Ahem.
For those mamas out there who experienced breastfeeding like the above explanation, I envy you, because that is certainly not how it happened for me. And for the first few weeks after I had NC, I had convinced myself that I was the only new mama in the world who had trouble breastfeeding and that for some reason, I was just ill-equipped.
As I briefly mentioned in my last post, I want this to be a safe place for us to discuss the real issues facing us as human beings, and today, as new mamas. Not all of my posts will be this "graphic", but today, that's just how the cookie crumbled.
So without further ado…How to Feed a Baby in 5 Easy Steps
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1- Pump it up.
For me, my milk didn't come rushing in to save the day. I had to work for it. No one had ever told me that even with the baby doing her best to stimulate you and your milk to come a callin', you still might need some extra help. So, this thing became my best friend from day one. I abused this thing, and had a very volatile relationship with it. We had ups, and lots of downs, but at the end of the day, it was a very productive relationship. And after a month or so, there was no need to use this thing ever again--everything got good and settled with just NC doing the work. But at the beginning, it was a life-saver. Even though I wanted to burn it at a stake most of the time.
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2- Put a shield on it.
Part of NC's problem was that I wasn't shaped in the most opportune way for her to be able to latch on and get to work. Again, if breastfeeding is so natural, shouldn't my body be ready to go? Not necessarily. I decided to use a nipple shield to try and make things easier for NC and to try and help re-shape things on my side of the deal to make everything as "normal" as possible. Like the pump, I had a love-hate relationship with this thing too. It made the beginning possible, then became somewhat of a hindrance, and then, through a lot of fear and struggle, it became unnecessary. Thank god.
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3- Take it to the milk bank.
So, I was pumping around the clock, and NC was trying her hardest to help me out using the nipple shield, but when the milk still wasn't efficient, she still needed something to eat while my body slowly got the message to shape up. Enter the miraculous world of donor milk. It was very important to me to breastfeed exclusively, and when the roadblocks started from the very first minute, it was very easy to get super discouraged. And even with the donor milk, I still felt like a failure most of time because I couldn't do it all on my own. The fact is that when I needed help, I had an entire community of women around me that I had never met who had given of themselves to help me and NC succeed. It was the most amazing way to help me feel like even in the darkest of times, I was doing my best to give my daughter the very best.
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4- SNS: don't ask, just do it.
It's called a Supplemental Nursing System (SNS) and talk about a love-hate relationship. This was the most time-consuming, awkward, unnatural thing ever. However. This is what helped me to continue to "breastfeed" NC using donor milk, while at the same time stimulating my body to produce my own milk. I won't go into too many more details here because it is pretty intense but let's just say, again, a god send and at times a curse and always a struggle. But at the end of the day, something I could throw out and erase from my memory as best as I could. Point: it was necessary in success.
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5- Meet with a lactation specialist (a.k.a. angel from heaven).
After two weeks of the pumping, nipple shield, and SNS, I thought we were smooth sailing. We had stopped using the SNS and I wasn't having to pump 12 million times a day. My milk was in and NC was eating and we were golden. Or so I thought. Fast forward through a week of NC screaming all day and all night unless she was on my boob. We were ready to do anything--chiropractic sessions. cranial sacral therapy. maybe it's a dairy allergy? maybe she has colic? maybe she just hates us? maybe she's possessed? Until I finally got my butt off the couch and went to see the lactation specialist at the hospital. Again, I felt like I was admitting defeat--right when I thought I had this breastfeeding thing down, I'm going to ask for help again, so afraid to hear what she might say. It certainly wasn't an easy visit--turns out NC hadn't been transferring milk from me for whatever reason and she was screaming because she was just hungry. I felt like the worst mom of all time. The lactation consultant assured me that this too would pass. In one session she was able to get NC to latch without the shield, something I thought was pretty much impossible at that point, and we had worked out a plan of attack to get NC back on track gaining weight, eating well, and being happy. I left that appointment with NC happy and awake, at the SAME TIME, for the first time, pretty much ever. The next week was a blur--it was back to pumping every two hours, nursing and giving NC pumped milk in a bottle (oh man, that was the lowest of the low. Giving my 3 week old a bottle?? My baby I wanted to breastfeed? Nipple confusion! The end of the earth as we know it! Death to bunnies and puppies! Seriously, and completely unwarranted and unnecessarily, I was a basket case.) to make sure she was totally full, no sleep, lots of tears, and lots of exclamations of defeat. But then, like the calm after the storm, it was all over. NC was breastfeeding and she was full and she was fat and she was happy. My milk was in and overcompensating for the first few weeks that is slacked off in class. We were doing it. And I had the lactation specialist FROM GOD to thank for helping me figure it all out.
