Same thing happened to me!

Tried to get DS on the breast after birth - no interest. Was told not to worry some babies are very sleepy for the first 24hrs and DS was 4 wks early. Was told he would cry when he needed to feed. Pretty much the whole day went past without a lot of feeding, he would go on, fall asleep so I would put him down. Another 24hrs later I mentioned he had crystals in his urine - was this normal that's when everyone started freaking out! I was to wake him every hour, I was pumping in between (getting nothing and being belittled for not being able to express more than 5 mls) Jaundice set in so he was even sleepier, given formula becuase I wasn't making enough milk, tube feed cause he was so sleepy and had no suck reflex.

One midwife would come in and say attachment was fine, yes of course he was getting enough, next one would be in saying no he needed another formula feed. Ped came in and said no more formula (thank God for him) put us on a supply line with nipple shields every two hours - we went home 5 days after birth soley expressing.

7 days after birth my milk came in and we went on to use nipple shields for the next 9 months and by 3wks he was all breastfed without expressing as much.

With DD she was on the breast within 30 min and I spent the rest of the time in hospital feeding her whenever she stirred :-) I then got in trouble for feeding too often LOL to which I replied I didn't mind and would rather get my milk in and have BF established then worry about how often she was feeding.


I agree there needs to be more consistent advice. Even though at times it is nice to get the different experiences and ideas (like one midwife showing me how to feed lying down etc and different positions) I think that for new mums it would be nice if there was some continuity of info given. When my SIL was pregnant I got her a subscription to ABA and the book "breastfeeding... naturally" which comes with the subscription and she said it was reallly helpful to have had the chance to read that before birth so she knew what was normal.