When breastfeeding isn’t plain sailing

Babies are meant to regain their birth weight by day 10. When a midwife finally turned up to weigh him, Tolly had lost 300g. I was horrified. She said she couldn’t sign me off until he had regained his birth weight, and why didn’t I try some formula? When I said I didn’t want to use a bottle, she suggested vaguely that I use a cup.

We bought our first formula: Babynat, an organic French product that smelled faintly of vanilla. We offered him little sips from a cup. To our surprise he took it. My confidence in breastfeeding had evaporated.

Every three hours Tolly and I went through torture. It seemed illogical to place my super-sensitive nipples in those agonising jaws. I tried to remember what I had done last time. I rang NCT breastfeeding counsellors, midwives and anyone else I could think of. They wittered on about positioning. I tried to take their advice, but no one could suggest anything for a baby who seemed unwilling to suck the breast.

Against established breastfeeding dogma, I bought him a dummy. This comforted him but then I worried that he might suffer from nipple confusion. So I took it away, and let him suck my finger. I tried nipple shields, I tried expressing (painful), I tried feeding him with his legs tucked backwards under my arm (more successful).

Eventually, I looked through various bits of paper left by the midwife and found the number for a breastfeeding counsellor at Queen Charlotte’s Hospital where he had been born. I telephoned, my voice trembling with misery. She asked me how much formula he was taking. I told her 100mls every three hours. ‘You’re not breastfeeding, you’re bottle-feeding’ she said, robustly. I burst into tears. She softened and asked me to come straight in, advising me kindly not to drive in the state I was in. My husband came home and took us both back to hospital, where Tolly was weighed. He had lost another 100g.