means having few sips of milk and being dead hungry later.
Anyway, as I said, it seems that he is doing his best with bottle in ssc or lying/side lying. Especially if he tilts his head a bit. So I do not know how to pace feeding like that except tipping his bottle more or less.

[@llli*tonica.mom]

He nursed tonight!!!!
I stopped at all trying nursing in cradle position because I did notice a problem with tucked chin as you mentioned. Instead I laid him almost flat on the bed and leaned over him.
However he was again very very active. And that usually leads in choking. Also some milk started to spurt from the corners of his mouth. So I stopped gently few times his nursing and used a pause to kiss him and tickle him.
I used my bed as trampolin to keep him as calm as possible and he almost nursed himself to sleep!
And last night I had huge argue with my husband due to this whole situation. I was really loosing my mind and kids heard it in my tone of the voice and started to cry. So I calmed them and said "no more", meaning no more trying to nurse little one.
However, I could not resist to give a few more tries... I do not think we are really nursing again. But at least we had some nursing without his huge resistance. There are some other things that are bugging me. Tomorrow I will write about them.

[@llli*maddieb]

OK I am still here, write more when you can. Glad you had that awake nursing session that was at least semi-ok. Progress often comes in very small increments.

Milk leaking out the sides of the mouth when a baby nurses is pretty common, fyi. I mean it could indicate an issue but it is usually a normal variation. With my oldest this happened a great deal especially when nursing sidelying. It seemed to be one way of dealing with fast letdown.

[@llli*tonica.mom]

We had again a short evening nursing. But it was more for a fun. However, it did not look soothing for him. Again he was jumping all over which led spitting out quite a bit of milk.

Which leads me to one dilemma I have been thinking about these days. Is it really ok to "push" breastfeeding on babies who find it difficult or uncomfortable???
I saw in your other posts that it seems that when babies have some conditions that make bf hard for them, like ties, they tend to fall in category of "only in sleep" nursers.
It is same with LM. Actually, for a number of babies LM gets worst before it gets better. Since they have underdeveloped respiratory system, it can not follow rapid body growth during first few months. That is why my baby was better nurser when he was 1m old then when he was 4m old.
So I wonder, if it makes him happy and relaxed, should I just give him that bottle of milk and let him fall asleep drinking from it without crying it is not my breast?
Am I selfish about my wish to nurse my baby into the sleep?