So there you have it. How to feed a baby the totally natural normal easy biological way. A.K.A. my journey through hell and back. And now, 6 months later, we are breastfeeding exclusively. And NC is such a fan, that she has boycotted bottles completely. But that's a whole other post for a whole new lifetime...
So, was it worth it? Yes. Would do I it all again? If those are the cards I am dealt, yes. But man, I hope I get a better hand. Isn't there an easier way? Of course. Well now I'm never going to try to breastfeed! I'm terrified! My intention is not to scare you. Instead, I want you to know that when you try, if it is hard, you are not alone, and you are not a failure, and you are not a bad mom. I think through it all, I wish I would have known all of these things were a possibility just so I didn't think I was the only one.
Tell me, my dear internet cosmos--what were your experiences feeding your new baby? What advice can you give other new mamas? What do you wish you had been told or given to help you feel empowered?
Here's where we support each other. Please comment anonymously if you would like. We don't need to have names to be able to relate to each other and feel connected.
XOXO
-mel
My experience was so long ago.. they didn't encourage breast feeding, I was one of two women on the maternity floor who were breast feeding. I really didn't have any problems at first than than bucking the trend at the time. Mine came later on when my milk didn't seem to keep her satisfied no matter how often or long I nursed. Since I had no one to ask for advice or help from I gave in and gave her a bottle but she got at least six weeks of nursing.
ReplyDeleteThank you so much for sharing your story, Sherry. I think (no, I KNOW) I would have done the same thing had I not had the support. I wanted to quit a million times and at the end of the day, I totally would have if it weren't for the Mr. and the lactation consultant and the many women in my life who continued to cheer me on. I can't imagine how difficult that must have been for you. You are a rockstar for giving it your all for as long as you did! xoxo
DeleteMegan! Who knew you would bless our lives again! Thank ou for this timely blog!!!
DeleteYou're so sweet, Lorna! Thanks for reading! xoxo
DeleteMy boob buffet story. Side 1.
ReplyDeleteOh the ups and downs of trying to breastfeed. The hospital where I delivered has a "golden hour" after the baby is born and wiped off and stuff (love the kid but I didn't need any more experience with goo than necessary) where everyone leaves except the partner and when I first tried to put L on the breast..she was so floppy! The hubs and I looked at each other like..oh no..what now?! And he's a doctor! I was not feeling very confident. Who knew that newborns have a reflex to throw their head back when the back of it is touched..uh, you mean like exactly how I tried to hold her and get her to nurse? That was clue number 1 that I had no idea what I was doing.
My milk didn't come in for 6 days. We were all good till about day 4 when L went from content baby (who I guess was getting enough colostrum to keep on living..or had internal reserves, I don't know) to distressed baby pterodactyl. Hubs woke up at 4 am on the the fourth morning after she was born saying that she was starving and he was going to Walgreens to get formula. I yelled (maybe screamed..probably screamed), "NO YOU CAN'T. SHE CAN'T HAVE FORMULA. SHE CAN'T HAVE A BOTTLE. NIPPLE CONFUSION. I DON'T KNOW WHAT TO DO" and hubs was like "what the f#*! is nipple confusion..our baby is starving.."
Geez, thanks husband..but he was the sanity in that moment and I busted out a can of formula that had mysteriously arrived in the mail and prepared 1 oz of formula in a bottle that had also mysteriously shown up in the mail. I didn't even have my own bottles because I just KNEW that I would be able breastfeed and because I wanted to so badly it would/should/has to be easy, right? Baby L licked the bottle nipple and took 1/2 oz and was as happy as a fuzzy teddy bear. She just needed something. I get it, sometimes I just need a snack and I'm good to go. At that moment, it was terrible..I was failing. I couldn't breastfeed, but my daughter was hungry SO HUNGRY. Looking back..it was okay. A rough moment, but we're all good. But at the time you don't know anything (I didn't anyway) so any deviation from what you thought was going to happen seems like the worst. thing. ever.
