Hi there,

I'm in tears as a write this but I just don't know what to do and am beginning to think I need to move on from the idea of BF and consider my options of EE or FF as the way forward.

I saw the LC yesterday and they consider that it's a confidence issue and nipple/suck confusion but I know there is something wrong. The LC I saw yesterday said that I need to stop the top up feeds and just use the breast as DS is capable of feeding based on what she saw. The reason I do the top up feeds is because DS falls asleep or comes off refusing to go back on the breast and it was recommend to top him up with EBM bottles to ensure he continues to gain weight.

Yesterday after the LC I began to just BF exclusively until about 5am. DS was waking every 2 hours o/n for a feed which could take 45 minutes. At 5am DP and I decided to give him an EBM bottle and I would express. I expressed about 200mls in 15 minutes when normally I would get maybe about 100mls and I took this as a sign along with the frequency of feeds that DS wasn't extracting enough milk from me. I then started again with BF at 7.30am and by 8.30am he was still slowly drinking from one side and still hungry. I rang the LC and she said to give him 50mls of EBM which I did and he was still hungry so I gave him another 50mls and I'm sure he was still hungry after that. I was feeding via one method or another until about 10.30am constantly.

I phoned the LC and explained what was happening and she said that it was up to me if I wanted to persist with BF or not. The truth is that I do want to BF but I can't feed constantly around the clock and I don't want to see my baby hungry. I'm beginning to wonder how long I should try and BF before saying that it isn't going to happen.

What do you think of the advice I was given? Is there any other methods for dealing with moving him from a combined BF/EBM to only being BF?