So there's a specific reason I'd like to post about something so personal...I'd like to have records for future reference. My experience with breastfeeding has been anything but easy. I know it's common to struggle with this, but man it's crazy how hard and frustrating this can be!
So with Cara we had struggles from day one. She would latch on, but then would just stare at me. She never would suck. Even the nurses in the hospital and the lactation consultant weren't really sure what to tell me. All they'd say is to keep trying and not give up. We finally gave in to giving her one of those little 2 ounce formula infant bottles to at least get food in her (I was such a newbie to the baby thing and I just wanted to make sure she had something in her belly rather than being stubborn with breastfeeding). We had to teach her to suck on a finger with a little tube from a syringe and then work up to the bottle. In hindsight, by the time she got sucking on a finger down I probably should've tried to get her back on the boob, but I was so afraid she'd just starve (prior to going into labor I had read a story about a lady who had breastfed her kid, but turns out he didn't get anything and he ended up dying from dehydration or starving and it was a huge fear of mine with this new baby). Once we got home with her I just did my best to pump breast milk to get her bottles of that rather than feeding her directly from them. It felt like it took SO long to get just my colostrum to come out. It took the standard 4 days until I got my milk, but I was so stressed out at that point thinking this wasn't going to work that I realized if I continued to beat myself up over not being able to breastfeed I'd end up with PPD. The emotional roller coaster and toll it took on me was just so difficult I had to give myself a break and realize that she was going to be a bottle fed baby and so far it had only been formula. By realizing that I was a "fed is best" mom I was able to de-stress and ended up pumping more. I did end up taking some supplements to increase my supply to help get her more breast milk bottles, but it was never really enough. By the time we got a good routine down I was only making enough for one bottle of breast milk and the rest had to be formula. Honestly, I never beat myself up over that fact, she was fed, she was gaining weight, she was developing perfectly normal. We were all happy (except for the sleep deprivation and constant fear of SIDS haha). Plus, I did end up having a couple days where I was able to nurse her, but after those couple of days she got too frustrated and we had to stop. But I'll never forget those days ever.
Now for round two, I felt like I went into it with a better sense of what to expect. Right when Gwen was born I was already producing colostrum, even the nurses were pretty impressed with how quickly it came in. Gwen was really good at latching on and we were able to get some good feeding sessions in. The only hard part is she wouldn't eat every 3 hours. She'd usually get hungry every 5 hours and since I wasn't sure how to wake her up to feed her (or how to do that effectively) I just let it go that long. They kept telling me not to do that, but I wasn't sure what to do about it. It wasn't until we got home and she stopped having poopy diapers that I became concerned. The pediatrician office gave us a follow up call and when I mentioned she hadn't had a poopy diaper in a day or so they wanted her to come in for a checkup. We immediately started forcing her to eat every 3 hours to see if that would help things along. I've said it before, but it's funny how you hear they aren't doing good and your parenting instinct kicks in, that call made me figure out how best to wake her to force her to eat that often.
So the Saturday appointment comes and they checked her out (she was about 5-6 days old at this point). They said everything looks good and that sometimes with breastmilk we make exactly what they need so they end up absorbing everything and it takes a while to get a poop out of them. They said to make an appointment for the following Wednesday, but if she had a poop by then we could cancel the appointment. Luckily within the next 24 hours she ended up having like 3 or 4 so we were back in business. I didn't realize I could be so happy over so many poopy diapers haha. So now we had a plan, feed her every 3 hours and I'd pump afterwards to start stashing a frozen supply for when I went back to work.
