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lovingmummyhood 
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Posted: 04 August 2009 at 3:36pm |
What a great idea for a forum! I'm sure I read this can be a place for sharing stories which I think will be great for new and expectant mums to read.
So I'll start...
I started leaking at about halfway through my pregnancy and when DS was born he latched himself on and colostrum was dripping all down my stomach lol. We went to birthcare and by day 2 his poos were pretty yellow. We coslept at birthcare and he pretty much sorted himself out (which in a way was great but meant I still had no idea what to do because my baby could do it himself, so didn't really get any help, just everyone telling me how lucky I was). Lucky? Hmmmm, maybe. I wore hospital gowns while at birthcare and went through 3 or 4 a night. I was dripping all over the place, leaking through breast pads almost immediately 
Day 3 we were discharged home. My breasts were starting to feel really heavy. Our first night at home we got no sleep. DS cried constantly unless he was feeding and DH and I didn't know what to do so we shared him between us and paced the floor all night. My boobs were HUGE and hot and lumpy and freaking sore! When my mw came to see me at home the next day I was sitting on a towel on the couch with a towel wrapped around my top half. There was no point in getting dressed because everything was soaked almost straight away. I told her that his poos were starting to go dark again. She said that normally she would assume he wasn't getting enough to eat, but looking at me that couldn't be the problem. She suggested taking shifts with DS that night so that we could get a bit of rest between us. The second night at home was just as hard as the first. Neither of us could sleep while the other had the crying baby. My mw came out the next day and I was in tears with massive sore boobs and a very unsettled little boy  Again, he'd only had one bowel motion and it was dark. I saved it to show my mw. DS looked a bit jaundiced and my mw asked to watch him feed. It turned out that my poor little guy was starving! He couldn't latch on to my ginormous boobs and so just lay there with his mouth over the nipple getting all the drips (and there were lots of drips!) But of course he wasn't getting any of the good stuff. I had no idea that he was doing it wrong because noone had shown me what he should be doing. My mw called the medlab lady to come out and take some bloods from DS and when she turned up I almost had to laugh (well, the choice was that or die of embarrassment lol) I was sitting topless on the bed holding a cup under a dripping boob and my mw was pumping the other. We topped DS up with expressed milk from one of those tiny plastic cup things and he drank heaps! It was amazing seeing how he just instinctively knew to lap it up like a kitten.
My mw said we may have to go to the hospital for DS to spend some time under lights if his jaundice was bad. She called me at 7.30pm and told us to head straight there. His bilirubin levels were 434. Apparently that is really high. DS loved his time under the lights and even though I was pretty upset that I'd starved my little guy I found hospital really good because it meant that I got some much needed rest! It also meant that I got help to latch him on correctly. For the first night I expressed to top DS up from a cup after each feed but once he'd figured out what he needed to do we were away  It was a bit weird having lots of student midwives and each nurse starting a shift being introduced to me and DS as 'our little jaundice baby and the lady with heaps of milk' though.
Now, things are much better  I still have masses of milk which squirts surprisingly far when DS comes off lol. He still gags sometimes and it breaks my heart to see the look on his little face as he gasps for air after his little choking episodes, but we're figuring it out
I love when he looks up at me and gives me a big gummy grin as milk dribbles out of his mouth lol.
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lovingmummyhood
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Posted: 04 August 2009 at 3:39pm |
Well that was a novel and a half! 
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Mamma2N
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Posted: 04 August 2009 at 4:01pm |
But a really good one 
Great to hear you persevered and everything is going well Funlvn! Isn't it the best getting those gummy smiles mid-feed 
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Babykatnz
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Posted: 04 August 2009 at 4:26pm |
Brilliant idea Essie, its good to see stories from other mums who struggle to start with... makes the rest of us feel like we arent alone, and we arent 'stupid' for not knowing how to get it right!!
Guess I'll start... although mines still ongoing, but I'll give it a shot
I started leaking somewhere in 3rd trimester, and after some advice from a LLL friend, started expressing by hand (pumping and dumping) in the shower to build up a small amount of colostrum as I was being booked in for a c-section, so wouldnt have all the hormones in labour to help 'trigger' the beginning of my milk supply. My midwife came along as my support person and made sure Jaelyn was latched on within the first hour, and was very impressed that I had managed to have as much colostrum as I did... the next day we all started going downhill as she wouldtn stay latched on, and since she wouldnt suck, I was losing the stimulation needed to increase supply, and by the end of night 2 I couldnt even squeeze out a few drops. Eventually on day 3 after many tears and hands coming at me from all sides to make her stay on, she suddenly started latching and feeding and we went home on day 4 thinking everything was going swimmingly.
