TONGUE TIE!! 4 days after our baby was born we had to have he piece of skin under her tongue (frenulum) cut because our pediatrician noticed her tongue was not coming out long enough and that's why she was having trouble latching on to nurse. He snipped it simple and easy and she started to latch on that day! GREAT easy fix! Or so we thought! We knew we had to retrain Presley to not use a nipple guard like we had been having to do and knew that would be a struggle but had no idea it wasn't the end of our worries. Me and my mom have spent hours of time trying to work with her and after many sleepless days and nights with results not improving we contacted a lactation specialist who came out to our house. She immediately noticed that our baby was STILL tongue tied! And bad! We had to schedule appointment with the pediatric dentist for next Tuesday to have them take lasers and cauterize deeper under the tongue and while they're at it the frenulum between both top and bottom lips (between the lips and gums). My heart is broken. My poor baby has been trying so hard and now we know! Not to mention due to not being able to latch properly my poor nipples are in agony. This is also extremely expensive and they don't take our insurance! The specialist showed us a special way to get a good enough latch for now but we will have to follow up with her and another specialist after to retrain her tongue for proper latching. In the long run, she is SO tight that this could and probably would have caused speech issues further down the road.

If you're having trouble nursing ( your nipples hurt BAD even when they have a good latch, your baby just isn't getting it but you can see they're trying and becoming frustrated, you notice your baby's tongue doesn't come far out of her mouth, she is sleeping too much ((this is because she was so weak from not getting the full benefits of nursing)) and not waking to tell you she's hungry even when her tummy is growling) call a lactation specialist or see a pediatric dentist! Your baby could possibly be tongue tied and it can be fixed! From what we have been told a lot of times mothers will not know what's going on (pediatricians aren't trained to notice it either) and they will give up thinking they just can't do it!