I think its tongue tie...

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Tongue-tie can be hard to diagnose in newborns – it is important to consult with your doctor or lactation consultant if you are having trouble breastfeeding. Signs that a baby could be tongue-tied include:
Mother has sore nipples during and after breastfeeding
Mother has squashed nipples after breastfeeding
Mother has a white compression mark on the nipple after breastfeeding
The baby has difficulty latching on to the nipple
The baby often loses suction while feeding and sucks air
The baby’s mouth makes a clicking sound while feeding
The baby fails to gain weight.

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Problems latching, clicking noise with every suck, gulping air with every suck, not getting a decent latch, but cracking me (happened again yesterday).

I want to cry. What do I do? Hope it gets better or see if we can fix it?

Your stories please?

I dont' know, it probably just depends on your DD - perhaps ask the LC about it?
My DS had a slight tongue tie, which we did not get snipped (we were told it was unnecessary and never really chased it up). I used a shield from 4-11 weeks due to cracks and pain etc then it resolved itself once he was bigger. There may have been other issues involved, btw, I'm not 100% certain it was tongue tie (or not solely anyway).
Really sorry to hear you're still having problems - things were looking up :hug:

I'll ring the LC tomorrow. You're right. Things are getting better. There aren't as many cracks. But she can't get a good latch & is constantly coming off. She is gaining weight though.
I don't know anything about this stuff.

My 10 month old has a tongue tie.
I got help from an Lc. Exact same issues as you.

He wasn't getting enough in his mouth. Had to literally shove it in :)

I recommend calling one :)

Im still feeding him. No snip :)

Hmm, I try shoving more in. Either makes no difference or she gags.

DD1 had areally bad tongue tie, within 24hrs my nipples were bleeding! dd2 had a minor one and it didnt affect bfing at all.
if u rub ur finger on her tongue can she stick it out very very far?? also a dent in the tip of the tongue (making it looking sorta heart shaped) is another indicator

Well, see when I first saw the LC she asked about all that. Well asked if she stuck her tongue out & the answer was yes, it was the first thing we noticed about her. Her tongue was never in her head, lol. So I think that was her first thought.
But she hasn't done it much since then. I just ruled it out coz of that. Its not heart shaped that I've noticed.

I was just trying to find a reason that she was making so much noise & never having a good latch. None of the others were ever like this. All the things listed above explain it all. :dunno:

Yep, DD2 had a tongue tie and it was causing damage to nipples and really really long feeds. Even though the MW's said it was great attachment I knew due to the pain that something wasn't quite right. I got a paed to come and check it out when I was still in hospital and confirmed it immediately. He snipped it :o straight away and instantly there was better attachment, no noises and feeding became quicker. Fred didn't even mind cause I fed her and she was happy to get a nice big feed. There are other ways to manage a tongue tie but snipping it was quick, easy and worked. I would do it again in a flash if it ever happened again.

Sometimes you never quite figure it out - well we never really did. It did resolve itself however. I hope that things continue to improve for you guys and with a bit of time it's all smooth sailing. She is not even 2 months old yet - sometimes it just takes a bit longer to sort it all out :hug:

Think I mentioned in an earlier thread to you that my DS2 had a severe tongue tie which we had snipped when he was 5 days old. In our case he appeared to attach properly, but I had shocking nipple pain the moment he went on the boob. It would ease as he fed, sort of, but was intensely toe curling at the start of each feed. DS2 couldn't extend his tongue - that was why bfing was painful for me. I was cracked and bleeding ... it wasn't fun at all. But he obviously couldn't draw the milk in properly, as would a bub without tongue tie. Still ... he always managed to have a good feed.

I can't honestly say I noticed any of the "symptoms" you've described as DS2 didn't show any of those signs. No clicking, no air gulping and he stacked on the beef. We knew from the minute he was examined post birth that he had a bad tongue tie, and I was told if bfing was "abominable" we should have it snipped. In his case, if we lifted his tongue up a little we could clearly see it was attached to the bottom of his mouth. The snip was done in less than 30 seconds and as he didn't cry and/or bleed, it was painless and bloodless. We too, had an immediate improvement in bfing and to this day we've never looked back.

