Breastfeeding Day 6

Breastfeeding Day 6 - things are on the improve!!!  I'm so excited that the pain in my nipples is improving.  My left side is pain free already and the right is significantly better.  I can tell that the new latch (pictured above) is really helping (watch my positioning video if you want more information).

So basically he's resting on my wrist now rather than my forearm and I can feel his legs are wrapped right around my other side.  It's almost like I'm cuddling him more actually and it feels quite nice, but it's heavy to hold him up fully rather than letting him rest his bottom on my leg.  Hopefully once he gets a bit better at attaching and is a bit bigger I'll be able to rest him on my lap because i can't imagine trying to hold up his weight for long feeds while I'm out in public....!  The problem with heavy babies!

The one down side of feeding him better is that I think he stimulated my breasts to make even more milk and I wake up to my breasts trying to let down just thinking about feeding him!

I've also got a blocked duct and a firm lump in my right side.  Of all the days he decides to sleep in! I go off and have a shower and use my shimmy shake technique (you can get access to a video of the shimmy shake in the mastitis treatment section) until he wakes up and I'm fine thankfully.

I remember having mastitis with my first bub and man it was painful!  So glad I've avoided it this time.  Being far less stressed this time round is probably helping a lot too.  Although I think the big difference is that I'm not letting my nipples get so damaged too.

The Changes I Made to His Latch

I thought you might be interested in what i did change iwth his latch that made all the difference so I've put in some photos to explain it if you don't want to view the video.

The first one shows you just how far down my arm he is - there's a huge amount of room between the top of his head and my elbow.  This helps him tilt his head back and also gets my nipple lined up with his nos rather than his bottom lip which helps him open up wide.  You also want to try to get their chin to touch your breast before their now does so they can locate themselves better.

So this picture shows you a slightly different position where he is rolled away a little and I can see the corner of his mouth.  This isn't as good as the first picture because he has to work harder to keep the nipple in his mouth, so you want to roll them fully onto their side and have their belly fully touching yours.

This last one shows you how his nose was a bit buried in my breast before I moved him further down to my wrist rather than my forearm.  It makes it hard for them to breathe, but also means their head is nodding forward and that makes it hard for them to open their mouth wide.

Hope this helps!!

My Breastfeeding Diary

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