Tongue tie and oral function

When I had my first baby, Arya, everything was so new and I was fumbling through all of it. We were struggling with jaundice, and poor latch, and slow weight gain (after a pound of weight loss). I would feed Arya for an hour and she would fall asleep or cry. I saw two doctors and a lactation specialist, all telling me that the latch was great. I finally found someone who told me about tongue ties, and this is when I met Suzanne. She was so patient and took the time to sit with me, sometimes while I was crying, and offer all the support and information I needed (as well as hugs). She helped me with feedings, and triple feedings, and pumping tips (my baby made me work hard). I was able to pump for a full year for Arya.

Then, along comes baby two, and I just know it’s going to be work again, but this time I was prepared. Within five days Dakota has her tongue clipped, and by her second week I was working with Suzanne. Seven months in and I am still exclusively breastfeeding baby number two. She has made all the difference for me in my journey with my babies. I only wish I had had her with me from day one with Arya.

From the very beginning I knew I wanted to breastfeed! I would often think about what it would feel like, if it would hurt or not, if I would even be able to produce enough milk. I had my son at 39 weeks via C-section. I was so heavily medicated, I don’t even remember the first few hours of his life outside my womb. I do not remember his first initial latch, but the nurse told me it was not a deep latch. So, once I was coherent, I remember working with my nurse, in order to get him to latch on. We were not successful. I was given a nipple shield and was told to use it to help him latch. I felt a little defeated but overall I was glad he was taking in what he needed, even if it was through the shield. Once we got home and settled in, I decided I was going to do whatever I could to latch him without the shield. It took a lot of work and repetition but within 3 days, we had done it! Fast forward to 6 month well check; we met with a new pediatrician and immediately she noticed he had a severe tongue tie, as well as, both cheeks and upper lip. I always thought his latch was not very deep but I didn’t worry much about it due to his constant weight gain. From there we were introduced to Bayou City Breastfeeding. We met with Karen, to prepare for the procedure to release the ties. The stretch exercises and support she gave us was amazing! Once his procedure was completed and we had our first nursing session, I could tell immediately what a perfect latch felt like! My son is now 8 months old, exclusively breastfed, continuing to hit every milestone and gaining weight like a champ! I’m so glad I was able to have the strength to continue to breastfeed my son through all the trails we faced I’m also so thankful that I was able to find the support I needed by reaching out to Bayou City Breastfeeding!

When Madilynn was born I knew I wanted to breastfeed. I had read every book and article about the benefits of breastfed infants and how to do it. I started off feeding her in the hospital and immediately ran into trouble. Madilynn wouldn’t latch and would cry because she was hungry. I was given a nipple shield and told that it was normal to have a child screaming while I forcefully tried to attach her to my breast. I felt like it was distressing both of us, so I decided to pump and supplement with formula as the hospital staff instructed me.

Once we got home, nothing got better. I tried every trick in the book to get Madilynn to latch but she just wouldn’t… so I pumped and pumped and pumped. Finally at about a month of age, she started trying to latch. She would nuzzle up to me and try to feed. But when she would latch I was in thriving pain! It was unlike any pain I had ever experienced! I just chalked it up to being a first time mom and needing to tough it out while my endurance built up. It wasn’t until I literally had a torn open bleeding nipple and a very angry baby when I decided that I needed help.

This is where Suzanne comes in! Immediately she saw that Madi had a tongue tie and torticollis ! She instructed us on proper nursing form, getting chiropractic care, starting daily tongue exercises, and that she would need a frenectomy.

I started seeing results within a week. We took Madilynn to Dr. Baker at New Leaf Chiropractic in Kingwood and Madilynn responded amazing to being adjusted. It was like night and day!

We did the tongue exercises to prepare for Madilynn’s procedure which helped a ton with the painful latch, but it still wasn’t perfect. After about a month, Madilynn had her tongue tie removed and for the first time since she was born she was finally able to nurse without bringing me to tears in pain!!! We continued to breastfeed and I pumped while at work until Madilynn was 10 months old. She has never had an ear infection and got over a cold in 2 days all of which I give the benefits from breastfeeding the credit!

Being able to nurse my baby was the best gift I could have received as well as given my baby girl! If I had not gone with my gut and sought out help, we would have never been given that opportunity!

