Fussy Feeders - Other Possibilities Tongue Tie

[~Emma~]

I just wanted to make all the mummys out their aware of tongue tie. This is something I had no idea about and it was not checked for when he was born. It is the tightening of the frenulum (piece of skin that connects the tongue to the mouth). I attempted bf'ing for 2 weeks and my baby was hungry and I was made to feel like an impatient fool for putting him on the bottle. Even on the bottle he struggled (partly due to reflux as well). I would take video footage of him eating to the doc but to no avail. I then took him to a cranial osteopath to see if that would help and she told me she suspected a tongue tie...not a professional opinion, her dd had one as a baby.

 I then went straight to a midwife that she suggested and she confirmed it for me when he was about 13 weeks old...I was angry and had alot of old bf'ing issues crop back up. i can't believe no-one checked in his mouth!! Apparantly it will need clipped and i was told that it was so tight that bf'ing would have been near impossible (duh).

Juat thought i'd put that out there for all the Mums of fussy feeders...I know how you feel!

Emma xxx

[* Paula *]

Hi Emma,

Thanks so much for posting this.  I have split this post off the original topic and created a new sticky as the other topic has quite a few pages.

Hope you don't mind hun 

[mom2presngrace]

Hi there,
First time poster here.
My 3 mo old son has an upcoming ENT appt to see if he is tongue-tied enough to require getting it clipped.  I'm just wondering if anyone else has been through this and what your experience was like.  I think this the reason he has such difficulty latching onto the bottle, which causes him to take in too much air = major tummy aches and huge burps and spitting up, which I feel exacerbates his reflux problems.
Thanks-
Alison

[* Paula *]

Hi Alison,

I don't know anything about tongue tied, but just wanted to reply to you, to send you some hugs and welcome you to the BW Website.

[~Emma~]

 Hi,

Just back from work but will be back on a couple of hours after bedtime!! Do you know how tongue tied he is? It is usually as a percentage. I am no expert but will tell you about my experience.

 Back in a bit.....and welcome too!!

Emma xxx

[lilalley]

I am a surgical assistant for a Maxillofacial surgeon and we "clip" the tongue ties all the time.  No biggie. EASY recovery. Big results.

[shivi]

hi there

Emma had a tongue tie and had it clipped easily, almost pain and blood free at just shy of 5 mths...it has made a HUGE difference to her, to our bfeeding relationship and to her weight.

I will tell our full story and find the link to my post in bfeeding tomorrow....too shattered tonight....


S x

[Lolly]

I have 2 tounge tied children - they get it from me . I wasn't able to BF either of them, they both would latch for a second or two but weren't able to stay latched. With DS my milk took ages to come in which didn't help, with DD I had milk by day 3 but even when the milk was in they both would latch, have a suck or two then break of screaming and nothing would get them back on.

The REALLY frustrating thing is my midwife with DD said that in the health authority she used to work in ties were/are clipped at birth (or very soon after) as a routine thing. In my health authority - which is "supposed" to be very pro BF I would have to get a pead referral, they would then decide if we should be referred on to the maxofacial team. This would take months so no chance of rescuing BF.

DS's speech seems to be developing fine apart from a few sounds which could be just his age. I however still feel incedibly guilty about not being able to BF even though I know the odds really weren't on my side.

Laura

[~Emma~]

 Hi again,

 Well we didn't get our clipped in the end as it stretched a wee bit and he os now able to stick his tongue out. We were assured that it would not affect speech. I, like Laura went through the guilt thing with the bf'ing...sounds much the same actually. Our health authority is very pro bf and I went through 2 weeks of utter hell tbh and then I was angry as no-one had thought to look in his mouth, being a 1st time mum it didn't occur to me either. I can remember when Shiv's wee Emma had the clip too, I can remember thinking what a trooper Shiv was for managing for sooooo long!!!