Now going over the next 10-ish days we were struggling with figuring out how this nursing thing worked. Gwen would eat and then immediately start rooting around for more food. It was so exhausting feeling like she'd go from one side to the other, back to the first side over and over for an hour a few times a day. I'd hear her swallowing and even gulping, but it seemed like she couldn't ever get enough and I wasn't sure what to do. Am I only supposed to feed her for so long? Should I let her go until she seems done? When will I get to put her down? Is she just using me as a pacifier to sleep? How would I know? What do I do in that case? If I finally felt like she had enough and got her to sleep and then she'd start crying I'd send Larry to check on her, but he'd come back within 5 minutes saying she was acting hungry again. I kept breaking down saying "there's no way she needs more, she just ate for 45 minutes! I'm not even sure I have anymore inside me!" I wish I could see what she was eating, I wish I could measure what she was getting out of me. I wish we could figure out how this routine was going to work because it was taking it's toll on me. Surprisingly night time feeds weren't an issue with making me exhausted! She'd only get up once or twice a night, I'd change her diaper, I'd feed her for a good 20 minutes while I watched a show on Hulu, and she'd be passed out again good for a long while. Nights were honestly my favorite, it was day time that was so stressful.
Fast forward to her 2 week checkup and Gwen still hadn't gained too much weight. She was 8 lbs at birth, she was 7 lbs 9 oz at her 5-6 day checkup and only 7 lbs 11 oz at her 2 week appointment. So she had only gained 2 oz in about 10 days. This wasn't too good. The pediatrician asked how breastfeeding was going and I told him she was eating all the time and it felt like she was getting good amounts of food. He was concerned that he couldn't figure out why she wasn't putting on weight and wanted me to go see a lactation consultant to see if they could figure it out. I, of course, broke down. My baby wasn't thriving as well as she should and the "failure to thrive" words were my biggest fear this time around. I left the office making an appointment for the lactation consultation that Thursday fearing I had failed, yet again, with breastfeeding. We did leave with a plan that I would nurse Gwen, then after that I'd pump and give her that in a bottle so we made sure she was getting everything possible. I told Larry I had a feeling we were going to have to do what we did with Cara, give her formula and breastmilk bottles rather than direct nursing and my heart broke into a million pieces. I wanted breastfeeding to work so badly and I was desperate to not give up this time, but I also wanted (no NEEDED) Gwen to gain weight and do better. I went back and forth SO many times with Larry about whether I should keep trying to breastfeed or just pump and switch Gwen to bottles. The benefit to doing bottles is we could get on a good routine quicker and I'd know exactly what she was eating. The down side is I had no idea how we'd handle night feedings (we'd have to take a long time to thaw out frozen milk for her rather than just "hooking her up to the tap" at any whim, which means she'd have to sit there and cry it out for a while until the bottle was ready). I just couldn't get my mind to settle on what I wanted to do. So I ended up telling Larry I'd wait till after the consultation to make my decision.
Now I went into this appointment expecting her to say "well everything looks okay, just keep at it" and I'd feel defeated and come back saying we're switching to bottles immediately...I just can't take it anymore. However, the appointment went SO well! The lady was so nice, easy to talk to, and made me feel so secure with her helping me. She gave me so many good tips (how to get Gwen to latch on better, how I should feed only 10 minutes per side rather than 20 on one side and pumping on the other - that way she got way more food in her, how to up my supply with pumping and supplements) and she even let me know that she feels very good about our progress and thinks we shouldn't have to include formula, we could do this just fine! I left feeling SO much better, a huge weight had been taken off my shoulders. I went home practically dancing around telling Larry "we're going to do this! I'm going to be able to stick with this! I'm SO happy that we have a plan!"
Unfortunately, within a couple days Gwen just wasn't having any of it. She suddenly stopped eating as much from me. Before I would hear big gulps for 10 minutes and then just light sucking and shallow swallowing for another 5 minutes. Now that I was giving her both boobs, she would gulp for a few minutes and then switch to that shallow swallowing for the rest of the 10 minutes. Often she'd become unlatched and I didn't realize. I could tell my supply was starting to take a dive and I was freaking out! I mean Cara was on mostly formula, but still got at least one bottle a day of breast milk. If I continued this way I'd be dried up within a week and Gwen wouldn't even get a breast milk bottle. I found that I was pumping 1.5 ounces and did the math that I think she was only getting about .5 from me directly. One night she went from only being up once or twice to being up every few hours SCREAMING. I realized that night that this just wasn't going to work. It was a Saturday morning and I told Larry that I wanted to pump prior to her feeding and just give her a bottle of what I pump and see how that goes. Just to try it for one day and see if I feel better or worse. It turns out I was pumping 2 - 2.5 ounces when I pumped prior to a feeding and she'd gobble those bottles down! She seemed to love having the bottle and we found she almost needed more than I could pump. What started as a "try it for one day" turned into our new plan. She'd still get breast milk, only it would be from a bottle. I wanted to wait as long as I possibly can to introduce formula.
