Latch challenges, bottle confusion and tongue tie
My baby is three weeks old, and he latched right away after he was born and was seemingly doing fine with breast-feeding for the first five days. But then we discovered on a weighted feed that he was not transferring very much milk from me and he lost more than 12% of his birth weight so we had to start supplementing his feeds. We were spoon feeding him at first, but this was unsustainable so we introduced the bottle. About four days after introducing the bottle he started to really struggle latching at the breast. He also sometimes struggled to latch the bottle and is generally a sleep, slower to eat, baby. Our pediatrician and dentist both say that he has a tongue and lip tie. At the same time, I have only been able to pump about 50% of his milk needs. I continue to try to latch him most sessions with mixed success, even using a nipple shield. Sometimes he will latch for 10 or 15 minutes and breast-feed other times he won’t latch at all all day. He’s currently gaining weight feeding him my pumped milk, and some formula. Sometimes his feeds from the bottle are long, and he often sleeps with his mouth open, has blisters on his lips and is challenged to section his tongue to my finger when sucking on it. Although what we’re doing right now is working we are considering releasing the ties. I’m wondering if anyone else has been in a similar situation. If so, was your baby able to return to breast-feeding after a tongue tie release? Even when they weren’t latching at all before the release? Did you do the release for any other long-term health benefits to the baby? Bonus for any advice or input from someone in the situation who also has struggled with low milk supply. If my supply doesn’t increase, it’s likely we will have to continue bottle supplementing no matter what. We are working with an IBCLC already. Our current plan is to start with some infant bodywork and oral exercise exercises to see if those help before going to a release. Have any of you had success doing that instead of a release?
Posted Dec 6, 2025, 4:55 PM UTC