I had not through much about breastfeeding vs. formula-feeding before becoming pregnant. I wasn't planning on having a child, so there wasn't much point in thinking too deeply about it. I didn't know anybody who breastfed their babies. My brother and I were formula-fed. My aunt fed her three kids formula. My cousin fed her two kids formula.
But halfway through my pregnancy, I decided I would give breastfeeding a try. D told me that it was what he preferred (hah! easy for him to say, he didn't have to do it), and also, it was free. Yeah, not the most common reasons women choose to breastfeed.
I ordered the book So That's What They're For by Janet Tamaro. I think I made it ¾ of the way through. What I did read was easy to understand, and at times funny. I read on The Bump's message boards that many lactation consultants don't give you both the pros and cons of breastfeeding — maybe because they're worried more women won't try it if they think it might be hard?
It had been a good two or three months since I'd read any of that book when BabyL arrived. All I remembered was that I should try to let him nurse within the first hour of him being born. I did not remember what a proper latch looked like. I tried to aim my nipple straight into the baby's mouth. Yeah, that hurt. You're supposed to aim your nipple up toward the roof of the baby's mouth. His latch was also a bit shallow at first.
But, my nurses kept telling me that his latch looked great, so we just kept going, though I did request to speak to a lactation consultant. The woman who came was … less than helpful. She was shocked that I didn't take a breastfeeding class. She also told me his latch looked good.
We kept nursing. It was REALLY starting to hurt. Another lactation consultant came in, and told me to aim my nipple up. At that point, my nipples were already visibly damaged. Nursing my son hurt worse than my labor pains. I was crying in pain, dreading each nursing session. But the doctors were worried about his weight loss, and wanted me to wake him every two hours to nurse, and wanted him to nurse for at least twenty minutes each session.
Finally, the third nursing consultant showed me a new position I hadn't tried yet that put pressure on an undamaged part of my nipples. She advised that I pump for 24 hours, to give the time to heal. She gave me gel pads to put on my nipples when I wasn't nursing or pumping, and advised me to apply a heating pad to my breasts for five minutes before nursing. And slowly, my nipples began to heal.
But I still worried that BabyL wasn't getting enough. He seemed to eat CONSTANTLY. I forgot about the part in the book that described cluster feeding, and increased appetite during growth spurts. I obsessively weighed BabyL on my kitchen scale.
I finally found a breastfeeding support group, and it was so relieving to hear stories from other moms that went through the same thing. The lactation consultant there gave me the best advice: ignore the clock. Ignore the rules. Read your baby's cues. You don't eat the same amount at each meal, right? Neither does your baby. So, if he eats for ten minutes, then falls asleep, let him sleep. Feed him when he gives you his "I"m hungry" cues (smacking his lips, trying to eat his hands, rooting). She also recommended another book, which I haven't had the opportunity to read yet, Breastfeeding Made Simple: Seven Natural Laws for Nursing Mothers by Nancy Mohrbacher and Kathleen Kendall-Tackett.
Twelve weeks in, it's become second-nature to just latch him on. It doesn't hurt anymore (except the time I had a clogged duct, which went away with massage and applying heat). We had our first successful attempt at nursing in public, on a bench outside the pharmacy at Target.
I've set mini-goals. First, I just wanted to make it two days. Then two weeks. Then one month. Then three months. My next goal is to make it through going back to work. Then through teething. My ultimate goal is to make it a full year.
No comments:
Post a Comment