The reality of having a baby is starting to sink in

[Bukawww]

Bleeding cracked nipples absolutely can be normal. It happened with my first and she was an expert at nursing.

I am also having some anxiety about #4. I was almost done with helpless people...my youngest goes to school next fall. The house was mine, all mine hahaha. I feel like I'm in the 'Sorry' game...where you are almost to the finish line and then someone pulls your card and sends you back to the beginning. Only dh and I are the card puller - we wanted this. Ack! And I'm so excited but the what ifs are infiltrating my brain lately!

Its gonna be fine, right?!?

[bezark]

Originally Posted by Bukawww Bleeding cracked nipples absolutely can be normal. It happened with my first and she was an expert at nursing.

Ditto that.
We saw two different lactation consultants MANY times over those first 2-3 weeks and tried everything. His latch was fine and he was getting plenty of milk (seriously. He got huge fast). His mouth just needed to grow a bit and I needed to learn not to pull him off at the first flicker of pain.

I hate hearing that if it hurts you must not be doing it right. Sometimes it just hurts for a while.
The only reasons we made it through those first few weeks were because I was assured it would pass, I was determined, and way too cheap to buy formula.

I'm still really nervous that it'll be that way again with this one though. It's only temporary but it sucks.

Sent from my iPhone using DS Forum

[Squig'sMumMum]

Originally Posted by bezark Ditto that. We saw two different lactation consultants MANY times over those first 2-3 weeks and tried everything. His latch was fine and he was getting plenty of milk (seriously. He got huge fast). His mouth just needed to grow a bit and I needed to learn not to pull him off at the first flicker of pain. I hate hearing that if it hurts you must not be doing it right. Sometimes it just hurts for a while. The only reasons we made it through those first few weeks were because I was assured it would pass, I was determined, and way too cheap to buy formula. I'm still really nervous that it'll be that way again with this one though. It's only temporary but it sucks. Sent from my iPhone using DS Forum

I didn't mean to imply that if it hurts you aren't doing it right... but sometimes a change in position alone can help, even when baby has a good latch. In your son's case, it was a fit issue, which is something fixable with time because he grew, and not something the LC could help with, but at least you were able to rule out other problems causing the damage If it is a long term issue that isn't getting better, something generally isn't right.
I had pain with DD for months, and it was partially latch I think (and the pain came back for months before she weaned because her latch got sloppy again), but mostly I had oversupply and an overactive letdown, and pinching off the flow was DD's way of dealing with it in the first couple months. I don't remember it getting so bad that I bled, but it definitely hurt, and my nipples dried out and I used a LOT of lanolin.