"Feeding my newborn"

After I gave birth I was moved to a room at KEMH. Ive breastfed before and knew what to do and how to latch with my 1st. My 2nd baby was an extremely sleepy one, I could get them attached 40minutes into trying however, my baby wouldn't feed and would fall asleep immediately from the distress. I was exhausted. The midwives would come in and latch my baby and they still wouldn't feed, very stressful and unhelpful as i wasnt learning how to attatch this sleepy baby on my own.

The midwives said my feeding plan was essentially, just keep trying, we want my baby to get all that beautiful breastmilk, even though my baby had yet to actually feed properly and i was getting sore and bruised. Looking back on my early days of the 4th trimester I feel I could have had a much more successful journey with breastfeeding my baby if my supply had been protected more and I had been offered an opportunity for a ward lactation consultant to come and do a 1:1 with me and talk through my options. I wasn't aware of the breastpumps I could have been using during my stay which would have saved me hours of hand expressing and could have borrowed on my discharge home.

I felt that for a hospital that supports breastfeeding so intrinsically in my experience there was an extremely poor supply of support offered in those crucial hours for feeding my baby. I would like to see new parents being offered a proper lactation consultant on the ward before they are discharged as I feel it will heavily and positively impact their journey with their newborn.