So I knew I had to wait a week to do a follow-up weight check to see if this was going to be a good plan. If she still hadn't gained any weight (or not much at least) we'd have to switch to formula (though I'd still give her at least one breastmilk bottle since I know it's really beneficial for her to have that over ONLY formula). I will say waiting for the weight check was definitely another weight on me, I started wondering if only breast milk was enough. She was going from wanting 2.5 ounces to 3 ounces quickly, but I was still only pumping 2-2.5 each session so I couldn't keep up with her demand (even when I tried the pumping tricks to up my supply that the LC gave me). I eventually told Larry that I realized even if we did just breastmilk bottles, I only plan to pump for 6 months and since I'm not pumping enough to create a good enough freezer stash past that point I'm going to have to introduce formula eventually. I still really wanted to wait till after the weight check though to make sure my milk would have been enough had I made enough and she was able to eat better. The bonus is at least with bottles Larry could help feed her when I needed him to (it was kind of breaking my heart that he didn't get a lot of time with Gwen since she always wanted to be with me to eat) and I was feeling like she was gaining weight better once we had a good system in place and bonus is we started to have a better routine going. Our first night using bottles she slept until almost 5 without waking so we were getting some better sleep. And speaking of night feedings, I found if I put what I thought we might need from our freezer stash in the fridge by noon it was mostly thawed out by the time she needed to eat and so all we had to do was put it in a bottle, warm it up in our warmer, and go feed her....hardly any extra time at all. Although I did have to add a couple pump sessions for after her feedings, but they weren't too bad.
So anyways, we (just Gwen and me) go into the weight check and...(drumroll)...she's up to 8 lbs 3.5 ounces!!! We did it! We got her above her birth weight (the goal was 8 lbs 1 oz) and officially in the "thriving" category! I couldn't have been happier. I was not only happy that she was doing well, but now I was okay introducing the formula to her for her "before bed" nightly bottle. Eventually we'll possibly add another one to the day, but I'll cross that bridge when we need it. Until then, she'll only have one formula bottle and the rest will be breast milk and I'm so very happy with this plan.
In the end, I realized that I was beating myself up tremendously over this decision when I really shouldn't have been. Yes, I really wanted to breastfeed (directly) and I wanted to say I gave 110% to this and was proud of myself for it. But, again, I was teetering on PPD territory with how hard of a time I was having (the night before her 2 week appointment I questioned where my bond with Gwen went. I didn't feel like I liked her as much, even though I did still love her, and I wondered if she even really liked me the way a baby should like their own mother. It was a really low point and I cried more than I had in a long time to Larry about how I was feeling. It was quite scary) and hearing that your baby just isn't gaining weight like she should is enough for me to go back into my "fed is best" policy. I realized I was having a hard time because society makes you think that if you can't breastfeed you are failing as a mom and that's just not true. Besides, getting only breastmilk bottles really is still breastfeeding, just not directly. We only decided to start adding formula now so that it wasn't hard on her belly in 6 months, she should be used to it by then.
As for our breastfeeding future? Well, I'd like to attempt it with our next kid(s), but if it ever gets to be too much on me, mentally, then I at least now know that going to bottles really isn't the end of the world and I can accept that I did everything I could. I know being a sane mom is much healthier for everyone involved than a breastfeeding mom who is going out of her mind and can't stop crying.
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