breastfeeding not working!

Hi everyone.
I'm totally surprised to be in this situation since I breastfed my toddler for over two and a half years, but I cannot get my baby on the boob! Because of the enormous amount of stress I was experiencing, my milk pretty much stopped entirely around 3 months. Now she's pretty much entirely bottlefed. I saw my GP, who is also an obstetrician, and she gave me motilium. Trouble is, bub won't latch on anyway, in part because she has a high palate. When she tries, she doesn't know what to do, she bites my nipple and gets frustrated.

Is there anything I can do?

Have you seen a lactation consultant? I think they would be the best person to see about getting your little one interested again...sounds like perhaps she is a little confused.
Hopefully Barb will be in soon with some good advice for you.
Good luck
xox

Hun, this must be very disappointing for you :hug:

Allycat is right that it would be very helpful to see a LC. The other trick is lots of skin to skin contact with no pressure to feed. She will still have the instinct to latch on, so doing everything you can to encourage those will give you a better shot.

All the best with it hun, I hope you are able to get through this :hug:

See if Barb can recommend a good LC in your area hon, that's probably your best bet - some one-on-one support.
All the best :hug:

I just wanted to wish you the best as well, hun. :hug: Sounds like you'd really like to give it a try again.

Thanks, everyone. I've been speaking to Barb Glare in the Prof. Support section and am going to see an LC. I guess I was hoping there would be a quick fix. I'll keep you updated though <3
edit: I think the nipple shields I have are pretty crappy (why is it that you can only get the ONE style everywhere?) so i'm going to track down some better ones. Hopefully that will help.

Maybe it could be the whole instant gratification thing? With the boob, she has to work for it and if your supply is low you may not have a quick let down now. Maybe you could hire a supply line from the ABA? It might help with the frustration part.

aba have some great info on re-lactating too. I know my bubs also makes a beline for my boobs if we are having a bath together, so skin to skin in the bath may be good. have you tried without a nipple shield and hand expressing so there is flavour on the outside?
don't forget she has to re-aquire a taste for it too

Thanks ladies.
I have a supplementation (relactation) kit which made a very marginal difference. I gave up on it after I started taking motilium thinking it wouldn't make much difference but I'll start using it again. The bath didn't work too well for us. The few times I've been able to get her to latch have been when i've squirted milk into her mouth nad she's decided to hop on.

edit: Important question! When i'm trying to get her to latch and she starts crying (which happens pretty much every time) should I keep trying or stop? Neither option makes much sense to me tbh

Hun, you are doing so well. Where do you get all that determination?

It is going to be much harder for her to attach when crying, so I'd try to settle her first. A cuddle, some rocking, and maybe let her suck on your finger for a bit if you need to. Once she's calm you can try again.

This is not an easy thing to go through and you really are doing an incredible job :hug:

Thankyou so much :hug: We had a really bad last night. I decided to do the right thing (so i thought!) and put bub on the supplementation kit instead of giving her a bottle. Of course, she was furious and started crying which woke DD1 (who's started sleeping in my bed again) who started crying and then I started crying too! I was really feeling like a total failure as a mother for letting things get to this point. I suppose I'm not over the guilt yet. Anyway, we pushed through somehow and she had a feed, she had a small bottle after that in the wee hours of the morning but since then have been feeding her on the breast with the supplementation kit. I've also made an appointment with my local LC for friday.
Thanks again <333 We'll keep trying until we've exhausted every option.

Good on you hun :hug: I hope tonight is a better night :hug:

That's brilliant, well done!

Oh wow, you did so well to push through that. It sounds like it was a really challenging night. :hug: I hope today is better and the night easier for you.

Thankyou so much :hug:

I did see the LC today, we couldn't really get her to feed since she got upset right at the beginning of the appointment and wouldn't cooperate after that. But we've worked out a big of a plan, which is to try to gradually reintroduce her to the breast. We think that my persisting while she's upset has actually caused her to have bad associations with the breast (oops!) so we're going to start by feeding her from the bottle while she's having skin to skin contact with me on the breast. She also gave me a nipple shield - a much better one than the ones i've seen around - and at home I was actually able to get her to latch on. She didn't really feed though but it's a good sign. I will also try using the supplementation kit with the shield. Anyway, I also have to express as often as is humanly possible to get my supply up again. So hopefully that combination will get things going in the right direction. But I think the most important thing is that it has to be something she decides to do herself, I can't force her. Because she's an older baby she's somewhat set in her ways and trying to force her to breastfeed when she doesn't want to will just make things harder in the long run.
So I'm feeling a bit more hopeful, I will keep offering her the breast but will focus on getting my supply back up by expressing every half hour, though if feeding her with the supplementation kit works we'll do that before anything else.

Hun, that sounds like a really great plan.. I know you can do this!

Great plan!