Hopefully this will help others - lip tie.

Breast feeding has never been easy for me. In fact its been a hard slog, has brung me to tears at times, and shown me an exhaustion i never knew possible. Noah has fed hourly sometimes less from day one. Hes coming up to 14 months and we still feed 5+ times a night, plus 1-2hrs in the day, more if he could get away with it Ive always demand fed and hes been on the 91st centile from birth. Hes always been a clingy baby, and never seemed satisfied after feeding and would always seem desperate for more. I cant even begin to tell you how many times ive doubted myself and at times thought maybe it WAS my milk. No tongue tie though when checked and with his weight gain i was told he was fine. At 13 months its finally been spotted he has a severe lip tye. Something ive never heard of and i hope by posting this picture it may help even one person. Yes the past year has been one of the hardest ive endured, would i do it again? Hell yeh

You've done/are doing an amazing job. I think I'd have gone if M fed that frequently, especially overnight. Sadly not enough HPs know much about lip tie and it goes undiagnosed an awful lot, as can some types of tongue tie. Makes me

As Louise said, you have done an amazing job to continue through feeding when all has not been easy. Max has a lip tie and although we didn't have any major problems feeding, he now has a huge gap between his front teeth . Will be interesting to see what his adult teeth do.

Like you say, if it just helps one person, I wouldn't have had the first idea about lip ties then

Helped me, I didn't gave a clue Boo & Dink had it till I saw your pic! I knew they had huge gaps in their front teeth but nothing more

A fab post you will for sure be helping others and what a fab job you have done. Isobella's lip tie went un diagnosed until we went to the dentist. If it helps at all she told me not to worry and that would probably get better. It did we have gone from me not being able to brush her top teeth as her lip was so tight to it being much better. She advised me to massage gently which I have been doing ever since she also said most cases are not as prominent once they loose their first teeth. Feeding through this is not easy but as you have shown it can be done. I think this could be made into a sticky because your post is so inspirational x

[clothmama]

Wow Kimberly - what an amazing job you have done it must have been a long year and a bit and you must be exhausted!!

Thank you so much for sharing your story and picture, as you say if it can help one person what an amazing gift that would be!

ETA I've made this a sticky and added lip tie to the title

I'm pretty sure I have a lip tie and suspect Martha has/ had it too, thanks so much for your post.

Kimberly you've done an amazing job

Turns out James has a big lip tie too. Explains why that first week and getting him to latch was a nightmare. Fortunately I fed him until he was 15 months and never had any trouble other than that early few weeks.
Eleanor has one too - only noticed since her teeth have come though and there is a gap.

Turns out I have a tongue and lip tie - but I was bottle fed so was never a huge issue.

You've just described Evie and hers looks very similar I only put 2 and 2 together the other day and posted on my peer supporters group to ask if it might have something to do with our uncomfortable latch issues and constant feeding. Can anything be done about it and should I get it formally diagnosed by someone? Does it cause any other issues?
The constant night feeding is exhausting, well done for managing for so long Kim