Weight checks a few days later and over the next 2 weeks showed that she wasnt getting as much as she should have been, much like Essie above me (Funlvn) baby was getting a little bit at the beginning, and nothing more... her problem was that she would only suck from the tip of my nipple, and as soon as the 'easy milk' (first letdown) had gone she refused to stay on to stimulate more letdowns, so she was more or less having a drink every time she fed off me, but nothing to 'eat'.
Had a lactation consultant come and visit me and she checked and confirmed Jae was only managing a 'shallow latch' (Jae demonstrated her usual feeding tanty by pulling back and shaking her head side-to-side until all that was left was the tip in her mouth)and showed me how to get her on more securely, also suggested I start eating/drinking things like Tigers milk, Complan, extra protein, bananas to boost supply, and directed me to get a script for domperidone as well. Plunket started coming around that mark and she was still under birth weight (4-5 weeks old) but since then has started gaining 60gm per week. A visit to a breastfeeding clinic proved very enlightening but was very badly timed as I had not long fed her, which left me rather depleted, and didnt have enough for a further feeding demonstration, she spent the whole 3 hours screaming in fustration at being forced onto an empty boob, leaving her overtired... I think this week I will try and time my turning up for when she is actually DUE for a feed and hope that makes a difference!
Anyway... that brings me to about now... almost 8 weeks old, and still struggling. I know I have plenty of milk as I always wake up in the morning feeling like I have 2 bowling balls attached to me, and leaking everywhere (I even squirted clear across the bedroom for the first time before she even tried latching on yesterday morning LOL!  ) but her 'fussing' at the breast once letdown is over is starting to happen again, which bites cos the last couple of weeks we were starting to settle down into a semi-pattern.. feeding 3 hourly, for around 20-30 minutes each time, and she would sometimes fall asleep at the end... I even saw her 'milk-drunk' for the first time...
I went and bought a manual pump, which gets some milk off, but I know its not getting all of it as im still only getting 50mls off each time I express now, and thats what I was getting off before I started all the tricks to increase supply. The electric one is worse, I used it once and then re-sterilised it and put it back in the box!
I guess a lot of people in my shoes would have gone onto the bottle by now (and DP kept harping on at me to do it too for a while there) but I never got the chance to do BF my son as I had no milk (most I managed to express off was 5mls and that was by hand, pump got nothing at all) and I had the peads at hospital telling me I HAD to put him on bottle full-time... and I have done a lot of reading and have seen all the benefits there are to breastfeeding... plus lets face it.. its MUCH easier to pull a boob out and shove it in babys mouth at 2am than it is to get up, heat up the water, make the formula and sit there with a bottle in one hand and baby in the other, then clean up afterwards...lol!
Even after having my son and not being able to BF him... I never imagined how HARD it is to learn how to BF... I just assumed back then that I was one of the unlucky few whose body didnt do what was supposed to happen naturally (hell, I couldnt even give BIRTH to him, so not being able to make milk was just another thing to add to the 'failed list') but now that I am trying harder to do it this time...its hard! I wont give up now though, I have come too far and done too much to just down tools now, for now I'm doing the 'one day at a time' approach and hoping that it starts to settle back down again!
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tishy
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Posted: 04 August 2009 at 8:05pm |
Ok I'm blatantly copying and pasting (with minor updates to the end) my story from this thread
Here's my NICU experience:
From 28weeks we knew that the chances of the girls having time in NICU was very high. Aoife was IUGR, had reduced Amniotic fluid and reduced blood flow through the placenta.
They were delivered by c-section at 35+4weeks which is further along than anyone expected. Aoife weighed 1.6kgs and Eimear 2.2kgs.
I had them at 2pm and by 8pm the Midwife was in with a syringe to help me express colostrum. I think I got a whopping 8 mils that first time but after that it was around 3-4mils each time for the first day and a half. I remember how happy I was when I was able to ask for more than one syringe to fill.