From the start of my pregnancy to that first latch just moments after my son was born, I daydreamed about our breastfeeding journey. I was so excited. I held my newly born baby for the first time and literally could not wait to feed him. It really was the beautiful experience I had imagined but at the same time, an extremely painful one. 24 hours later, I was in tears with my hands clenched in fists every time he needed to nurse. The hospital noticed he had a pretty severe tongue-tie and they suggested we have it snipped that day. After that, feedings became a little more bearable and we went on our way.

After being home for a few days, feedings not only became painful again but he was wanting to nurse all day long. The beautiful image I had in my mind of sitting in my rocking chair, with my feet up, nursing and singing to my baby was long gone. I was in pain and he was hungry and not able to get what he needed from me. Something just was not working.

My pediatrician recommended Bayou City Breastfeeding and I called immediately! After my first meeting with Suzanne Juel, I felt hope. For the first time, I felt like it was going to work out and I didn’t have to think about giving up! My son needed a second clip under his tongue as well as both cheeks and his upper lip. The doctor did an amazing job and Suzanne gave me so much information, tips and exercises to do with him before and after his procedure.

My little man is 7 months old today, still exclusively breastfed, hitting all of this milestone, his weight is going up perfectly with his growth chart and he has the cutest, chunky thighs you’ve ever seen. ☺️ It wasn’t easy getting here but I can say, as I sit here feeding him in my rocking chair with my feet up, like it’s no big deal- I am so happy I reached out, for help and didn’t give up!

My name is Rosy, and my journey started last year on February 9th, when I had my little girl Renata. As a first time mom, I was nervous, but I wanted to educated myself as much as possible about breastfeeding my baby, as it was my goal. I took online classes with my husband and my mom with a great lactation consultant from Venezuela, as I wanted us to be ready for our baby.

I delivered her without problem, she climbed to my breast and nursed in the first hour. While nursing her, I was trying to put in practice all my acquired knowledge, but it did not look it was working, my nipples were in pain and latching wasn’t deep. Lactation consultants at the hospital came 3 times and told me I was doing it correct, and they left me with a manual pump on the desk just in case I needed it (with no explanation).

From Friday to Sunday my baby had already lost 8% of weight. During the hospital checkout the pediatrician told me that was normal, just give some formula and she should be fine. I told her I was already settled in my beliefs, and I wanted to feed my baby, and formula was not an option. When we got home, my baby could not stop crying, I was nursing her, but nothing was calming her much.

I felt inside me, something was wrong, and told my husband to look for a lactation consultant to come home next day. God listened to my prayers, and sent me an angel next day at 9am, it was Suzanne Juel. She came to our lives to give me peace, comfort to my physical and soul pain, and make me confident about my capabilities to nurse. She identified my daughter had upper lip and tongue tie, that was why my baby was able to latch efficiently to make my milk to come down. Kindly, Suzanne taught me how to use the pump to make my milk come down and how to nurse my little girl with bleeding nipples. It was a long process, tongue and lip massages before every nursing session, pain 24/7, but my little girl started to gain weight, and 6 week later she got her frenotomy, and pain went away.

Suzanne was always there for us, her last visit was after my baby turned 2 months, when she released us from her wings. Now, we have 18-months of breastfeeding, 18 months of loving every single minute I spend with my daughter during nursing. It has created a bond between us that nothing can break. Only with a look, I can tell what she is trying to tell me because I have been looked at those eyes in every nursing session. I followed my mother’s instincts and looked for professional help, now I can give the best gift a mother can give to her kid for life, breast milk. I hope every woman out there can believe in her power to crate and give life and promote and support more the natural act of nursing.

My name is Ashley and my 2nd breastfeeding journey started 6 months ago when my daughter Lainey was born.

I knew something was different with her than my first from the get-go. She clicked while nursing, couldn’t seem to stay latched on her own and would fall asleep before finishing a full feeding. When she would nurse for longer periods her jaw would quiver. No one in the hospital seemed to think anything of it. Only having one other child, I just thought it was the differences in kids.

At 4 weeks I took her to the pediatrician because she was eating every hour to hour and a half around the clock and I was exhausted. With mother instinct and google I thought she might have a tongue and/or lip tie. She was gaining weight and moving up in percentile, so the pediatrician saw no concern. Flash forward to 12 weeks old and she was still showing signs of clicking, not staying latched or finishing a full feeding and now we added not taking a bottle.

I felt trapped and desperately needed a few hours away, relief from major headaches and more than a couple hours of sleep but she would not take a bottle. That’s when my husband called Bayou City Breastfeeding. I’ll admit I was skeptical because my daughter was already 4 months old by this point, but we met with Suzanne the following week and she really heard our concerns and was very willing to help us get our daughter taking a bottle.

