"I felt very let down"

When my daughter was born the midwife wrote in my notes possible tongue tie but other midwives weren’t sure and I was told to just wait and see. I was unable to breastfeed as my baby had a very shallow latch and it was painful. I was advised to get nipple shields. The midwife who visited my house recommended combination feeding as I was expressing milk with a pump.

After a few weeks I asked my health visitor for my daughter’s tongue tie to be seen at the hospital. We were on the waiting list for 8 weeks before we were seen when she was 14 weeks old. In that time I had been using nipple shields but it was still painful and expressing milk was time consuming. My milk had started to reduce. At the appointment the doctor/nurse didn’t even look at my daughter’s tongue tie. She asked me what I wanted from the appointment and then said that my daughter had gotten into own her feeding habits and they wouldn’t be changed as it was too late. She told me breastfeeding for me was over. Why put someone on a waiting list to then tell them help is unavailable as too much time has passed? I wanted to breastfeed for as long as possible. I feel like I would have had an appointment quicker if I had refused to formula feed and let my baby lose weight but I wasn’t prepared to do that and felt very let down.