I became very focused on expressing as much as I could for Eimear and Aoife. Even though we had been prepared for NICU so well by the staff, it is still very heart wrenching to see your baby helpless in an incubator.
Expressing was the only thing I could actively do to help. I think DH was amazed with my determination and also I think it made him feel even more helpless as all he could do was sit back and wait.
I remember when the a midwife showed me how to use a breast pump, happy days I was now expressing enough (about 8-10mils, lol) that I could use one.
My milk came in on day 4, suddenly I was expressing 30, 40 , 80 mils. It kept jumping each express.
I was so happy when this happened as until then I had been playing catchup with the girls feeds. They were being tube fed and the amount they were getting was increasing each feed. Eimear did get some formula at the start as the colostrum was more important for Aoife due to her size.
By day 3 I got to have skin to skin with both girls. We tried BF but despite their best attempts they couldn't latch correctly.
A lot of it depended on the NICU nurse that was on duty that shift. I got lucky with a few nurses. One introduced me to nipple shields. Happy days , Aoife latched perfectly with these. I still remember the look in her eyes the second time I BF her. "OH! I remember what come out of there" Eimears jaundice was worse so she didn't get a good go at BF'ing for another day cos she was too tired.
Another nurse, Rose, was assigned to my girls for 3 nights in a row. I'm convinced she is the sole reason we got BF'ing established so quickly. Her opinion was if a baby was awake then attempt BF'ing , if both were awake then attempt tandem feeding. Other nurses believed that BF'ing should only be attempted once as day. I can understand this as Aoife was teeny and still in an incubator.
Thanks to Rose, I managed to get a room in NICU to sleep so that she could call on me to feed the girls at each feed. She and another nurse also suggested that we use bottle topups of EBM as the girls were still too small to have the energy to get enough off me.
So by day 10 we headed home with 2 teeny babies, engorged boobies and a chilly box full of frozen expressed milk.
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tishy
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Posted: 04 August 2009 at 8:09pm |
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Here's my home experience:
Once we got home, we had the girls on a strict 3 hourly routine, with one 4 hour break at night. This was mainly due to Aoifes size so she needed feeding often. Thankfully my Mum stayed with us for 5 weeks and DH was incredibly supportive. DH would get up with me for all the feeds at night time and Mum would help during the day.
For the first 6 weeks the feeds consisted of BF, nappy change, BF, EBM topup. The topups stopped then and at about 10 weeks, the second BF wasn't needed anymore. The entire process took an hour, DH would carry a baby downstairs and then sleep on the couch until a baby needed burped
The girls thrived and gained so much weight in the first few months. It makes me proud of myself that it was my body that created the milk that managed this.
At about 6 weeks we thought Eimear was going through a growth spurt, no matter what we fed her she would keep wanting more. It turned out she had bad wind. Before each feed we had to rub her back to help the farts come out. Around the same time every night she would get a tense tummy and cry for hours. I think I spent about 3 weeks solid sleeping on the recliner , between the hours 10 and 2, with Eimear on me. Along with this Aoife was a 'happy chucker' and would happily spill while asleep in her cot.
Finally I decided to cut out dairy and wheat which has immensely improved everything. No spills and Eimear is now a happy pooper. Sometimes I give into temptation or I find a new food that will affect Eimear and then we have 3 days of tears and pain until she poos.
at 4 months we were introduced soy formula to topup the EBM for the 10pm dream feed.
We continued like this until 8 months when I weaned them completely onto formula.
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MrsMojo
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Posted: 04 August 2009 at 8:29pm |
 funlvn wrote:
I love when he looks up at me and gives me a big gummy grin as milk dribbles out of his mouth lol.
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I love that look too (from my son obviously). I also feel ridiculously proud whenever I look at his round belly or consider how chubby he's becoming.
I don't have much of a story, both of my kids latched within 10 mins of birth and breastfeeding's been a breeze for me (although my daughter used me as a pacifier and I found that very hard when I didn't realise what was happening and thought she wasn't getting enough milk - silly me).
I don't have a powerful letdown and I don't get the "full" feeling that other women talk about. I hardly leak and I definitely don't spray. Last time around those were all things I assumed meant a good supply and felt inadequate about not having but I breastfed my daughter exclusively until she went onto solids and she was the chubbiest little baby so I now know none of that matters (and many would say I'm lucky for not getting those things).
