Tongue tie release - exercise advice and support

I had my twins tongue ties corrected when they were 2 weeks old and also found it difficult to do the exercises. I don't have any advice besides to just grin and bear it basically. I would encourage you to join the Bay Area Breastfeeding Support Group (BABS) on facebook. There are a lot of people who have gotten their kids tongue ties corrected in that group and it was immensely helpful in my own breastfeeding journey. 

We had the same procedure done by Dr. Yazdi when our son was around 4 months old and I feel your pain! It was so hard to imagine doing those exercises for 5-6 weeks. The good news is it got way easier as we got more comfortable doing the stretches and the wounds became less raw/sore for our baby. For the first few days we used the pain management regime recommended by Dr. Yazdi, including the arnica tablets, which seemed to help.

How far in are you? I would say things got slightly easier after 3-5 days and then much easier in the last three weeks, especially because we didn't need to do the stretches as frequently. I was also worried about "permanently scarring" our baby or giving him some sort of oral aversion or something but happy to report that nothing like that happened - he obviously doesn't remember anything from that time. The releases seemed to immediately help with breastfeeding and I'm confident that doing the stretches helped us avoid any reattachment. He's 2 now and we haven't had any issues with the ties growing back. You will get through it! 

Hey there! I'm sorry you're having a hard time with the exercises- they're a lot and it's not easy for the baby or parents! We also saw Dr. Yazdi and had our little one's tongue tie released quite young (9 days old I think) and while I think it made it easier in some respects, she still wasn't a fan. 

It does get easier, and what helped us was timing the exercises with her wake windows so we'd do them when she woke up and then had a few hours in between to recover :) Sending solidarity and I hope it gets easier for y'all as well!

we had our son’s ties released when he was 6 days old. the exercises were awful, and my husband refused to do them, so i was left to do them every time. i did find, however, that they helped with breastfeeding especially if i did them right before he nursed— so that gave me some encouragement. anyway, to answer your question, it doesn’t get better, it’s annoying for everyone, the kid will hate it, but it’s really worth it in the end. (btw i used a new pair of gloves each time, and also used coconut oil on my fingers to make the rubbing a little easier). i will say that it’s very easy to reattach so make sure you’re doing them really hard. my son’s reattached and my lactation consultant had to push really hard and detach it again (there was blood). but keep it up! you’re doing something that will be highly beneficial in the long term (in my experience, we went from severely painful nursing/broken nipple skin etc and a god-awful latch to 28+ months of successful breastfeeding and a big fat happy chubby boy.) good luck!

We had this done for our daughter at 2 months old. It does get easier, but as you seem to know, it is important to stick to the stretches. I was constantly unsure of how much pressure needed to be applied to the wounds and would often push too hard, which resulted in my baby being upset. I found that applying the right amount of pressure to the wounds was best measured by first using a small kitchen scale. Dr. Yazdi should be able to give good guidance on how much pressure to apply if you struggle with this as well.

In the end, our 3 year old daughter is doing great and has good mobility of her tongue. No issues with feeding, speech, or any other problems that may arise from oral ties.