NaeNae

Huge congratulations to you for the birth of your beautiful girl!

Please DO NOT let yourself feel guilty for feeling overwhelmed and not having all those lovey dovey positive feelings about early motherhood and having your baby. I have been there and it led me to an awful place that I am still coming out of now.

From all the posts and beautiful support here you can see just how normal it is to find motherhood - especially at the beginning - the most difficult thing you've ever done. What makes it even harder is when you go through so much to have your LO, you honestly cannot help but end up with a picture in your head when you're waiting waiting waiting during your pregnancy of the bliss and happiness you will be in when you finally have your baby in your arms after so much heartache and all the waiting. It's completely understandable - and then when it isn't like that at all in reality it just feels so incredibly hard to manage, but also on top of that, you feel you are betraying the wonderful feelings you were expecting and all that you went through to have your baby.

But you're not. You're a beautiful human mummy. Who is fighting to do everything she can to give her precious baby comfort, nourishment and love. You are a success because of this. You are doing the best you can, Nae, and this is you being the mother you can be. You are WONDERFUL. The advice here is sooooo very good - I hope that all the suggestions can give you the tools you need.

One other thing I thought might be worth mentioning is that your letdown may work differently between your two breasts and this might be what is upsetting her. I know a PP suggested that your letdown might be too strong, but it could be the other way also. In the first few weeks when I was getting breastfeeding established I always had one side where my letdown was different (it took longer and wasn't quite as forceful) and it took my DD quite a bit of time to get used to this. She often wasn't at all happy that it was taking too long for the milk to flow compared to the other side and she was a smart one (as all our LO's are!) and would often flat out refuse the "slower" side.

Can I suggest hand expressing from the side she won't take before you try putting her on - just a little bit until you get your letdown happening, and see if she will go on then? Try squeezing a little into her mouth also as you put her towards the breast so she knows the milk is there ready to go. Remember to relax your arms and shoulders - the more tension the longer your letdown may take (yes, it will always come eventually, but sometimes it can take a long time when you're tense!) and take some lovely deep, calm breaths when you go to try that side, even though it's so very hard when you have the screaming banshee act happening.

I know you've got a mountain of suggestions to work through here, but I thought it was important to suggest something that helped me when I was dealing with one-sided refusal.

And TALK hun. Keep talking. Talk about how you are doing, talk to everyone here. Don't think that you don't have a right or shouldn't express what you're going through.