have a woman ? not sure where else to ask this

[irish]

Lacey, Good for you for doing the nursing. I didn't nurse the first one, nursed the 2nd one for 2 mons and then had to go back to work. No pumping breast back then in the 60's. The third one I nursed but he got so hungry that I had to give up and go to the bottle. I think it was the sjogrens as I just didn't make enough milk and didn't even get very engored with him.

As far as pain---ahhh, it was horrible and I always had to lie down to nurse and wiggle my toes while I nursed. I did not have the yeast though. I have to tell you that the pumping the breasts and bottle feeding is the best of both worlds. You are not so tied down this way as you can leave the baby with someone and go out for dinner with your hubby. It is possible that your baby also has some yeast and you two are passing it back and forth.

My DIL did the pumping as she worked and nursed in the morning before work and 2 times before bed. She had so much milk that she had enough breast milk in freezer for 6 months. It is also much cheaper to nurse and the baby gets all the nutrition from the mother. Hope you can find a way to make this work. If you can't don't beat yourself over the head. Most of us were raised on a bottle of formula. In the old days if mom couldn't nurse and baby couldn't suck good they would soak a rag in cows milk and drip the milk into the babies mouth or let the baby suck. Also, in the old days they would put sugar in a piece of cloth and tie it shut and let the baby suck on this when they were fussy. This was called a "sugar tit". This is just some superfluous information that my deceased mom told me many years ago. She was born in 1906. Irish

[harrigan]

Irish - I thought I was the only one who had to wiggle my toes when feeding!!  I fed all 5 with varying degrees of success.  The worst problem was persuading the youngest 2 to stop at 2!!  It is the best for the baby, but only if it's also best for mum.  Work, family, health all have to fit in too and like you say, we were probably all bottle fed and don't know any difference!

Hope its going easier for you now Lacey, and that you get the occasional time for yourself too XX Ailsa

[Lacey1981]

thanks for all the encouragement ladies. the pain is getting better. it seems to come and go some feedings hurt some don't. so hopefully it will keep getting better.

I'm pretty sure it is related to my sjs, b/c like my prev. symptoms the pain seems to fluctuate w/ my hormones. I don't have the time or the resources to really try and find studies about sjs and breastfeeding but there really doesn't seem to be too much out there.

[irish]

For those of you trying to switch from breast to bottle---I found(many years ago) that the Playtex Nursers were the best way to go. These are the bottles that you used a device to insert a plastic bag into the plastic bottle. The nipple was soft enough to conform to the babies sucking unlike those old fashioned nipples that are so hard for babies to adjust to. Irish

P.S. I guess they still make this bottle system though it may have a few changes.

[darlintxmomma]

Lacey, CONGRATS on your baby! I have an almost 9 month old baby girl now who is still exclusively breastfed and let me tell you, it was PURE heck the first 2 months of her life. She did have latch issues at first which we worked on, I also dealt with thrush but my biggest complaint was the initial latch on pain (felt like shards of glass cutting my nips up) and letdown (which STILL feels like a boobie charlie horse). Are you having pain with letdown at all? When baby unlatches what color is your nipple? If you have a white or purple nipple then you have been blessed with the OH-SO-LOVELY (im dripping sarcasm) Reynaud's Phenomenon. It is most common in people with AI diseases. Its basically blood vessel constriction that occurs while nursing. Then after the baby finishes feeding and the blood returns to the nipples, it becomes all sorts of painful. You can take Procardia for it. If you want to try something more natural, there have been GREAT results with taking Vit B6 in a low dose a few times a day but not too much because it will dry up the milk if you take too much.

ALso with baby's latch, make sure both top and bottom lips are FLARED out. mine would latch on correctly at first (that took a lot of work) but thru the feed would gradually bring her lips in and make more of a clamp on me which hurt like heck. Another trick that nobody told me even though I had several LCs helping me out was when you go to latch baby on, dont aim the nipple into the center of the mouth, aim for the roof. THAT was my saving grace. once i started doing that the pain practically dimished within a few days. My baby had a good latch but I was aiming wrong. I did several rounds of diflucan which didn't help and Reynauds mimics thrush in pain so I would try B6 or Procardia if you think that is the kind of pain you are having. I havent had ANY pain since my baby was 2 months old with the exception of the letdown charliehorses. It felt like pins and needles with my son but he never 'successfully' breastfed but this time I was determined to get it right and I stuck it out and it has been SOOOOOOOOOOOOO worth it. I did a TON of research on breastfeeding problems related to autoimmune diseases and sjogrens and if you have any other questions, feel free to PM me. I will be glad to share any info that I can with you.
Michelle

ps, my hubby just came in and reminded me another trick that helped. Coconut oil. I applied it to my nipples because it kills yeast and it moisturizes the dry sensitive skin too and it actually FORCED her into the correct latch because she couldnt do the clamp thing with her lips. That is how she learned the correct way to latch. Its also safe for babies to ingest so no need to wash it off. There was also a study that moms can take it (good for AI too) but it increases the antiviral properties in breastmilk and keeps babies even MORE protected from getting sick.