My friends kept telling me that I'd feel this rush..this whooshing in of milk in my boobs..well, no. No rush here..nothing. I kept grabbing my chest like a jr. high kid making out with someone for the first time, trying to tell if there was any change in my body (like decorative body lumps turning into magical milk jugs). My sister was still at my house during this time and she insisted that I needed to pump ALL THE TIME to stimulate the boobs and make the magical milk come. Of course, because I just knew it would so easy (and I'm a little on the cheap side), I had only purchased a hand pump. So hand pump we did. Yes, we. I would pump one side for the first half of an episode of something on Hulu and my sweet sister would take over pumping the other boob for the second half of the episode. I would sneak off to take a shower and she'd be waiting for me breast pump in hand saying it was time to get to work. I was frustrated at the time with all the stimulating (still hate that word) but I am glad that little sis hung in there with me to get things stimulated! And by golly, the milk came. I swear the first milk that was worth anything (but this I mean actual drops of it, not just little tiny sprays) came as I was drinking raspberry leaf tea getting ready to pump again. Raspberry leaf tea has been known to aid in letdown..it worked for me! (Side 2 continues below...)
Side 2..
DeleteAnyway...so when the milk came, it came by the river full. Because I wasn't really sure when to nurse L..every 2 hours? 2 hours since the beginning of the last time I fed her? What? That sounds like logic and logic is like math and I suck at math. So yeah, I just fed L whenever she cried, squeaked, tooted, anything. Oh hi little baby, I love you..wanttonurseagain?
I also went to a lactation consultant who led (and still leads) a nursing mother support group. L was nine days old and I went religiously every time the group met and had the nursing support line at the hospital in my phone's favorites. Those women are angels. Like, I want to be a lactation consultant. But a lot of them are nurses..and nurses need to be pretty good at math..and I've already mentioned that I suck at math..anyway. So I'll just put my want to be LC hat on and keep writing here...
The lactation consultant watched me try to nurse L and "diagnosed" me with overactive let down..meaning, when the milk came in, it came in with full force and because I had been pumping so much (even after the milk came..I would pump when I was full if it wasn't time to feed..and that just made my body think it needed to make more milk..vicious cycle), I had enough milk for twins. Maybe triplets. Some adjustments had to be made for making sure (or at least trying) to not choke L when she was nursing. Milk would come so fast she'd sputter and pull away and milk would just spray all over..white circles on our hardwood floors just kind of became normal. Who has time to mop when you've got a newborn? I am thankful that I had too much milk instead of not enough...but it definitely contributed to all the other frustrations and steep learning curves that are associated with a newborn.
The lactation consultant suggested a few things to try and help the overactive let down situation..lean back while nursing..lie down on my side and nurse (finally tried that..lifesaver)..hand express through the initial powerful letdown (into a cup or something and save it! freeze it!)..I tried all these and they all helped at one point or another. I also tried a nipple shield at the lactation consultant's suggestion to see if that helped hold the letdown back a little...but then I dropped in on the ground outside in some gravel and I was too lazy to wash it off and decided not to use it. Sorry, just being honest. I actually ran across it the other day, like in the car floorboard, and it was still dirty. And it made me laugh a little.
It wasn't until L was about 3.5/4 months old that nursing finally started to feel like it might be getting easier. I mean, it definitely was getting easier that whole time but soooo slowly, it felt like. The entire 3rd month of L's life, I side nursed on our bed. It worked and then around 4 months she was too distracted to nurse in there and I had to move to a quiet, dark nursery. Only.
and the last bit..
DeleteWe do some solid foods but L is still nursing at just about 2 weeks shy of 9 months old. Sometimes she sits on my lap (kind of straddle style) and faces me head on and nurses but those happen when it's just a milk "snack" and not so much when it is get down to business feeding time..it's funny to me because I never thought I would get to a point where nursing sessions were easier/better/more enjoyable than the opposite. It took a while, but I am glad I stuck with it. But I also totally get why people move on to other methods. One of the things that the lactation consultant said to me was the 5 rules of feeding. 1. Feed the baby. 2. Feed the baby. 3. Feed the baby. 4. Feed the baby 5. Feed the baby. I know it kind of sounds silly, but feeding your baby is what you have to do. If you can breastfeed and have support (of any kind..a sister, a husband, a group, the internet..I remember googling "how to hand express breastmilk" one morning at like 2..I actually found a really helpful video of a busty British lady and I watched it like a cat watching a bird), then awesome. But if you can't..you have to do what you feel is right for you and the baby and your own situation. Hang in there if you can, it's hard, but you can do it. But if you can't, don't stress because stress just makes everything worse. Accept the situation, move on, and squeeze that baby. Gently, though, because if she's just eaten, she's going to bring it right back up and lord knows you worked hard to get that food in her. Hang in there, parents!
