My 7 month old is the same way.  She liked to tongue suck at the hospital and it was too painful for me.  Since I wanted to give her breastmilk, I started pumping.  At 3 months, I tried nursing and it was still a no-go.  At 6 months, I tried again and had the same results.  I have been pumping exclusively now since she was born.  My pediatrician told me that some babies just don't want to nurse and my daughter is one of them.  She doesn't ever have formula and I like pumping only because I can see exactly how much she is drinking. 

I would have to say not to give up giving your son breast milk.  Continue to pump for him and every few weeks, try and see if he is willing to nurse.  Good luck!

 Its doable but then you are spending so much time on feeding. I think that is why many might go to formula if nursing doesn't work for them. So many minutes to pump, then so many minutes to feed and then so many minutes to clean all of the pumping materials makes it difficult. Thoughts are the time you spend with your baby may contribute to the benefits of nursing but if you are pumping and cleaning then you could be missing out on valuable time with your little one. That is the way I saw it at least. Everyone must make the decision that is best for their family and you will too. Good luck.

Baby #3 spent 7 weeks in the NICU so this was the route we took, yes it was more time consuming but well worth it. Just curious if you have tried a nipple shield? That was the only way my dd would latch on because she had been so used to having tubes from the vent in her mouth. Just a suggestion if you haven't tried it.

My DD is now 4 1/2 months and has been on formula for almost 2 months now. Prior to that I was mostly pumping. She was nursing in the beginning but got so used to how much easier it is to drink from a bottle that she and I both stopped nursing and just continued to pump. I still wanted to give her breastmilk as long as I could. It is time consuming. I only had a single manual pump. There came a point where I knew we were done with exclusive pumping. It was wearing me down, especially with two other young children at home to take of.

I am now very happy and so is dd that we have gone to formula:)

good luck

Yes, you can exclusively pump, I did it for about 2 months after going back  to work. As others have stated, its a bit more time consuming and draining, but if you go into it with positive attitude then there is no reason that it wont work for you. If you dont have one already, you'll need to buy or rent a decent double electric pump.

But...before you do that, I would continue to see your lactation consultant and try nursing for a couple more weeks.  I know you must be very tired and frustrated at this piont, especially with all the extra doctors visits you been to in the last 7 weeks. You are doing GREAT though and it seems from you post that you are trying to stay positive.  No matter if its nursing, pumping, or formula feeding, your baby is loved and thats what matters most. Congrats on your beautiful new baby.

Keep trying to nurse, and call La Leche again.  After that, I would pump as long as you can, but I understand that can be annoying.  I don't know why, but whenever I would pump it didn't really work.  I would pump for 15 minutes and get less than 1 ounce.  My baby was nursing happily, I was just trying to get a bottle for a babysitter.  I started just using formula if I needed someone to give the baby a bottle.

I know a few moms who exclusively pumped (no formula at all) for an entire year.  They said the first few months were tiring, but after that, it was so routine, they didn't mind at all and loved knowing they were still giving their baby the best possible food despite the inability to latch. If you're looking for support, call the Mom and Pop Place in Neenah. They have a breastfeeding support group that meets every Wednesday at 10am (double check the day and time).  You'll meet some great moms who've seen just about every breastfeeding hiccup you can imagine and there is almost always a La Leche League leader there. Best of luck and keep at it :) Your dedication is very admirable!

Yes, you can pump exclusively!  I did that for both of my kids.  We had latching problems with both kids.  The stress of trying to latch and feeling like a failure because it wasn't working was not worth it, so I pumped.  As a previous post mentioned, it is time consuming.  However, the key is to make sure you have a nice double electric pump and enough supplies that you can pump a few sessions without having to clean.  Once you get a routine started, it's much easier.  I pumped and DH did the cleaning    If DS is your only child, that will make it easier.  Pumping for DD was harder because I had her and DS who was almost 4.  I ran out of energy to pump as long as I had hoped for DD. 

From the moms I've talked to, it seems like the ones who nursed and then tried to pump had a harder time pumping.  I never nursed, so pumping a good supply was never a problem for me.  One of the "old school" nurses at the hospital was so negative about me pumping for DD and actually told me I wasn't going to get enough out (colostum?).  Like I said, she was old school and boy was she floored by the amount I was able to get out.  You are right, there isn't much support, even from the nursing staff at times.  If you need help boosting your amounts, consult your lacation specialist.  The one at our hospital was awesome and would actually go to certain stores to get natural remedies to boost supplies for moms.  To find more support online, try typing in exclusively pumping for a search.  I can't remember the name of the site I found, but it was great!  I never joined, but reading the other posts usually covered any of my concerns.  Let me know if you have any other questions...I'd be more than happy to answer them!  Best of luck with pumping, you can do it!

My daughters ( I have two ) wouldn't nurse and both eventually ended up on formula.  My sons (again, I have two ) have been my nursers.  I had a lot more trouble with my youngest nursing.  I would give the WIC office a call ( they have a lactation consultant available that can come to your home-she's awesome) or get in touch with UW Extension, they have a lactation consultant/nutritionist that can give some insight as well.  And don't give up.  The longer your child get's breast milk the better. But remember that at the end of the day what's most important is not how you feed your child but that you feed your child.

My little guy would not latch on for the life of him for two months. I was so excited that first time in the hospital when you do skin to skin and then do your first attempt. Then I get sent home and still nothing. Everything appeared ok all around so they said just keep trying. I was getting so frustrated I slowly dropped attempts to once a day then every couple of days and then it was just when I thought of it because it was depressing. He'd scream in frustration because he was hungry and here I was trying to smush my nipple in his mouth. So I exclusively pumped until around 2 months and then he just started sucking and it hurt so bad because the latch was all wrong, but I didn't care. I was elated. And he just got it from then on out. Yes eping is a pain and if not properly educated can go awry. I had never heard of over supply. And my baby had jaundice so he was supposed to eat every 2 hours around the clock so here I was pumping my brains out. I had always heard that the more milk the better so when I was getting 4oz on each side I thought JACKPOT. Yeh, well I kept pumping every 3hrs and then dropped down to every 4 and was producing enough for twins. Not cool. People kept telling me that if I dropped too many pumps my milk would dry up. Well I would have given anything to have 1/2 of my milk gone. Which made me feel selfish because there were so many moms out there who can't get their supply up to meet their babies needs so I kept my mouth shut and leaked all over the place. I would feel a letdown and run for the sink because I was going through so many boxes of pads. 6 months later I still had issues with being engorged. Now he's jus one year old and I just nurse at night and he gets my freezer stash during the day. I'm glad we have made it this far. :)  My advice is LLL and do what works for you. If pumping is good then pumping it is. Who cares what everyone else did. As long as they don't judge. If your baby is getting your milk for any amount of time it's better than not ever getting it at all. PM me if you want any other info I have. Hugs!

I know God will not give me anything I can't handle.  I just wish that He didn't trust me so much.  -Mother Teresa.