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Baby Olive's Story: Trusting your instincts on your Breastfeeding Journey

Trusting your instincts as a mother is incredibly important. Mothers often have an intuitive understanding of their babies and can sense when something isn't quite right. It's essential to listen to those feelings and seek help or advice when needed.


Your intuition, combined with seeking guidance when you have concerns, can be a powerful combination in providing the best care for your baby. Your dedication and persistence in searching for answers and solutions show your deep love and commitment as a mother. Never give him up if something doesn’t feel right .


When seeking support , seek support from a medical Professional that is happy to refer, really listens to your concerns, and has experience from finishing training.


Baby Olive's Story




My daughter, Olive is my first baby. We had a very quick and straight forward labour and were able to breastfeed within the first hour of her arrival.


I asked my midwife to check Olive for a tongue and lip tie and she said she looked fine. My midwife helped me latch and she breastfed on one side for over an hour. However after that initial feed, I struggled to get her to latch.


We were staying at a birthing centre and every time I needed to feed her I would call in a midwife to help but it was still so difficult. We ended up feeding her colostrum with a syringe.


When we went home, my sister suggested we try a nipple shield. This helped some times but not all the time and I ended up having to give her the bottle with expressed breastmilk a few times. The first two weeks were so tough. I remember feeling so upset because I didn’t realise how hard breastfeeding would be and I just felt so disappointed and like there was something wrong with me. I felt like I wasn’t a good mum. I found it hard to connect with Olive because the feeding was so hard and consuming my every thought.


My partner didn’t really understand how I was feeling and just wanted Olive to be fed, whether that was formula or breastmilk. I thought I could express and feed her with a bottle full time but have heard that is really hard on the mum and the thought of not getting to breastfeed her was causing me a lot of sadness!


I raised our issues with my midwife and by the end of the second week, I saw a LC. She showed me a few things which helped me latch without the shield and I didn’t have to use the shield again. However it was always painful for me when she fed.


The LC kept saying to try get a deep latch but no matter what I tried (I watched sooo many YouTube videos for help), I couldn’t get her to have a deep latch. I felt like her mouth was just soo small. I was reassured that it will get easier and by the time she is 6 weeks old we won’t have any issues. Unfortunately that wasn’t the case. We had a range of different things pop up; poor suction (milk splattering out the sides of her mouth), cracked sore red nipples, an oversupply/very fast letdown which caused Olive to cough and splutter, she was fussy at the breast, Olive had a lip blister, two toned lips, neck creases, she also struggled with taking a dummy or a bottle and would just gag, sometimes she even gagged while breastfeeding, the list goes on… I kept in contact with the LC for all these issues but she just kept sending me unhelpful articles.


I googled all the symptoms/issues and it always pointed towards tongue and lip ties. When I raised this with the LC she said she didn’t think Olive had a tongue tie and that if she did have a lip tie, it’s not recommended to release a lip tie.. I then raised our issues with our Pepe Ora nurse and she referred me to another LC.


We had a few meetings over Skype and she showed me some positions to try, which also didn’t help. I then saw a Dr about the issues and she advised that Olive has a high palate and a lip tie and there was not much we could do. My own Dr also saw Olive and said the same thing. So in total we had 5 professionals check Olive for tongue and lip ties. It wasn’t until we saw Vicki K for Olives sleep when she was about 7 months old that things changed.


Vicki asked about our history and straight away said that there is possibly something going on in Olives mouth and provided me with contact details of Wendy (an LC that is very good at picking up oral ties). I told Vicki that I always thought there was something but was told by 5 professionals otherwise so I just had to leave it be. Anyway, we saw Wendy the next week and she advised Olive had both a tongue and lip tie and to get a second opinion / get them released at Changing Faces dental clinic in Hamilton.


We went to see them and had Olives oral ties released! Unfortunately as Olive was already 7 months old, it will take time for her to change the way she feeds, so in the meantime it does still hurt me a bit but I am so relieved to have it sorted as it will help when her teeth come in and with her speech.


Please always trust your mother instinct and intuition, mothers always know best! I know for next time, I will be contacting Wendy straight away. I am so grateful to Vicki for listening and caring so much, we would not have had this sorted without her.




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