I am so, so, SO very cross for her!

The Man's eldest boy (not "the Boy"), but a spitting image, who turns 21 soon, and his lovely partner came to visit us yesterday and today with their almost two month old dd.

Their dd is exclusively formula fed (which is not my issue, each to their own, as long as babe is fed!), because Mum said that her milk didnt come in for a few days after the birth. :o I explained to her that it usually takes a couple of days, or three, and so forth. Going by what she said, NO ONE helped her to even TRY and bf bubs, from midwives to their mums.

I feel bad for this poor girl. And I am disgusted at the thought that no one (in the health profession) encouraged her or taught her anything about feeding. She seems disappointed and I can tell she is annoyed with the whole ff process (buying formula, washing bottles, etc, and even making sure they have enough made up for their outings). Further more, no one even told her that bottles are meant to be boiled/sterilised, and that the water used should be boiled/filtered, so for the first two weeks of bub's life, Mum didnt sterilise bottles or anything. She said to me it just occured to her in the middle of the night when she was making up a bottle for night feed, so she rang her mum in the morning who gave her the attitude of "of course you do you silly girl!". That said, I didnt sterilise bottles, but I made darn sure they were immaculately clean, and used only filtered water.

Sorry, I just can't beleive this!

Its sad but BFing isn't explained very well to a lot of women.

That is sad. Sounds like she needs a friend, who 'gets it' and remembers how hard it is at first, not just assumes she already knows.

:( Thats appalling. Your poor SDIL.

Do you think she would be interested in trying to re-lactate? I only ask because you say she seems very frustrated by the FF routine.

Calluna; I'm really not sure, I didn't get a whole lot of time to talk to her about it. She may, and I hope that maybe some ladies could give me some info, or point me where to go, because they are coming up again next week (looking to move here, YAY!), so any support I can give her would be terrific. I also feel to a point that I don't want to 'over step' and seem too pushy, but I so want to let her know that bf is possible (heck, she saw it with Mack today).

Oh, something else, because I am unsure, dd feeds really loudly, as in it sounds like an air click or something. SDIL says she has always made that sound, even when gone up to next size bottle teat. Dd suffered from reflux (had gaviscon, all okay), but often has gripe water. Related?

Im with the other post ... why dont you ask if the mum is interested to start to re lactate now ... the bub is only 8 weeks old so im assuming it wouldnt be hard to start the milk supply up again .... worth a shot ...

I cant give you any info, but Im sure Ive read about it on here before... :dunno:
Maybe just print some info off and deliver with a casual "thought you might be interested, whatever you decide you have my support" kind of comment.

It sounds like seems had a very rough introduction to motherhood :( great that she's moving closer to you and she will actually get some decent support!

Wow that's horrible. It seems to be the way with some hospitals unfortunately. I had a friend have twins earlier this year. She desperately wanted to breastfeed but was told to formula feed as her milk hasn't come in and she therefore didn't have any. Of course it came on day 3-4.....

It does sound related. Getting lots of air in when she feeds would make her quite uncomfortable. Have they tried different shaped teats/bottles?

Hmm, yes, I may go for the more subtle approach.... I really feel for her (and bub and Dad). I hope that if she is interested that she is successful.

Kim; SDIL told me they were told to switch formula, but they didn't want to do that, then to try powdered gaviscon, which worked, so I can only guess that probably haven't tried different bottles/teats. I noticed they have the avent bottles with "ordinary" looking teats... ?

I relactated at around 2 months BUT I'd expressed until DD2 was 3 weeks old so my milk had only gone for five or so weeks in total.

If she has never really breastfed then I'd imagine relactating could be even harder. That's not to say don't do it, but also don't make it sound easy because, from experience, it is bloody hard. I expressed or attached once an hour for two weeks. I took Motilium. I was only ever able to get around 60ml and fed from a supply line. I did it all myself because my LC didn't seem to know anything about it, so I researched it on the net.

Having said all that, it was enormously emotionally rewarding for me to be able to do it. My problem with BFing is attachment (I have huge nipples, my babies have small mouths - not that I knew this at the time) so to be able to actually attach my baby even though she could never get a full feed, was awesome.

So I'd google around and print off some stuff for her to read.

But at the same time, she may just need the support of someone saying that yes, her experience was stuffed and wasn't her fault. She doesn't need to feel guilty again if relactating doesn't appeal.