‘Perseverance and patience were key to reaching our feeding goals’ – Rebecca’s Story #BreastfeedingAwarenessWeek

Our daughter Daisy was born at 30wks 0days due to preeclampsia, and weighed just 2lb 4oz. Feeding was not easy, it took a few days for my milk to come in, and Daisy was not able to tolerate even the tiniest amount (0.5ml per hour) so it felt very bleak in the first few days.  

Luckily with the midwives’ help I persevered with pumping and hand expressing and managed to eventually establish a good milk supply. It took a lot of patience (and a lot of sterilising pump parts by my husband!) but Daisy eventually was able to tolerate milk through her feeding tube.  

At 34 weeks gestation age, we first put Daisy to the breast directly and it was the most magical moment of the whole neonatal experience. Her instincts kicked in and she did a really good job. Over the next weeks we tried to establish breast feeding, with the help of the amazing SALT Mimi at Wythenshawe.  

It wasn’t easy, and took a lot of patience from everyone, as positioning and latching were very tricky with such a tiny baby and she struggled with severe reflux. Eventually I was able to breastfeed her, but she still lacked the strength to have full feeds directly from the breast and normally only one to two feeds per day.  

We were keen to try and get her home no longer needing the NG tube, so we decided to introduce a bottle so the nurses were able to bottle feed her overnight and when we were unable to be present to breastfeed.  

This helped increase her strength and eventually we were able to go home without a feeding tube! Daisy pulled her tube out one day and it didn’t go back in after that, which was the best feeling.  

Seven months after going home I am still breastfeeding Daisy and she has still been able to take a bottle well too, which was our ideal goal for feeding. Our journey showed us that perseverance and patience were key to reaching our feeding goals, along with the flexibility to take each day (and each feed!) as it came. It was not easy but the experts at Wythenshawe and following discharge were instrumental in helping us reach our goals.  

Finally, we have found the Bliss resources to be incredibly valuable and easy to understand at every stage of our journey.