Our Breastfeeding Journey Pt.2

The First Week After DD Was Born

Shortly after DD was born the midwife placed her on my naked chest to encourage her to latch and sure enough she did and i thought to myself ‘Woo Hoo no latching problems this will be a breeze’ how wrong i was.

We were moved to the ward fairly quickly and shortly after a nurse came in and suggested i feed DD, i had so much trouble getting her to latch in the end the nurse put her on for me but she wouldn’t stay on for long so we ended up hand expressing and feeding DD with a syringe. This nurse was fantastic and assisted me to get DD latched for all of her shift, after shift change i was not so lucky and this nurse would just tell me what to do and leave which was of no help so i mostly just fed DD with a syringe. On our second day the day shift nurse was even worse than the previous and actually made a comment about no one telling her i was having trouble and then in a stern tone saying ‘great i have 3 to look after now and you know you can not go home until your baby is feeding properly’, as a FTM i was so thrown by this nurse’s lack of compassion and understanding that it made my anxiety over breastfeeding even worse. She did come in to help me a few times but she would just get DD on my breast and then leave without actually giving me any guidance, she also gave me the details of a class/talk that was held every morning with a Lactation Consultant but gave me this after the one for that day had already occurred. At this point i just wanted to go home but understood the need to get DD latching properly. The next night shift nurse i got was nice but basically left me alone, during the night i did get DD to latch although i still had the feeling it wasn’t right. Mr Wonderful, DD and I attended the breastfeeding talk. After the talk they offered assistance to anyone who wanted it so of course i jumped at that but again i was brushed off because i knew how to feed but it just wasn’t working right, i got told to just keep persevering. Because DD latched during the night and because we attended the breastfeeding talk we got to go home YAY.
At home it didn’t get much better until about day 4 at home when she finally started latching everytime.

If you missed Pt.1 here it is –

https://latebabyblooma.wordpress.com/2018/03/21/our-breastfeeding-journey-pt-1/