 Its really hard as docs etc only associate fussy feeding and tongue ties with bf'ing but it def has an effect on bottle feeding too. I say go for it, its really simple and will probably make all the difference.

 Emma xxx

[lilalley]

We see some LOs at age 3 or 4 when they have speech difficulties or have trouble with solids too.  Poor lil things.

[shivi]

Hi again

Well, I was lucky with Emma for lots of reasons....there was an amount of determination but physically I was lucky.

She was born long but not as skinny as her brother (3.5 kg around 8 lbs and a whopping 58cm/23.5 inches I think). I was so relaxed about bfeeding this time (unlike when I was a first time mum) as it had gone without a single hitch with Oscar apart from a strike at 8 mths and he then self weaned at 16mths. He was very long (59) and skinny (3.3kg) born but gained so fast that I THOUGHT Emma would do the same.....but she didn't...she kept losing and losing....by week two she was down to 7lbs 2oz, even though I had a great milk supply (I was pumping avidly for freezer and DF and being the experienced pumper I was, the milk was abundant).

Feeds were a mess...she would cough, splutter, I would be covered in a puddle of milk, all down to my waistband, as would her vests....ugh! Hated those first weeks....

Any nurse/paed I spoke to in hospital, in clinics etc weren't interested in her touchiness assoc with feeding....I carried on...and during a horrible GS at 6-7 weeks, I topped her up with BM in a bottle at every feed...and noticed she found it easier, was relaxed etc...this was MY lowest point.

anyway, the embarassing thing is I am a speech therapist...AND....my final undergrad year and first year qualified I spent with prem babies, cardiac babes, babes with Downs syndrome all 0-6 mths and did an "orofacial" exam on them all as routine...but it took me 3 mths to spot Emma's mid-severe TT! (a grade 2 acc to here - Poland).

Somehow once I realised it, everything made sense...the hard first 6 weeks, the ease after that (she learned how to "gum" me for feeds and started to gain well-ish only around then.... but remained on the 25th centile for weight and the 97th for length so a long skinny LO....till around 3 mths).

I have read more about TT and babies since this...turns out my anatomical and physiological traits "suit" a baby with TT. I have very small breasts, a 32B now, usually AA and small nipples etc. BUT I have an abundant milk supply (have had hyperprolactinemia and was treated for this while TTC both babies as well as losses) and a fast letdown. Once Emma dealt with the letdown issue better and was out of the newborn phase things calmed down.

We also waited almost 2 mths for the snip....and I was at the point of maybe pulling out at almost 5 mths as she was doing really well and I didn't want her to have to re-learn bfeeding technique! At this stage she was around 50th centile for weight and still very long....

anyway, we did it....we had about 2 weeks of blissful feeding after that...then another 6 or 8 weeks of huge distractibility...but feeds were still way better than pre-snip...just had to be in a dark room, me and her only. We intro'd solids at just over 6 mths and she took to them really well and to lumps and textures better than her big bro did (though he was on purees for longer as we intro'd him to solids a lot earlier, around 4.5 mths).

Since she hit 7 mths, distractibility has calmed down, we are doing so so well again...

oh yes, and literally just after the snip was done, Emma started to babble, with proper strings of babble. Whether or not this was a co-incidence I don't know..but it is on the early side regardless.

I seriously believe if she had been my first there is no way I'd have bfed beyond a few weeks....but as she is my LAST and as I had BTDT before....it was easier.

big hugs to everyone who's been through it.

the procedure for a baby is so so easy!

S x

[Lolly]

Shiv - you and Emma have done so well! It's interesting about the anatomical traits - I am rather well endowed and have quite flat nipples, I needed my babies to latch well to draw me out - with tounge ties they/we stood no chance really. I think I also have a slow let down but it's a bit hard to say for sure .

Laura

[Hanoola]

Hello,

I'm a new mum and new to this forum.

I'm so glad I've found this post, I've been doing some research on tongue-tie today as my 10 day old son has a severe one.

