Something interesting I found out today..

Caden had a plunket visit today and we had the plunket nurse who did our AN class.

She was checking Caden and she said to me "Oh, Caden has a bit of a tongue tie". I remember her telling us about it when we learnt about breastfeeding and how it can effect a babys abitlity to latch on well/if at all.

I now know that this is the reason Caden had trouble breastfeeding! It is actually a huge relief to know that we have a very good reason as to why we couldnt continue breastfeeding. I am guessing the reason why my nipples were SO SO sore, he was getitng grumpy while feeding and wasnt latching well was due to his tongue tie! poor Boy!!
I was reading about them, and the signs are fussiness while feeding and after feeding poor weight gain, sore nipples for mum etc and thats exactly what we had.
He doesnt have a very bad one, but you can see that the end of his tongue has a wee "split" kind of like a snakes tongue! And the bit under it is further up than it should be!
We have to watch his speech as he gets older aswell as they can effect that sometimes! So thats a bt of a worry

Im glad I know what half our problem was with the breastfeeding now!

Edited by Sheza

Yeah, Im a little upset about it, as if his speech is effected by it them they usually need surgery to fix it.
I wish my MW would have piked up on this when he was born, as I had noticed his tongue has a funny split thing at the end sicn ehe was born! We might have been able to sort things out back then. The poor wee thing was struggling to latch on cos of his tongue tie

Im so peeved, we could have has his cut months back and we could have contined to breastfeed
But no one picked up on it, and as a new mum, I had no idea at all!

Sheena, lots of dentists will snip it for you - about $50. Like Blondy said (we're in the same coffee group!) - one of our mums had it done and another is probably going to do it. The undecided one has good feeding but she's worried about his speech, so is probably going to get it cut so she doesn't worry about it anymore.

yeah i think i will get it looked at and see about getting it snipped.
im just so annoyed it wasnt picked up sooner we could have still been breastfeeding.

Yep we tried breastfeeding again but he didnt want to, now I know most of the reason why!

Aw, stink babe. Jackson has a little tongue tie too, but it doesn't seem to affect his breastfeeding (it's other issues we're dealing with!).

Everything I have read suggests that it's a quick and easy snip and the littlies often don't put up too much of a fuss about it. Maybe you could do that to rest your mind at ease about the speaking.

How far can he get his tongue out? I have heard that if they can get it past their bottom lip it is usually not too big a problem later on.

I can see why you are frustrated about the breastfeeding... I would be too. But at least you know that there was a good reason that Caden didn't take to it.

He can get his tongue out quite far...so thats good, he can usually get it out past his lip.

Luke has a tongue tie as well, we never had any problems feeding and no one has ever offered to cut it for him. He seems to be able to vocalise himself well so far, but I won't hesitate to have something done if it affecting his speech later.

The other downside is that it is unlikely that he will ever be able to roll his tongue... my mum has short tongue like Luke and thats the only effect it has had on her.

Ask your gp about it at the 5 month check up. Not to bag plunket or anything but she isn't a doc and what she perserves as being a problem a doc might think is fine. Same as what happened with Spencer, midwife thought it was an issue but the paed said it was nothing to worry about, and was very adamant that I didn't let anyone snip it, he actually said it would be a tragedy