Anna, I literally just fell so hard in love with you. You are the jam to my toast, girl. Thank you so so much for sharing!! xoxo
DeleteLmao this sounds.... Well.... Very close to my story. When I went into labor I didnt no i should say couldn't believe it. Yes i know it was past my due date. But I just went to work thinking this is not the day. Needless to say they sent me home. My husband meets me at the door all excited.... IS THIS IT? Not believing i just stated I DONT KNOW!
ReplyDeleteLol at eleven that night. My bestie says okay you have to go. Well when i got to the hosp. It took oh forty five minutes. And they hand me this tiny screaming beautiful baby boy. Still not sure. We started to latch....well, this is where the fight began, everyone i know who nursed just made it look so easy. Every time i tried to get him to wake up and eat
He screamed at me! So as a nurse i i start looking for the worst. Is his mouth deformed? Oh God!!! The nurses tried to reassure me nothing is wrong! So many people had touched my boobs i was feeling like a milk cow. One nurse walked in grabbed my nipple and shoved the baby b to me.... He just screamed until i took him off. Okay they said Jennifer the lactation consultant will be here in the morning. I was elated finally.... Someone who will understand! As i sat crying i told my husband its so distressing to want to do something and he buts in "and not even try" This i know is wrong. He is still making up for this....
That's when this six foot tall blonde lady walks in and takes my baby and starts yelling at me " First of all he is way to hungry" My response "ya think" So she goes on about how i am starving my child... i finally say if you think he needs a bottle fine but we are not ready to give up yet. She then acts like she wants to help but i am done with her. I decided on the way home My only task is to learn to feed this baby boy. And i did great.... Until my milk came in three days later. My poor boobs were rock like no way of getting a latch related to the nipple not able to move or be pinched in the correct manner. This was the day the pump became my new bestie! I got twelve oz in five mins. Oh what a relief! I was excited when my little sugar latched and fed for ten minutes. He fell asleep for the first time since being home. As i laid him down he wakes and we begin again. This gies on for two weeks, after many hours of research i figure out i am making to much milk and he was filling up on foremilk and not getting any hindmilk. So i started nursing on the same breast twice then switching. He started gaining wt and sleeping longer. We made it eight months. He decided he didnt want to sit still that long. Lol it was hard but so worth the work.
Wow Jessica, that does sound pretty similar! I hate that you had an unsupportive lactation consultant! I have watched friend also not be supported in the hospital and instead just given up on. These lactation consultants are our advocates! I'm so impressed that you continues to fight on your own. I don't know if I could have been that strong. You're awesome, mama!
DeleteI so enjoyed Anna's reply. Mostly because I actually know Anna C and she is a hoot in person and I can hear her voice saying these things and it just cracks me up. Ok....here is a Lactation story from an older woman. But these things really don't change. Not much....although I would have killed for a "milk bank". I would have been the first perpertrator of a "milk bank" hold-up! Especially with my second daughter. Which is why I am sharing. Becuase it sounds like most of you gals are talking about your first nursing experience. I want to share my experience if only to assure you that each time will be different. My oldest baby was a very calm natured, easy going baby. She is 30 now and she is still calm natured and easy going. My nursing experience with her was STELLAR! I did have to use a guard for a bit but once she and I got the hang of it...everything was sooooo easy. She nursed well, often, and was content. I had plenty of milk and we often nursed ourselves into a really nice little nap. No bank needed and no pumping. Wow...I thought ...this is a breeze. And it WAS! Except, that I was the only woman in my family that had chosen to breastfeed in GENERATIONS and my mom was convinced that I was going to starve my very pink, very plump, very content, rarely ill little baby. I was the lactating queen!! Then comes baby number two. She was not content. She was very loud. And she latched onto me like a piranha!! She gave me blisters. I bled!! For the month of feeding her....the first few seconds of her latching on where extreme agony...I would fight the urge to scream until she had the first letdown in her and then the pain subsided. I did not get a fever with the blisters but it was not the picture of breastfeeding heaven it had been before. Whereas the first child breastfed for about a year and then contentedly went to a bottle. I do believe my second child would still be on the breast if she had not discovered french fries. ( I jest.....well maybe.) But we persevered and she and I survived. Then came my third baby. A boy!! He was a good nurser...very good. And I had plenty of milk....but he wanted to be mobil!! I remember he would be nursing and would jerk his little head around ....with my body part in his mouth!! I thought he was going to dislocate me from my nipples on several occasions. On one deep dark night when I had caught the flu....we decided that we would try a bottle on him....he was about six months. HE THOUGHT IT WAS THE GREATEST THING EVER! No nipple confusion here...no sirree buddy...THIS bottle thing had a heavier flow and was PORTABLE!! He never wanted me again. I can't say I was too disappointed. I pumped to fill the bottles and started to wean off replacing it with formula. All this to say. Each child is different. You may have to re-invent the wheel each time but that is okay. I am still the biggest proponant to breastfeeding. Lets face it.....no washing bottles, no cleaning said bottles, no mixing, and it is warmed to perfect temp each time. And the health benefits are too numerous to mention here. Anna...you are a doll and so is your little one! Hope to see you in the future!!