I breastfed my daughter until she was 15mo and all going well will feed my son for at least as long.
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Maya
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Posted: 04 August 2009 at 8:51pm |
Ha ha, I still love those milky smiles too, altho they're not so gummy here anymore, and not so cute at midnight 
I'll try not to make too much of a novel of my stories, but bear with me - I have 4 kids so it could take a while!
OK, story one...with Maya I had no idea what I was doing, 3 days at Birthcare really helped get things established and she was big and hungry so my milk came in by day 2. She got a bit lazy during her second week and had to have a couple of formula top ups as she wasn't gaining enough weight, but then she got herself sorted and we were plugging along until I got mastitis when she was three weeks old. OK, so no big deal right? Not so much! I was admitted to hospital less than 6 hours after it first started, hallucinating from fever and in tears at the thought of how much it would hurt to feed her. 9 days of IV antibiotics, a couple of visits from the breast medicine specialist (who they brought over to the old Nat Womens from Akld Hospital just to see me lol), several breast ultrasounds and a rather nasty needle aspiration and we were finally discharged, still breastfeeding altho she'd had a few more formula top ups when I was too sick too feed her. I ended up feeding her till 10 mths, including visiting her at daycare to feed her as she refused a bottle.
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 Maya Grace (28/02/03)
 (02/01/06)
The Gremlins:Sienna Marie & Mercedes Kailah (14/10/06)
Lil miss:Chiara Louise Chloe (09/07/08)
Her ladyship:Rosalia Sophie Anais (18/06/12)
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Maya
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Posted: 04 August 2009 at 9:00pm |
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Story two - the one with the not so happy ending... I was planning to breastfeed the gremlins due to Maya having cows milk allergy - I knew if they had to have formula, it would need to be Neocate. They were born almost at term, 36w5d, but their sucking reflexes weren't quite as developed as they should be. They refused to latch in delivery, and pretty much continued that way for the next 10 weeks. On day 5 my midwife suggested I hire an electric pump, and it was a miracle - I started expressing and feeding them EBM and they took to the bottles like ducks to water. I continued expressing for the next 9 weeks, with intermittent unsuccessful attempts to get them back on the breast. I couldn't get the hang of tandem breastfeeding, and feeding them individually took 2 hours per feed as they were slow and inefficient, whereas I could have the bottles done and dusted and expressing done in half that time. We started supplementing with formula from week 3, even tho I had plenty of milk (was expressing up to 2l of milk a day!), the paed suspected they had some allergy issues so I had to eliminate milk, egg, peanut and soy from my diet and we gave them Neocate to top them up. By 10 weeks I was physically and emotionally shattered, as well as the feeding issues, they had several health issues, and Sienna had kidney surgery at 8 weeks. The decision was made to give up on the expressing and put them solely on formula, and they continued to thrive on it. As a result of the stress, and a number of other issues, I was diagnosed with PND and PTSD when they were 8 mths old. I still feel guilty for not working harder to get the breastfeeding established, and I recognise now that had I had more support in the first few days, and at home in the first few weeks, I might have had more success. That said, I also know that I tried as hard as was physically possible and the decision was made as much for my own health and sanity as theirs!
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Maya Grace (28/02/03)
(02/01/06)
The Gremlins:Sienna Marie & Mercedes Kailah (14/10/06)
Lil miss:Chiara Louise Chloe (09/07/08)
Her ladyship:Rosalia Sophie Anais (18/06/12)
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Maya
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Posted: 04 August 2009 at 9:08pm |
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Story three - the one that hasn't finished yet... Lil miss was the polar opposite to the gremlins, she was literally born sucking - literally! We have pics of her being weighed with her mouth fishing around for a feed. My milk came in on day 3 and things went fine. We have had a few hiccups - she got bronchiolitis at 11 weeks and had to be NG tube fed for 5 days, after which it was a major effort to get feeding re-established. I am so proud that 100% of the milk that went down her feeding tube was EBM, and that when she was refusing the breast after they took the tube out, I resisted the nurses recommendations to try a bottle. In the process of getting her relatched however, she tore a chunk out of my left nipple, and this took 9 weeks to heal (I got a staph infection in the split and then thrush as well) which made feeding on that side agony, and my nipple has healed with an open scar where the lesion was. It was only my own, pure stubborness that kept me going thru the pain - when we saw a lactation consultant at about 18 weeks her exact words were "my God, that baby is lucky she is still being breastfed!" as my nipple was so shattered.