He was born on the 10th and as recommended, I tried to breastfeed straight away. I had done a lot of research on this prior to his birth and knew the correct positioning etc. However, it just wasn't happening for us in the hospital. The breastfeeding advisors were fantastic in trying to help him feed and when she could see that things weren’t quite right, she asked to do a quick check of him. She diagnosed a tongue-tie straight away and said he was the third of the day!

She and the other advisors tried to help him get a better latch and as he wasn't getting any milk from me, we syringed my colostrum and he had that. During the night I was offered a top up feed of formula in a cup and he took this quite well (I think he was pretty hungry by then). We still tried with the breastfeeding, trying different positions but he would suck for a few moments, and then get tired and stop. By the time I was discharged, the BF advisor said, "just feed him", whether it be breastfeeding/expressed or formula in a cup.

I was so desperate to breastfeed, not only because it's best for my son, but because he looks so beautiful when I'm watching him feed. I persevered to the point where it felt like someone was rubbing my nipples with sandpaper each time he fed . Fortunately he was actually learning to feed and was doing pretty well. But my nipples were so cracked and bleeding that no amount of lansinoh cream would soothe them.

My midwife, who visited me on the Monday after he was born, took one look at my nipples and said, “stop breastfeeding”. I explained that he’s been referred to Kings for the snip but that I didn’t want to affect his referral if they found out I had stopped breastfeeding so I would try and persevere, however she said that he would sense the distress from me and it would affect him.

A few days later, after continuing to breastfeed, I resorted to expressing and feeding in a bottle, the bottle mainly because he was finding cup feeding with formula so utterly distressing - he just wasn’t getting milk in quickly enough and he was taking in lots of air.

So far, he has been quite content on the formula from a bottle but I do feel like I’ve failed him. I am expressing too and supplementing his formula but because of the pain and the fact that I’ve been trying to allow my nipples time to heal so that I can feed him after his treatment, my milk supply has almost disappeared and I have mastitis, for which I’m on antibiotics!

I’ve tried him on my breast again yesterday and again this morning to see whether he remembers how to feed from me, but I think he’s become lazy and just isn’t suckling as well as a week ago. He seems to get the formula milk he wants from a bottle in 10 minutes compared to an hour breastfeeding, so I can imaging he’s thinking “why bother?!”.

I’m seeing the midwife again tomorrow but am really worried that the consultant at Kings won’t treat him because he’s been bottle fed.

Otherwise, he seems to be sleeping contently, going from midnight through to 4am for a feed, then again through to 8am. He’s napping quite a lot during the day and just letting me know when he’s hungry. He has a bit of mucus and I’m wondering whether this is due to the formula... all questions for the midwife tomorrow.

If any of you have a similar experience or know how I can ensure he gets the treatment at Kings, I would really appreciate your advice.

Many thanks!

[lilalley]

Hanoola,  HUGS.  I am so angry reading your post.  Why on earth do they not fix tongue tie straight away?  The procedure can often times be as easy as circumcision.  I am sending all the hopeful vibes I can your way.  HUGS

[Lolly]

{{HUGS}} from me too Hanoola. You story and BF experience so far is very, very similar to mine except you have already done better than I managed to do. We tried to cup feed DS but he wasn't able to lap or feed at all from a cup, DD managed that much better, but neither were able to latch and stay latched. I know that faliure feeling all too well, but at the end of the day they have to be fed.

I'm glad you have a referral for a snip - hope they see you soon. I doubt they would refuse to do the procedure after all, they will have to believe you when you tell them you are trying to keep things going until he is able to feed better . Are you able to pump at all to keep up your supply, the ladies on the breast feeding board will be able to help you if you post over there. I suppose ideally you will need to keep putting him to the breast as often as you can and make sure the teat on the bottle is the slowest one. Have you tried the breastflow bottles? They have to work those like breastfeeding so they aren't quite the easy option.

HTH!

Laura