ReplyDeleteLinda, thank you so much for sharing all of your stories! What a wonderful reminder to remember the individuality of each child. I won't say I don't wish the next one will be easier because I certainly do! But it's great to see someone who succeeded and felt positive about their feeding experiences with their littles even with the different hardships you had!
ReplyDeleteI didn't have any problems nursing G in the beginning. All it took was the lactation consultant coming in my hospital room and looking at him, and he got it. Latched on like a champ! Man did that hurt for a couple days. My milk didn't really come in until about 4 days after he was born, his pediatrician told me to go home, drink a dark beer and take a nap. And it worked. BAM!
ReplyDeleteIt seemed like he ate all the time and I was exhausted. I would get up in the middle of the night and pump so I could give him a full bottle so he'd sleep longer. We never had a problem with nipple confusion with either the bottle or a pacifier. That lasted a little while until I got fed up with doing that. Eventually I just pulled him into bed with me and we began bed-sharing at night. We have a twin bed in the nursery so I slept in there for the first six or so months of his life. I swore to myself that I would never sleep with my baby, had read about how dangerous it was and I didn't want to take the risk. Then we tried it, and I have never looked back! Its so easy to just pop the boob out and nurse him while we're laying in the bed. Now that he's sleeping thru the night about once a week or is too wiggly to sleep with me after he finishes a mid-night nursing, I miss our sweet baby cuddles. Also, he's getting too long for me to curl around while we sleep.
I was laid off while on maternity leave and was a bit anxious about finding a new job and telling them that not only would there be ramp-up time for me to get to know the projects and the company, but oh- by the way, I have to pump every two to three hours also. Luckily, contract work landed in my lap and I have been working from home for almost 7 months. It has been amazing. But I am so over pumping interrupting my day.
He gets three solid meals a day and has dropped his daily nursings to around 2 or 3 on the weekends, mostly when there is a nap involved and my supply has tanked as a result. I used to get 4-5 oz per pumping session, now I'm lucky to get 6 oz in the three sessions I pump each day while he's at daycare. Luckily I have a decent sized frozen stash, but we're working our way through that fairly quickly.
What I am struggling with now is continuing. We are 30 days away from his first birthday, and I will make it to that date. I've come so far, there is no point in giving up now. But I want to so bad. I've had mastitis twice, I get a very painful blocked duct about once a month or so, and I am tired of having to dress to nurse. I'm hoping to drop the day time pumping after he turns 1, and keep the night time nursing. The other thing I struggle with is the possibility of having another child- I can't not breastfeed the child because it is my responsibility to do what is best for my child even if it is an inconvenience for me.