Suzanne realized almost immediately my daughter did, in fact, have a tongue tie and all those symptoms I knew from the beginning were confirmed. She gave us referrals for a pediatric dentist as well as an osteopath and gave us exercises to help in the meantime. She was so thorough in explaining everything we began to feel hopeful! I felt like she had my needs as a mom in mind as much as my daughters. She validated what was going on, understood and helped come up with a plan for both of us. She didn’t want to push breastfeeding on me but wanted to help me accomplish whatever it was I needed for a better mental health on my part.

My daughter is now 6 months old. We have been seeing Suzanne every couple of weeks since my daughters frenectomy. My daughters latch has improved so much, and she is finally able to finish a feeding without getting tired or frustrated and I am too! She will take a couple ounces from a bottle and we all celebrated together today! So many things are falling into place now and I do not know what we would have done if we hadn’t found Bayou City Breastfeeding.

This is my second experience with breastfeeding! With my first daughter everything was really easy, but with my second daughter it was quite the opposite. The first month was very difficult, I couldn’t keep my baby awake while feeding and she would nurse for less than 5 minutes and would fall back asleep, she had a lot of colic, would cry a lot and at one point she would not even want to feed, as soon as I would put her in feeding position she would cry… I was about to give up and ended requesting a Lactation consultant to try and figure out what was happening … after the first consult they determined I needed to go have her evaluated for lip and tongue tie … most of her feeding issues were related to this …

We took her to the dentist; they confirmed the lip and tongue tie (which was very pronounced) and had them revised and after this we followed up with the very best IBCLC, Suzanne Juel! We had to work on stretches and exercises for the following months to make sure the ties did not reattach, and even though we were doing everything by the book … Our baby’s situation was a bit more complex than normal, but with a lot of determination and hard work from our baby, mommy and Suzanne we were able to continue our breastfeeding journey!

Baby girl is now 1 year and 9 months old and we are still happily breastfeeding!

I was only planning on breastfeeding this second time around for 6 months, but after all the hard work it took, I decided to prolong it and make the best of this experience!

It was a lot of hard work and commitment this time, but I am happy we pushed through the difficulty and are now enjoying the benefits of this beautiful journey!

Unlike many women, I did not have my heart set on breastfeeding or anything for that matter. We had a rocky pregnancy so I was of the mindset that I would just go with the flow and see how things played out. I did not want to put any added pressure on myself or feel guilty or disappointed when things didn’t go the way I wanted.

I knew I wanted to at least give breastfeeding a try and tried to prepare as much as possible beforehand. I took a breastfeeding class, and ordered a breast pump through my insurance, back up pump parts, and all the other things my friends told me I would need. I was set, or so I thought.

Then our delivery day came. I ended up having a C-section and I attempted to latch for the first time in the recovery room. During the three days we were in the hospital, each nurse and lactation consultant had their own tidbits of advice on how she was latching and what hold to use. So on day three, I left the hospital feeling very confident. This breastfeeding thing was going pretty good.

I am convinced that we drove through a time warp on the way home or something, because we walked into our house with our three day old and EVERYTHING changed! She was fussy all the time, but it was really bad after every feeding. Each time she ate I battled to get her latched and fought through some pain, but carried on like we had been showed at the hospital.

Several days in I called to add my little angel to my insurance and learned that it covered several visits with a lactation consultant. I set up an appointment thinking I just needed help building a stash for going back to work. Our first visit was EYE-OPENING! We learned that MaKenna had a lip tie, tongue tie and cheek ties that had not been identified at the hospital. The ties were causing her to not latch well, take in air while feeding, and were the reason for all her gas and my latch pain.

After our first visit, we did exercises prior to every feeding, went to an ENT for a revision and went to see a chiropractor. Suzanne showed me how to let MaKenna self latch, it was a GAME CHANGER! She came to our revision appointment with us and was a wealth of information throughout the whole process.

I would love to say that after the revision our breastfeeding journey was a breeze, but that would be a lie. Night feedings were the hardest, and each time I got up I contemplated giving up. My husband and best friend were a huge support. With each passing week, I got more comfortable and breastfeeding got easier. As MaKenna’s latch improved and she took in less air, she was less fussy. We are 9 months in now and I am so thankful that I didn’t toss in the towel.