A Lip Release For My Son Was Life Changing
lip tie, lip release, baby relfux, new mom, baby GERD, how to get your baby to sleep, root cause for baby reflux
As if being a new mom wasn’t life changing enough, my new baby came with feeding issues. And here is the thing, I didn’t even know it was a feeding issue until he had tummy and sleep issues. The way he was latching (or couldn’t latch) had a major domino effect on his health. I had no clue this was a “thing”, and to be honest I probably should have done more research prior to having my baby instead of just focusing on learning about natural labor.
I naively thought so much of it would come through instincts because we have lived for centuries without lactation consultants, doulas, therapists so what was there to feeding that we couldn’t figure out on our own or that youtube couldn’t teach me?
Well, here is the biggest difference between the way we live now and the way we have lived for most of human existence: in community. We have lived with grandmas, aunts, sisters, cousins – all people who would help teach the new mom the ways of motherhood. While I am lucky to have a helpful mom and sister in the picture, they don’t LIVE with us so we still miss out on opportunities to learn. Plus, I was the first to breastfeed (to each their own) so I was the first to learn that journey.
So all of that said, I actually didn’t even know my son had a latching issue while breastfeeding and bottle feeding until we were so exhausted. We were THICK into the fog and thought this was how life was with a newborn. I finally started to post on instagram to seek help or tips because I couldn’t even shower for 5 minutes. We had several amazing recommendations, but the best recommendation was to see an occupational therapist that specialized in CFT and a lactation consultant that also specialized in CFT to look at his latch, ties and suck ability.
To be honest, this blog post could be a million lines longer on what we learned in the newborn phase with his feeding issues, but I am going to bullet point them because when I was searching for answers late at night I wanted to get STRAIGHT to the point.
My son’s struggles:
He spit up ALL the time. Babies will spit up but sometimes it would be most of what he ate or cause him to choke.
He had a lot of gas and constipation
He struggled to sleep more than 2 hours even as he got older. This is normal fresh out of the oven, but he should have been able to go 3 or 4 hours once he was over 12 pounds. As they say every baby is different, but I knew he WANTED to sleep. He was tired! But something kept waking him up besides his natural newborn reflexes.
The root causes to his spit up, tummy troubles and sleep:
He had a lip tie that was causing him to have a poor latch. The poor latch made him suck in a lot of air that led to gas bubbles and constipation. He also would get so tired trying to eat that he often had short feedings. This led to him needing to be fed around the clock even though he was getting older and gaining weight.
The solution? We got a lip release. This changed everything. Once he finally was able to latch correctly, he could eat without sucking in so much air, get plenty to eat and start to break the cycle.
I should also mention he had a lot of tension from birth and from him trying to compensate from his lip tie so we do a lot of body work to help him release (we are still working on that as I’m posting this). I’m not an expert on this so you should google CFT for babies. It’s fascinating!
Because we got the lip release done 2 months after birth, he does have some habits we have to break but overall we have seen great improvement. We have had some rough nights as he works through the pain of the wound, but I think once it’s healed we will have more sleepFUL nights versus sleepless. UPDATE: I’m editing this a few weeks after I started writing and we have seen SO much improvement.
He used to SCREAM in the car seat. He is now peaceful and sometimes falls asleep. He can lay on his back. He eats full feeds. He doesn’t spit up nearly as much. He has longer stretches of sleep (woo hoo 7 hours some nights!). Sure, some may say it’s because he is getting older, but I don’t think he would have progressed this much without the release.
And here is the really scary thing. This would have NEVER been caught or discussed at the pediatricians office. Never. They checked him for lip and tongue ties and said they found nothing. We also discussed reflux and the best they could do was offer antacids. While I know medication is needed sometimes, this was not the case. My practice in finding the root cause of symptoms was coming in hot even for my baby. I knew his reflux was not from too much acid in his stomach. If that doesn’t work long-term for adults, it’s not going to work long-term for babies.
I actually had someone message me saying their 4 year old was still on antacids and that’s scary! Those medications are designed for temporary relief and not as a long term solution. I see adults do this all the time because they don’t know anything different or they are in just so much pain it’s the only option.
But I digress about antacids. This is more about finding support for you and your babies if you’re finding yourself in a season where your baby is labeled as “colic”. That’s essentially what people were labeling Finn as and that’s fine, BUT colic is a symptom NOT a diagnosis. That’s like saying you are a “complainer” when you complain about stomach pain even though you have IBS.
