Tongue-tie and Breastfeeding

It’s been pretty hard going recently. Thomas is exclusively breastfed and every night for the last 4 weeks he’s gone from twice a night feeding and relatively settled sleeping to anywhere from 3-6 times a night feeding, and spending a lot of his time writhing around in first his crib and then his cot (we moved him when the crib was possibly too enclosed for all his wriggling), and lifting his legs up and banging them down constantly.

The change happened over night. At first I thought it was because we’d just got back from a week away with a lot of travelling involved, but after a week I figured it could be down to his 3 and 4 month growth spurts, perhaps some growing pains. However, he’s still not settled back into his old sleeping routine.

After a bit of research on a few forums I saw a couple of suggestions to people about the latch and also the potential for the baby having a tongue-tie (where the frenulum between the tongue and the bottom of the mouth is too short to allow the tongue to move as freely as it should). I looked at photos online, looked at Thomas, and looked into lots more info on the subject and came to the conclusion that he may have one. So when we next took him to the doctors for a checkup, I mentioned it to her, that he didn’t stick his tongue out, that he constantly suffered from wind, especially at night. She commented that it was too early for a baby to be sticking their tongue out (despite me seeing at least two of the same age do so). She checked him, said he was fine.

So I figured it was just something that would start to right itself. They say that the wind that babies get should start to ease between 4 and 6 months, as they get more active. I just hoped it was sooner rather than later, for both our own sleep deprived sanity, and for Thomas, who would often spend up to an hour screaming in pain after his 2am (ish) feed, and often after at least one other night feed

Then last Tuesday’s events turned around for very much the better. I occasionally go to a baby cafe with a friend, and when I mentioned to her about my thoughts on him having a tongue-tie she told me to speak to the breastfeeding peer support lady who would be there that day. In a nutshell, after a quick chat and a check of Thomas, she confirmed he had a tie and that she could arrange for a referral to a local hospital to get it dealt with.

Looking back over the last 4 and a bit months, I realise now that a lot of the signs were there.

• When he was born he wouldn’t latch on. Quite common from what I understand, and it took us several attempts to get him to start to feed without us needing help from the midwives.
• For the first couple of weeks at least, when I would try to feed him it’d take up to 30 minutes to get him feeding. He’d often spend a lot of the time banging his head against me. At the time I thought it was wind, now I realise it may have been down to frustration at not being able to latch on.
• Since he was 5 weeks old we’ve spent most evenings with him suffering from severe wind. From 5-13 weeks he would cluster feed at night and at least an hour would be spent with him crying and screaming (not colic as we could calm him down, until I would try to feed and he would try to latch on, slip off and then scream again).
• Also since early to mid January, during the day I’ve found that at times he would appear hungry, but on trying to feed he would just start crying, and push me away. Yet with a bit of calming with a finger in his mouth, or a dummy (as much as I hate using one, it calms him down quickly), he’ll then often feed. Almost as if you’re reminding him how to suck.
• When he was little he would poke his tongue to the front of his mouth but no further. We’ve never seen him stick his tongue out.
• Finally, his weight gain has slowed over the last 2 months, although we only realised this on Thursday when I read through his charts. The health visitors recording the weight didn’t spot that he’d jumped down a line on the graph.

I realise that it’s not always easy to spot a tongue-tie, and because he appeared to be feeding okay, putting weight on etc. then no one questioned if there was a problem, and his constant crying before and after feeds, wind etc. we assumed was possibly normal. It’s quite draining and upsetting though, being screamed at several times a day for trying to feed your baby It’s also hard being out and about and worrying about whether he would ‘play ball’ with his next feed and not have a screaming session first (I’ve never been one to want too much attention drawn to me!).

However, my friend, who I go to the baby cafe with, did happen to spot and mention a possibly tongue-tie when Thomas was just 5 weeks old. I didn’t know much about it then, but why didn’t the GP spot this at his 6 week checkup the following week? Or the other GP check properly when I mentioned it, and realise that it was there and causing him a potential problem? It’s very frustrating that this could have been picked up sooner and dealt with a lot quicker.

Finally, to add injury to insult, yesterday we had to taken Thomas in to see his GP (the one who did the 6 week checkup), as he’s been suffering with a cold this week and we’d just wanted some advice over the phone, but the GP insisted on seeing him and checking him over. David happened to mention that his weight gain had dropped and he said that if it dropped further, we would need to top up his feeds with formula. I explained that he had a tongue-tie, that this was most likely the reason behind him not feeding so efficiently, and that I could express milk and feed that to him without a problem, yet he still persisted on suggesting to feed him formula. He even commented saying how breastfeeding was nothing to be proud about, it’s done around the world every day.

Yet I never made a comment to attract these opinions and comments, besides saying we’d rather not give Thomas formula if we can help it. However, his comments and opinions really felt a bit like he was saying big deal. I’m not about to ask for a badge or certificate that says, yay, I’ve managed to breastfeed my son for 19 weeks so far. I know there are a lot of other women out there that successfully manage it, so it’s nothing new. I also know of some people who couldn’t breastfeed, and actually have a lot of work to do with formula feeding. Not all formula fed babies go for 4 feeds a day and sleep through the night (like one I know!), some feed more often than breast fed babies (another I know of!). So I actually think that any parent that manages to feed and raise a baby should be proud of themselves. It’s not always an easy job.

I can see now, in hindsight, that maybe we have had it harder than most, but that’s not occurred to me until now. Thomas hasn’t suffered from colic (constant screaming/crying for using 3+ hours, pretty much every night of the week up until around 3 months), he’s a fairly chilled out baby (when he’s not feeding!) and for everything else, we’ve had it pretty easy with him. But the feeding has been hard work, that we’ve just dealt with and got on with it, and so I don’t care what any GP says. I’m proud of what we’ve achieved so far, just as any parent should be.

We’re just waiting on the referral to be dealt with and a date for the hospital to come through. It’s a quick operation to release the tie, and hopefully it’ll mean he can feed like he’s never fed before (!), and he’ll be more settled and suffer less. Here’s hoping

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