Kate, so sorry it has taken me so long to respond to your story! I was thrilled to read about your experience with your precious little G. I LOVE that you took the "nap & a beer" advice! I think I should have taken that advice and ran with it a lot sooner than I actually did. And I felt exactly the same way about co-sleeping. I was terrified at first and so nervous, but I think that is seriously how NC slept for the first month or more of her life. I have a friend who has a baby who has a little bit of a flat head and we were thinking it could be because of just laying on the back a lot and she asked me why NC's head wasn't the same. I think it's because she slept on my chest and in my arms for so long! Ha! And good god I totally hear ya about pumping. It is certainly a labor of love. But I am continually in awe of mamas who can continue to work and pump and keep up breastfeeding for as long as you have! I think I would definitely get stressed out having to hook up to that machine every day. And now with you nearing G's 1st birthday, you should definitely throw yourself a party for being a badass breastfeeder! Especially with all the mastitis and clogged ducts--wow! Hopefully with your next it will be super smooth sailing and you won't have any problems at all. If there is one thing all these comments have taught me it is--look at what we go through collectively to feed our babies! It is crazy! But to hear people like you who have almost made it to a year without strangling herself with the pump tubes gives me all kinds of hope for the future of my own breastfeeding adventure and the journeys of new mamas everywhere. :)
DeleteWell thank goodness I remember reading this post a few months ago, bc now that E has arrived I feel much less alone in my struggle to feed her. E was born 4 weeks early and as a 'near term' baby wants to just sleep all the time. While in the hospital we had to give her formula bc she wouldn't latch and had high bilirubin levels. Basically they wouldn't let us leave until those levels came down, and my milk wasn't in (I never even changed bra sizes during pregnancy). We used the SNS in the hospital, plus fed through a syringe and did spoon feeding. When we got home, they had us feeding her every two hours bc her bilirubin was still high. Unfortunately, by the time we got through the whole regimen of try bare breast first, try SNS, then spoon feed, then pump and use syringe to get colostrum into her, it had BEEN two hours and was time to start all over. I literally did not sleep more than 2-3 hours cumulatively each day for the first few days we were home, nor did I the two days we were in the hospital and she was in and out of the NICU, and all of that was after being awake for over 48 hours straight bc my water broke just before bedtime and I didn't deliver until the following night. I was delirious from exhaustion and panicking bc my baby wasn't getting my milk but instead mostly drinking this yucky formula.
ReplyDeleteThe SNS quickly failed after we accidentally shrunk it in the sterilizer we bought- not that it was wirking well for us anyway. Unswaddled, she would flail her arms about and catch the tubing, plus you needed two hands to keep the tubing in place and my nipple in her mouth, which didn't work out so well bc you also need a hand to continually agitate her to keep her awake. Arms swaddled down, there was not a snowball's chance in hell of waking her to nurse. So After taking E to the hospital and pediatrician a few more times and letting them lance her heel open to draw blood and test her still-high bilirubin levels, I caved and gave her a bottle to see if she would take that. She guzzled it in like two minutes flat, of course. And I felt like a total failure. We then started trying her at the breast for a few minutes (any longer and she got so panicked and frustrated it was actually making her associate the breast with negativity, not to mention breaking my heart) and then giving a bottle. Meanwhile I was TRYING to pump, but the process of feeding her was so time consuming I wasn't pumping often enough and was then worrying about my supply being low. After a few days of our new regimen, I still wasn't quite keeping up with what she was eating, so we still had to use formula a couple of feedings per day. On the positive side, I finally got some sleep as my husband was able to give her a bottle during the night.
ReplyDeleteI decided to take her to see the one lactation consultant at the hospital who was not a pushy, intervention stressing, judgmental moron. The first thing we discovered is that we were overfeeding her, as evidenced by the diarrhea poop-plosion with which she introduced herself to the lactation consultant. We had been pushed and pushed to keep waking her and feeding her to get the bilirubin levels down, and so continued in that mentality until we were feeding too much. We also determined that my 6lb daughter is currently unable to wrap her tiny mouth around my now 36G (yes, G!) breasts, and introduced a nipple shield. She takes the nipple shield very well, but two separate two-hour outpatient feeding visits revealed that it takes a good hour and a half for her to even get 45-50 ml bc she's not really sucking well. I have to use one hand to continually compress my breast and the other to continually agitate her to stay awake, and even after an hour and a half of that I have to give her a bottle to make up for what she isn't getting. And then we are back to the vicious cycle of mommy buffet = mommy gets no sleep and can't feed herself. Or shower. Or pee.
ReplyDeleteAnd NOW as of Thurs they want me to try and just feed her using the nipple shield with no bottle supplementation, and of course I dutifully nodded and said yes, great plan, bc I'm an overachieving 4.0 people pleasing scared new mommy. But it's not working. So far all I know is that breastfeeding stresses me the f*@! out, and that, weirdly, I feel more bonded to E when I just give her a bottle than when we struggle through a bf session. I also feel like I actually have energy to love her and hold her when we bottle feed bc I've been able to sleep, whereas the first nearly two weeks I barely could look at anything but her mouth while feeding her and then put her right back in the bassinet. No energy for skin to skin, no time for cuddles...nothing. So here we are on day 18 of her little life, and I'm feeling lots of confusion and lots of mommy guilt over what to do. She's getting 100% my milk now, and we have donor milk ready in the freezer, but I still feel like a failure or a quitter for not being able to just pop her right on my boob. Some ppl have told me that once she gets bigger, like 8lbs, she'll be able to latch and we won't have a problem. Other opinions indicate I'm screwed. So here we are...
ReplyDelete