Breastfeeding

I was very anxious about breastfeeding before Elinore was born, but it has turned into something I couldn't imagine missing out on.  I'd heard so many times how hard it can be and all the things that could happen to make it more difficult.  I wanted to be prepared and know how to handle any issues as they arose during breastfeeding.

Elinore strated breastfeeding fairly easily about an hour after she was born and stayed latched on for about 45 minutes.  I was so happy that it went so smoothly!

Things continued to go smoothly for a few hours with her, but then she seemingly lost interest in it for some time.  Sometime later she spit-up some unpleasant looking spit-up.  The nurse indicated she may have swallowed some fluids during birth causing her to be a bit upset an uninterested.  I continued waking her ever two hours in the hospital to try to nurse.  She wasn't always interested, but the nurses continued pushing us to try every two hours since Elinore had dropped under 6 lbs.  She was 6 lbs. 7 oz. at birth.  

We came home on Thursday and sometime shortly after lunch time on Friday my milk came in.   I could certainly feel it, and I really wasn't prepared for the engorgement that I experienced for the first week or two.

I have had an oversupply from very early on.  Elinore never nursed from both sides during one feeding as I was always directed to.  Or course that made me anxious, so I talked with a lactation consultant a few times early on.  While I appreciated her advice; it usually didn't work for us.  I sometimes think my issues were not common questions and she was more accustomed to under supply issues and latching problems, so she wasn't as prepared to help me. 

In talking with a good friend and Keith, I decided not to stress about her advise and just do what worked for us.  Our peditrican assured us that she would take what she needed and as long as she was growing and happy, we would both be fine. 

I continued nursing from one side and dealing regularly with leaky messes.  My let down was strong and supply was abundant, so nearly evey time she ate, she got the hiccups.  She would gag a few times a day too when there was just too much too fast for her. 

That first week or two of breastfeeding my back hurt something terrible from the extra weight.  She started sleeping long stretchs at night early on and I was still engorged and over full.  I could only sleep flat on my back at night.  In hindsight, I wish I'd have taken advantage of my pump a little sooner.  I know it can increase supply doing so, but I would still have tried it. 

It was several month, probably close to six months in that I finally stopped leaking regularly.  I tried many nursing pads, disposable and reusable. 

When nusing Elinore I had to be very careful to have multiple layers of material separateing my from my current clothes.  It was commong to soak through more than 3 layers of our burp rages. We used Gerber's floding cloth diapers.

At first I was very uncomfortable around other people while nursing her.  Party because I felt exposed, it was new to us, and it was messy, so staying discreet was hard.  I often went to another room alone if people were in our house.  Keith didn't like this at all because we were away from our guests and he kept pushing me to stay in the room with them.  I understand better why it was that way early; the extremem messiness of it all from the oversupply made it hard to let her latch quickly and discreetly.  It was a process to prepare! 

Fortunately as time went on the messiness slowed; I got more practiced and better at it, as did she.  Now, I don't use a cover and am comfortable nursing her neatly anywhere!

In the beginning there were challenges, but I'm so glad I stuck with it.  It is certainly easier now, and something I don't think twice about. 

My lack of understanding or reading about formula feeding only heled me stay commited.  If I stopped breastfeeding; I knew nothing about formual feeding.  I hadn't read anything about how to prepare it, how to store it, how much to use, anything, and I'm so alright with that.  Granted, Keith would have known a lot of that since the boys were formual fed.  Although I think about that being something that helped keep me commited to breastfeeding; I certainly don't think it was a driving force. 

I was forunate there were very few times, that I even thought about stopping; and even then, they weren't serious considerations.  It's been a great experience.