Breastfeeding

With my son, I had a few problems. I have a very large bust so I had to sit just right and get the proper uhm prop me up's to feed him, because it holding the baby and the boob at the same time just wasn't too easy, thought he latched on and did well, I stopped at 6 months. With my daughter though, she was born early, via emergancy c-section after approx. 31 hours of labor, and then I was put completely out for the c-section so I didn't see my daughter for almost 7 hours after she was born. They'd given her a binky, to hold her over til I come about to nurse her, but she just didn't take to it well, she liked her binky so we cup feed her, and then further testing revealed she had under devolped stomach, gastritis and acid reflux so she had to be put on an extremely expensive formula with cereal added to it.

I had problems, similar to yours. When my first child was born I was told I had flat nipples. I had to pinch them and shove it in the baby's mouth, then he'd latch. I also had a problem with my size. I have a very large chest, and my br**st is much larger than a newborn's head. So while some moms could just shove the baby under the shirt and still have a hand free, I had to use one hand to support the baby, and one hand to support the weight of my br**st. Another problem I have is that I'm a smoker. I'd quit smoking for the majority of my 1st pregnancy, and all of my 2nd pregnancy, but not at all for my 3rd or 4th, and for some odd reason even though I'd smoked during pregnancy, I had a serious problem with smoking while I was nursing. So, due to the above problems, I nursed my first child for 3 weeks (gave up to go back to smoking!). I nursed my twins for a week (they were twins, give me a break). I nursed my 4th child for a week (latching issues plus smoking). And my youngest baby was only nursed once shortly after birth because he was hungry and the nurses wouldn't come around to give him formula. I'd decided long before he was born I wouldn't bother nursing again, but did just that once.

Honestly I have a similar problem. Neither of my children could/can latch on.Nothing to do with the shape of anything. It may be the most natural thing in the world. But it turns out also to be one of the most difficult things to accomplish. So I have a different solution. I have an electric pump. And I express every 4 hours or so. I also get up at least once at night to do the same. My son is 9 weeks old. And only at this point had my milk. Don't know how long I will be able to keep it up. We will see. Like you said thank goodness for the times we are in. We at least have a variety of choices!

I had problems with my first. She was so greedy and just wouldn't latch on properly. Then of course at first there isn't really enough milk and she just quickly got upset and stopped and preferred to cry. I ended up pumping it all for a year. Crazy! She is still that way. If something doesn't work out right away, she gets upset instead of trying to figure out how she could do it differently or patiently trying again. Kids! My other two I had no problem.