Fast forward, she was exclusively breastfed for 6 mths then we introduced solids, I started back at work when she was 7 mths and expressed for the first few weeks. Now she just has water and solids when I am at work, and feeds on demand when I'm at home, up to 8 times a day.
I always planned to stop breastfeeding around a year old, and I've never been a great advocate of extended breastfeeding, but she is still very reliant on her "booby" and it still feels natural to be feeding her, so we'll keep it up for now and re-evaluate later down the track. We're on a bit of a retraining mission to try and wean her off night feeds now tho...
On the bright side - I've only had one AF since she was born, and it was barely more than a few spots - breastfeeding really does have it's benefits!
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Maya Grace (28/02/03)
(02/01/06)
The Gremlins:Sienna Marie & Mercedes Kailah (14/10/06)
Lil miss:Chiara Louise Chloe (09/07/08)
Her ladyship:Rosalia Sophie Anais (18/06/12)
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SpecialK
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Posted: 04 August 2009 at 9:08pm |
What a great thread!
I never leaked during pregnancy, and when Harry was born 3 weeks early I had no milk and he wouldn't latch on. I spent the first 2 day trying to express, getting 0.1, 0.4, 0.5 of colostrum. The midwives kept telling me he will drink what he needs, until onf the evening of day two he was very sleepy and very jaundiced. The paed who saw him got him started on blood sugar tests and formula. Finally, one midwife suggested nipple shields, much to the LC's annoyance. He latched on really well, but still no milk. For weeks then we had marathon feeding sessions, he would fall asleep and still need formula top ups.
I tried to stop using shields, and he struggled to latch and it was very painful.
By week 7, BF was incredibly painful, I was on the verge of giving up as I'd sit there crying and gritting my teeth in pain, H was fussing and crying. I was dreading having to feed him!
Finally, the lovely LC at Plunket family centre diagnosed thrush, and at the same time I started on domperidone. Took us another 2 weeks to deal with the thrush and the drugs to kick in, but now he is almost exclusively BF (one top up in evenings and the dreamfeed). I can't seem to be able to BF naturally, the times I tried to cut down the domperidone my supply decreased. So not sure how long I am going to continue but at this stage hoping to get to 6 months
Edited by SpecialK
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Bizzy
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Posted: 04 August 2009 at 9:31pm |
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I have breastfed three children... none of them ever had bottles and i went to 14 mths, 26 mths and 17 mths and still counting, and i only stopped breastfeeding them till 2 months pregnant with the next child...
no 1 child was a long feeder, could go for hours on end... i got thrush really bad but didnt know what it was - i made my BIL drop off a breastpump at midnight so i could express a feed or three for him but i figured out the problem and only used the pump once ... he had a tongue tie that got corrected very early too but it didnt seem to affect how long he fed for. when the thrush was at its worst i used to stamp my foot with the pain when he latched on and dreaded him waking up and wanting a feed... but it settled down in the end and we fed for 14 mths.
No 2 child was born to breastfeed - or so i thought - he latched on immediatley in hospital and i felt the let down for the first time ever, it freaked me out and i nearly dropped him! he was a great little sucker and my milk came in really fast and everything went back to where it should be super fast as well. However once we got home he seemed to forget how to latch and suck, especially at 3 am... it got so frustrating, i think at its peak it took over 2 hours for him to latch and have a feed. In the end i gave him a dummy out of sheer frustration and he sucked on it perfectly fine... the next feed after that he did exactly what he was supposed to... i kept up with the dummy for a week or two and his sucking really improved then i got rid of the dummy. He then went on to feed till he was 26 mths old.
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Maya
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Posted: 04 August 2009 at 9:34pm |
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I truly think that thrush is THE most painful breastfeeding problem - worse than cracked nipples, mastitis etc. It is horrid!
