Babies grow, and their tongues grow along with them.  Their tongue may remain relatively short compared to everyone else's but as the baby grows, the size of her or his tongue relative to the breast changes, and the time when this makes comfortable, effective breastfeeding possible will vary according to the shape and size of the breast.   

I have followed mothers through this time, and there is no simple answer about when it happens.  In my experience it seems to be when the baby is over 4500 g (about 10 lb) but of course this may vary with the individual anatomies involved.  Mothers want honesty more than they want a firm date for when things will have worked out.   It's hard to predict, and especially when we're talking about the future!  I don't think I have ever seen one resolve before 6 weeks, but I would never say 'never'.

In practice I have to approach every baby with a posterior or submucosal tongue tie as if it is a short tongue, because where I live there is no way to get such tongue ties divided.  They present in much the same way (painful feeds, ineffective suckling with slow weight gain and unhappy mother and baby, unless one intervenes to ensure adequate stimulation of milk production and intake by the baby).  And they most often resolve in the end, if the mother can find some way to keep going while she waits for the baby to grow.  IME the hardest part is finding that way, especially since you can not in all honesty promise the mother more than a *chance* that it will work out after all.   

OTOH if she stops trying you can virtually guarantee there will be no breastfeeding :-)

Rachel Myr
Kristiansand, Norway

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