Hi there! My first post, very exciting!
Welcome to my blog…It may take me a little while to get into the swing of things but I hope you find the information and some of my experiences and travels, useful and interesting.
I have returned to London to get the beautiful two week old, Josh into training. He is currently bottle fed and as he has a tongue tie, his sucking can vary dramatically, from strong to almost non-existent. Newborns with a tongue tie find it hard to stay fully latched on to a teat or nipple as the tongue, which comes forward to suck, retracts back after a few sucks. They also find it hard to circular breathe whilst drinking which makes for erratic drinking which creates wind issues. Newborns are at the establishing stage, learning how to drink, suck, and are unable to burp themselves and need to be winded frequently to enable them to take enough milk to satisfy until the next meal which takes time with any newborn regardless of a tongue tie. You would have thought with all this going on, it would mean long and arduous feeding sessions for Josh, with regular frustrations and stress developing from both hunger and tiredness but, with a wide range of bottles and teat options for one bottle to the rescue, feeding hasn’t been much of an Issue.
You might not be aware that there are three makes of teat that fit on the Avent Classic bottles, Avent, Dr Browns and Mam. Each one has its own pros and cons so finding the right teat for your baby is important and can make all the difference to the ease of feeding a newborn with sucking issues. I usually start with the Avent teat but Josh had already moved on to the Mam teat before I arrived. Josh builds up a lot of air due to his varied sucking so his baby burps are like a trucker, huge long belly burps, so it is vitally important to wind regularly – I wind after every 30mls/1oz. Currently, with the right winding technique, he is very easy to wind.
The winding process usually gets tricky as your baby’s appetite increases and therefore drinks more milk at each feed. This usually begins to appear at around 4-6 weeks. Hang on in there because by 8-12 weeks your baby should be almost self winding – hurray!!
If your newborn is having difficulties sucking and latching due to a tongue tie, it’s worth looking into getting it sniped. Chances are feeding will get easier once this is done. Ask your health visitor or midwife for details.