I truly hope you get some help from an LC or doctor - you're doing a good job to keep it up when it's obviously causing you so much pain :hug:

Both DS2 & DD2 were tongue tied. DD2 was EXACTLY as you're describing - clicking, unable to latch on & stay on, gulping in air, my nipples were a total mess etc... I knew she was TT from the first time she tried to feed but I was told otherwise. A LC was the only other person aside from the GP who agreed with me. Both of my kids got snipped and it made a world of difference. DS2 didn't gain weight properly but DD2 did.
Feeding after the snip was wonderful. In the mean time, if you're too sore, I would recommend using shields.

Hi,

First you need a diagnosis - you need to see an experienced lactation consultant. If it is a tongue tie then it is very simple to treat it - and worth doing. If it's not a tongue tie it sounds like you are still experiencing significant problems and you do need some-one to assess the situation and help make a plan for you. I may be able to recommend an LC

Thanks everyone. Most of the nurses at my hospital & my CHN are LC's. CHN see's people Thursday & Fridays, so I'll give her a ring & get in tomorrow.
Can't leave the house today... gotta wait for chrisco :rolleyes:

get in as quick as u can hun, if ur reffered to a GP to have it cut (if thats what u choose to do) they dont like to do it after 12 weeks because the skin flap becomes quite thick and can bleed excessively

Ok, thanks. I should be seeing the gp in the next week anyway for Jaz. Will be ringing them today.

Clover, when I lived up that way we found it nearly impossible to find someone who would snip the TT. We had to get a referral to Port Macquarie hospital to see the visiting paediatric surgeons from John Hunter and one of them snipped DS2's TT. Be aware you might have to do something similar, but probably at Coffs hospital.

Really? My gp is pretty good, so I guess we'll see. Coffs isn't too far from me though. There is no kids ward here, so thats where we get sent (though it is an hour away!)
Going to ring the LC now.

DS had TT and we snipped it as soon as we could after diagnosis - 4 weeks. No hesitation after we learned about the frenulum. It's painless and allows mobilisation of the tongue for other things, like speech.
It's not worth persisting without a snip if it's causing you pain! It's just a simple cut that bothers them more for the interruption to their day than anything else, and midwives have been performing it for centuries ;)
Really, there is nothing 'unethical' about the snip, it is nothing like genital mutilation or ear pearcings. DS was asleep before the snip, cried out to be woken for the snip and was asleep within a minute afterwards - of course, putting him back in the HAB helped, too :)

Ok, just rang the chn/lc. She wants to see me today, as she's not sure if she's around tomorrow, but the world is against us!
If I leave & miss chrisco I have to go to Grafton (like 2 hours away) to pick it up, can't change delivery adress :rolleyes: & mum's phone is telling me incoming calls are restricted.
She's about an hour away anyway, so probably can't come just to sit here for chrisco, but I was hoping she might be in town or something, then its not too far out of the way.
There is a doc in Coffs who will snip it.

I'm going to ring her about lunch time & see how things are going. She's going to try get out here if she can. Or hopefully chrisco will be here by then.

Yay that there is a Dr in Coffs who does TT snips! Brilliant news.

I hope you work things out with the Chrisco delivery.

What a bugger of a situation! lol.
Agree with mayaness, its quick and more of an annoyance for them, as soon as DD1's was done i just stuck a boobie in her mouth and she was totally fine, barely any bleeding (she was 9 weeks old) and cried for 2 short seconds, i think more because of the uncomfortableness of having her tongue held! lol, more traumatic for us then them for sure

Well, the Gods were good to us :)
At about 11am I recieved my Chrisco, Castle & 3 new nappies! :lol:

So at 11.30 we went & saw her. There is no obvious tongue tie at the front, but sometimes there can be problems at the back of the tongue.

She had a good look around her mouth & it turns out Summer's pallet is very high & narrow & on top of that her tongue doesn't curl the way it should when she's sucking (iykwim).

We are going to see the speech therapist on Wednesday to check her suck swallow coordination & she's trying to line it up with a day admission to hospital so the m/w's can observe a few feeds & try to work out what's going on.

Weight gain is happening, but I think its on the lower end of the scale. 200gm since 6 week check up 2 weeks ago. But as she says, weight gain is nothing, as long as output is good, & it is.