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Maya Grace (28/02/03)
(02/01/06)
The Gremlins:Sienna Marie & Mercedes Kailah (14/10/06)
Lil miss:Chiara Louise Chloe (09/07/08)
Her ladyship:Rosalia Sophie Anais (18/06/12)
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Bizzy
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Posted: 04 August 2009 at 9:45pm |
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no 3 child... she didnt feed from me for days, but not through lack of trying. she was born by caesar and i didnt get to recovery till about an hour or so after she was born (her dad got to cuddle her for all that time). she wouldnt feed in recovery despite my best efforts and didnt feed in the ward after either. she had my colostrom from a spoon, a cup and a syringe, but not me... we tried all the holds, all the nurses latching her on, i even threatened to give her a bottle. My lowest point was having the electric pump wheeled in and being told i need to express! i was so upset and rang emma in tears! (she's the queen of expressing so what better person to ask!) anyway a plan was formulated....i expressed and then when she woke for a feed we had to finger feed her... i gave her my finger to suck but at the same time we put in a tube and syringued the milk in... i cant remember how many feeds we had to do like that but do remember when the nurse who was helping me came in and we tried her on the breast and she took it how elated i was...i was also very upset and bummed that the little minx latched on for her and not me...
anyway a rocky start but here we are 17 months on and still going!
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angel4
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Posted: 04 August 2009 at 10:06pm |
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i guess i might as well share my story.... it might help someone
I started attending breastfeeding classes on a monday. The hospital ran them and since i love learning facts and stuff and wasnt working i figured i might as well go. THe classes ran for four mornings and i loved them. The info was fascinating. Friday lunchtime i was back in hospital as my waters had broken at 10am i was 36wks pregnant. In the breastfeeding classes i learnt that it helps to have skin to skin straight after the birth and that babies can 'crawl' to the breast and self latch - we watched videos of babies doing this. I was really keen for this to happen and had told my midwife.
Henry was born grunting (so was given oxygen) but we still got skin to skin within 10 minutes of birth which i am so greatful for - thank you to my wonderful midwife who spoke up for me. He was put on my tummy, within a few minutes he looked up at me and then made his way to the breast (one of the most amazing things i have ever seen), he latched himself and fed for 30mintues!!!! The drs then came back to check him and it was decided that he would need to be in an incubator and he was still struggling to breathe. He was put in Nicu and i went to the ward. At 8am i was rung to tell me that he would like food. I just about ran down to Nicu as i was woried hed be starving. He breastfeed again but this time it was starting to hurt. Later that morning he was brought up to me on the ward and i was told he could stay. I fed him all the time. He pretty much slept on me and fed. My nipples got blisters and bleed (i had learnt at the classes that this is NOT normal). When my midwife came she noticed that henry was tongue tied. I continued trying to feed but because he was feeding every hour my boobs didnt have time to heal at all. So a midwife suggested i give formula. I was stuborn that this would not happen as i had plenty of milk - my midwife came back (after i rung her very upset) and said we could cup feed him. So i expressed colostrum and cup fed it to him, them my milk came in and i pumped and fed him. We did this until monday when the LC came to snip henry tongue. Henrys tonuge was snipped at 1pm we left for home at 1.30pm and he was back on the breast as soon as we got home. And havent stopped. Henry will not take a bottle but will occasionally take EBM (or formula if i havent expressed) from a sippycup.
I am now pregnant with my second baby and plan to tandem feed. I cant wait for the regular feeding again as henry only feeds morning and night now and its very quick.
Thankfully i have never had an infection or anything like that. Which i am so greatful for.
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flakesitchyfeet
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Posted: 07 August 2009 at 12:59pm |
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I think I'm a bit of a loner lol.
Hollie has been breastfed from the get go, and I really don't enjoy it at all. I intended on going for six months, but she had other ideas. I have never ever had sore nipples, thrush, mastitis etc.
She was a colic baby, and spent a night a week with my mother to give hubby and I a break. During the first 3 months she took bottles of EBM happily.
When the colic stopped, the bottles stopped, and that was a huge mistake for us personally. Now she won't take a bottle, and is still waking in the night for feeds.
Sorry - I don't mean to be such a downer. I just feel kind of alone, generally people who don't enjoy it have had some sort of issues, so I'm incredibly lucky in that respect, yet still feel useless.
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Bizzy
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Posted: 07 August 2009 at 1:06pm |
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flake dont feel bad... i know a few mothers who just dont like it and never really had any horror stories either... my mother breastfed three kids and hated it - said she felt like a cow!
