Nipple Confusion?

Hi there,

I'm hoping that my delurk will enable someone heere with a similar
experience to advise us.

My wife is currently bfing our 3 day old son, but we are a little
worried about a couple of things.

Firstly, after a very short while, he seems to click his tongue
continuously and lose the latch. My wife believes that at some point
during his occassional extended stays at the nursery the nurses bottle
fed him, so introducing nipple confusion. However, I'm not so sure,
(though it is a distinct possiblility as they kept him in the nursery
for a few hours a number of times), as he latches beautifully, and we
were told so by the LC.

Secondly, he will often cry to be fed only to fall asleep 30 seconds
or so after latching and taking a little collostrum/milk. Is this
normal? He does this a good 50% of the time, I would say. This also
adds to our supplementing worries, (i.e. nurses supplemented while Mom
wasn't around).

All in all though, we very happy, especially Mom, as this is our
second child, and she unsuccessfully tried to bf the first and has
felt really guilty that it didn't work out, (it was a long, induced
labor w/ a long time under an epidural combined w/ a pretty crap LC).

Thanks,
Mark.
DH to Kerry;
Dad to Griffith (8/22/01) & Keigan (9/10/03)

I think nipple confusion is where the baby does not know how to make a
let down properly anymore, and they only know how to drink out of a
bottle, so if you are getting good diaper counts, then the baby is
gettin let downs and doesn't have nipple confusion.

As far as wanting to drink and then immediately sleeping perhaps the
baby is just using the nipple as a pacifier rather than a food source
at that point.

I don't know about the clicking. I think I recall someone on this
group before suggesting to hold the baby a little closer to the nipple
if the baby was making that clicking noise.

KC
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(Mark Duddridge) wrote in message . com...
Hi there,

I'm hoping that my delurk will enable someone heere with a similar
experience to advise us.

My wife is currently bfing our 3 day old son, but we are a little
worried about a couple of things.

Firstly, after a very short while, he seems to click his tongue
continuously and lose the latch. My wife believes that at some point
during his occassional extended stays at the nursery the nurses bottle
fed him, so introducing nipple confusion. However, I'm not so sure,
(though it is a distinct possiblility as they kept him in the nursery
for a few hours a number of times), as he latches beautifully, and we
were told so by the LC.

Secondly, he will often cry to be fed only to fall asleep 30 seconds
or so after latching and taking a little collostrum/milk. Is this
normal? He does this a good 50% of the time, I would say. This also
adds to our supplementing worries, (i.e. nurses supplemented while Mom
wasn't around).

All in all though, we very happy, especially Mom, as this is our
second child, and she unsuccessfully tried to bf the first and has
felt really guilty that it didn't work out, (it was a long, induced
labor w/ a long time under an epidural combined w/ a pretty crap LC).

Thanks,
Mark.
DH to Kerry;
Dad to Griffith (8/22/01) & Keigan (9/10/03)

In article , "JoFromOz"
writes:

Hi Mark.

Your son does not sound like he has nipple confusion to me. The fact that
he latches on well is a great sign.

The tongue clicking means he is loosing the vacuum he has formed in his
mouth.

I'm overly cautious about this, I'm sure, but could he have a cleft of the soft
palate?

Get Kerry to hold him in much closer and hopefully after a few
sucks, he will be able to suck the nipple back far enough in his mouth to
seal the leak. If that doesn't work (don't be scared of suffocating him!)
then you might need to take him off then relatch him with a bigger mouthful.


You might need to pull down on his chin to make sure he gets a lot of the
breast into his mouth.


koa
Still nursing James, 02/06/01
EP'ing for Joey 04/02/03 (BCP)