Summer only really feeds til she gets letdown & is finished after 5 minutes max, so not sure if there's an issue there or not, but it will be checked too. In the meantime I have to try a new position with a hand under her chin supporting it. To support her swallow or something she said.... who knew BFing could get this detailed!!!

glad the ball is rolling for u hun

Glad you got to see someone today. You're doing a wonderful job persisting through all this with other kids and things going on too.

Regarding the high palate, both my DD (currently b/f her) and DS have had it. Essentially what it means is that despite what looks like good attachment on the outside, they get the nipple caught up in their high palate (which is hard) not the lovely soft palate at the back of their mouth. So nipple rubs, hence cracks, soreness etc. Good news is its simply a matter of time - as they grow their mouths get bigger and the palate issues start to resolve. You can get more boob in their mouth and they can draw nipple back further etc.

With DS I gave up and put him on formula at 6 weeks old after shocking attachment problems and things were just too far gone for us. I wish we'd been able to hang in there longer. Right now DD & I are managing to b/f with the help of nipple shields basically full time until such point that she has grown some more & her mouth is a bit bigger. We're getting there, but even feeding with a shield is sometimes a bit ouchy too. Damn high palate!

Good luck with the speechies etc. Sounds like you've got lots of support around you.

Thanks Infinity. I've never heard of it before, but I have little doubt that thats been our problem every time. Or at least part of it.
I gave up with my older girls at 6 & 4 weeks & really struggled to 6 weeks with DS, but then things came good. Maybe her being smaller than him is why its still happening?

Sometimes its a size issue I think....both my babes have been on the smaller side (DS with just on 3kg at birth and DD is a prem so was barely 2kg when we started to establish b/f) and had small mouths & high palates so the combination has been really nasty for attachment. But then again you read about lots of mums who have little babes that go to the breast really well with no dramas at all.

OUr outreach nurse did say that it can run in families so it might have been there with your other ones too?

I was thinking that, coz mum also had issues feeding us.

Oh, I have to remember the high palate thingy if we have issues again. DS always looked right, but it wasn't until he got bigger (and he wasn't a small baby either).

Good work Clover (and Infinity!)

Its definetely not something you'd expect, or even think of!

Both my boys had posterior tongue ties ( at the back) and high palates.

With DS1 thus meant that for 7 weeks no one took me seriously ( I went to 8 bf daystays with IBCLC lactation cons. Finally one day one of them says oh this child has a tongue tie like it's a shocking revelation.

With DS2 I had him checked at 2 weeks as it can run in families (dh had one) and got booked in to see a specialist dr who's a LC so it was sorted by 5 weeks

The posterior ones can be harder to spot so it's worth seeing someone who specializes in TT

Thanks Pandora. Will see what comes out of the hospital visit next week :)

GL
Forgot to add, bf DS1 til 6 months DS2 til 11 months

So can they do a snip or something on a tongue tie at the back?

Yes.
But the first Appt I had they were scared to and I had to go see a specific dr who specialized in it at the royal Womens here in Melb.

Oh, ok. So be prepared to have to leave it go to Syd or Bris if thats what it is? If thats what it is I think we can survive unless it will affect her speech etc later on.
Makes me wonder about DD2's speech issues... but pretty sure thats just laziness.

Just wanted to pop in babe, regarding the high palate....

For a lot of high palate bubs, breastfeeding the normal way,( on the side) is harder for bub... something thats works in a lot of cases in holding bub, facing you, upright, on the breast. Like, on your knee, facing the breast front on, so bubs lips are on top and bottom of the breat, not the sides.... it helps with nipple position in the mouth in relation to the palate and does work for many.... worth a shot at the next feed to see if it helps....;) Hope I explained that ok?? Hard with out a baby and a breast to show you!! :)

Thanks Jode :)
I get it, chn showed me yesterday. I'll keep trying it, sitting like that to feed kills my back though.
thanks x

If the idea of the position is to keep you and bub the same way up then would it also work if you both lay down on your sides?? or are you also trying to get gravity to help S latch on??

Its to do with gravity too Kmn. So its sit like that, or lean forward to feed her iykwim... so gravity keeps the nipple from going up into the palate & helps it go to the back of the mouth instead.

blast!
Would it be easier on your back if you arrange the heights really carefully - I'm thinking about something like holding Summer with her bum on the kitchen bench and standing yourself?