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Maya
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Posted: 07 August 2009 at 2:00pm |
Don't feel bad! I don't particularly enjoy breastfeeding, it has it's moments (like last night when she was really sleepy and making little newborn cooing noises while she fed ) but most of the time it's like a production line - I don't have time to sit there and gaze lovingly at her and think about how great it is to have this great bond with her, I just get on with feeding as quickly as I can so the other kids don't destroy the place or kill each other while I"m feeding.
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Maya Grace (28/02/03)
(02/01/06)
The Gremlins:Sienna Marie & Mercedes Kailah (14/10/06)
Lil miss:Chiara Louise Chloe (09/07/08)
Her ladyship:Rosalia Sophie Anais (18/06/12)
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baalamb
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Posted: 07 August 2009 at 3:01pm |
These stories are great. I think it's important for people to realise that although breastfeeding is the most natural thing in the world, it's something that both mum and baby need to learn. And learning takes a bit of time. I think we expect too much from ourselves as expectant mums.
When I had Ashlee, I assumed that all will be fine. That was not the case at all! She was a CS birth and was not breast fed within an hour of being born. By home time 5 days later, my boobs were engorged and my nipples were cracked and bleeding already. This continued for the 6 weeks that I fed her. I was too afraid to ask for help, thinking that I'd look like a failure. After all, I'd just become a mum, wasn't I supposed to know what to do with my own baby? I would dread feed times and be in tears A LOT. I didn't want to give in to formula because I'd feel like a failure for that, too. I felt useless. I couldn't express because all that I was expressing was pink, bloodied milk! Prior to the 6 week check up, we gave her top ups of formula. When the GP asked if I was breastfeeding, I said I was but that we'd given her formula top ups just recently. His words? "Just persevere". I just about burst into tears. How could I persevere through cracked and bleeding, unhealing nipples?! He was no help at all. From that afternoon forward, we switched to formula exclusively and baby and mummy were both a lot happier after the initial mother's guilt.
It wasn't until a lot later on that I realised it was handled all wrongly, my GP just did not understand in the slightest and I really should have asked for help. I just did not feel strong enough.
This time, I was determined to find out as much as I could before baby arrived. I went to a course through the hospital and was also referred an LC by my Plunket nurse. The LC paid a home visit in week 38 of my pregnancy and told me to hand express in the shower every day from now until birth. When Madison arrived naturally, she was straight on the breast within half an hour. I never had engorgement or could feel the let down and it wasn't easy in those first 4 weeks. When I started to get signs of cracking nipples, I sought help from the LC that I'd seen while pregnant. She paid another home visit and watched Madison for a feed and assessed her suckling technique. I wanted her to stay for ALL the feeds! When she wasn't there, I felt a little out of my depth, trying to remember all the pointers she had given me to get a correct latch. It was overwhelming, but I persevered, knowing what I knew about latch techniques etc. and knowing that she was only an email or phone call away was comforting.
Babykatnz - things will settle down again, I can assure you! It's a bit like a rollercoaster. Things came right for us about 4 weeks, then went downhill for a couple more and back up at 8 weeks. I was about to give up when Madison was around 8 weeks old because things seemed like they weren't getting any better at all. I'm glad I didn't. It's only now that Madison has turned 10 weeks old that things really feel like they've settled for good.
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flakesitchyfeet
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Posted: 07 August 2009 at 3:08pm |
Thanks
I forgot to add that I am incredibly self concious at the best of times, and the mw made a mess of it. It may have contributed to how I feel? Maybe not.
I was transfered from a wee quiet country hospital by ambo to the central one, after the midwife tried to deliver my daughter at 7cm, and my back muscles went belly up. She knew I was exhausted, knew I wanted to bf but was nervous about it, and knew that I wanted my hour of skin to skin first.
In the end a trainee mw, whom I didn't even realise was in the room, was left to teach me how to feed. She made me try nearly instantly, wasn't very clear, and did a friggen poor job. I understand she was just learning, but my MW should have known better. After all of that, I didn't want to hold the baby and DH had the skin to skin.
I wish I had had the strength to stand up to them there and then, and maybe I would find feeding more enjoyable now.
Next time
Edited by Flake
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