This is my theory about why it didn't work out with Joey. As many of you know, he required immediate medical attention due to the fact that he was not breathing. He inhaled a lot of fluid, and somehow ended up with a crap ton of air in his abdomen. On day two, the nurse took him to the nursery where he had a chest X-ray and was monitored closely. He had tubes in his nose, monitors on his feet, IV in his hand... It wasn't fun. Needless to say, I didn't get to nurse him right away, nor did it happen very consistently over the first few days. I was so stressed out. Not only was my baby struggling, I had a mess of issues related to the epidural I had received.
When we finally got home, I was still freaked out, the nurse told me not to pump because then my body would make too much milk, and did I mention I was scared out of my mind to go to sleep? I worried he would stop breathing.
Two weeks passed and I thought I was going to lose it. Joe wanted to eat for over an hour at a time and then twenty minutes after he would eat, he would want to eat again. Stressssssss. We discovered my milk had dried up. This was basically body's response to stress, lack of consistency in the beginning, oh and I introduced bottles at 6 days old because I needed Jeff to be able to feed him. Needless to say he was on formula at two weeks old and I was heart broken.
When Annie was born, it started a bit better. I had a better idea of how things needed to go. After an awesome unmedicated birth, she nursed within 5 minutes. It was great! Then we got home and I was soooooooo sick. She caught it too. It. Was. Ugly. I felt like my lungs were packed with wet sand. It was hard to breathe, I felt awful, and I was exhausted. Cue stress. Well, I hadn't planned on introducing a bottle until she was a month old. That didn't happen. She was about a week old and needed to use a bottle because nursing was too hard when she could hardly breathe. After an ER visit, some meds, and about two weeks she improved. My milk supply suffered. She started nursing in a similar pattern to the one Joey had when he was about two weeks old. I was tired. I needed a break. I ended up introducing formula just for the sake of getting a break and some rest. Well, she really took to the formula and developed a preference for the bottle over the breast. Annie never really nursed for comfort either... At least I really don't think she did. She never nursed for very long. Only until she was satisfied and then she was done. She never even wanted to be held for very long either. As soon as she was done eating and she was ready to sleep, she wanted me to put her in her bed. Seriously. From the time she was about two weeks old, she had a preference for sleeping in her own space. Very different from my Joey and Macie for sure. She's still that way... to this day. Miss independent. I still breastfed part time up until she was about 4 and a half months old. At that point it was obvious that things weren't working. Breast feeding literally has a use it or lose it policy.
Now... here's how I learned everything I have about breast feeding and how my body in particular works with nursing. I had another successful natural delivery and we breastfed soon after birth. Macie was a little bit of a slacker initially, but she caught on quickly. After five weeks or so, I paid a visit to the lactation consultant at Evergreen, and she helped us work on our latch. Macie has a high palette so that made things a bit difficult (for me mostly). She helped me sooo much. I have to credit her help to our success. Anyway... since everything went so much more smoothly with Macie, I was able to nurse exclusively for her first few weeks. She was about a month old when I gave her a bottle, and it was not even something I had intended to do. I had just pumped and she woke up and decided to nurse RIGHT after. SO I just gave it to her. It worked out fine. She went right back to nursing without an issue.
I realized that postponing bottle use really helped my body to build a proper supply. Being that I have two older children, I didn't have a lot of time to pump in order to increase my supply and have a reserve. Needless to say, my body literally just makes enough for Macie's demands, and not much more for storage. That's really okay with me as I don't really leave her very much yet. If I have enough time in advance, I'm able to get a bottle pumped for her to have while I'm gone. I just have to limit my time away.
Having been so stressed during the first few weeks of Joey and Annie's newborn days, I remembered just how sensitive my supply was to stress. Needless to say, I've kept that in mind and have done my best to keep my stress levels down. Now, that is nearly impossible to do when you have three kids 4 and under, and still need to maintain my home, keep food on the table, and be sure everyone's needs are met. BUT... I did find that with my husband's help, help from family, and learning to say "no," I've been able to cope and the stress of daily life hasn't had an effect on breast feeding.
So... here we are! Macie is five months old now and we are still going strong. I'm hoping to make it to one year... that's my goal for us. Hopefully when she starts solids my supply won't dip too much. I'm planning to pump during the times she's not nursing. We'll see how it goes. This is all new to me... I've never made it this far. I have to say though, I firmly believe that my success partly stems from how awesome her birth was. It truly went exactly how I wanted it to go... it was different than I had originally planned, but ultimately it was everything I wanted. I was overwhelmed by the love and support of those I'm closest to, (well most of the ones I'm closest to) as well as awesome nurses and a great doc, and it was perfectly calm and peaceful. No stress! That made a huge difference I think.
A lot of this probably just seems like common sense to a lot of moms, but seriously, it took a lot of trial and error (obviously) for me to figure all of that out... Unfortunately. I do know I can't be the only mom in the world to have had trouble like this. Breast feeding is harder than it looks. I never did a lot of research on the topic because I figured it was stupid proof since women have done it for so many years. Wrong. It's time consuming (not really in a bad way), exhausting at times, and it requires a lot of patience. One other thing I learned about breast feeding, is it's so super important to know the typical times during baby's development in which they go on growth spurts. They often want to eat more, eat more often, and are mildly fussy... At least that's how it's gone with me. These things can sometimes be misinterpreted as a dip in supply. Not so! It's baby's way of stimulating your body to make more to nourish their growing little body.
Ultimately, I'm just thankful I figured out how my body works and responds to stress. I've learned so much about myself. It's truly been a blessing to be able to have this experience with Macie.
My purpose in sharing my experience is solely to give a heads up to other moms and expectant moms. It's good to hear other people's experiences... Personally I like learning from other peoples experiences so as to save myself from trouble later. Anyway, there you have it. Not that you asked. I just felt compelled to share. Hope it was helpful! God bless!
Now... here's how I learned everything I have about breast feeding and how my body in particular works with nursing. I had another successful natural delivery and we breastfed soon after birth. Macie was a little bit of a slacker initially, but she caught on quickly. After five weeks or so, I paid a visit to the lactation consultant at Evergreen, and she helped us work on our latch. Macie has a high palette so that made things a bit difficult (for me mostly). She helped me sooo much. I have to credit her help to our success. Anyway... since everything went so much more smoothly with Macie, I was able to nurse exclusively for her first few weeks. She was about a month old when I gave her a bottle, and it was not even something I had intended to do. I had just pumped and she woke up and decided to nurse RIGHT after. SO I just gave it to her. It worked out fine. She went right back to nursing without an issue.
I realized that postponing bottle use really helped my body to build a proper supply. Being that I have two older children, I didn't have a lot of time to pump in order to increase my supply and have a reserve. Needless to say, my body literally just makes enough for Macie's demands, and not much more for storage. That's really okay with me as I don't really leave her very much yet. If I have enough time in advance, I'm able to get a bottle pumped for her to have while I'm gone. I just have to limit my time away.
Having been so stressed during the first few weeks of Joey and Annie's newborn days, I remembered just how sensitive my supply was to stress. Needless to say, I've kept that in mind and have done my best to keep my stress levels down. Now, that is nearly impossible to do when you have three kids 4 and under, and still need to maintain my home, keep food on the table, and be sure everyone's needs are met. BUT... I did find that with my husband's help, help from family, and learning to say "no," I've been able to cope and the stress of daily life hasn't had an effect on breast feeding.
So... here we are! Macie is five months old now and we are still going strong. I'm hoping to make it to one year... that's my goal for us. Hopefully when she starts solids my supply won't dip too much. I'm planning to pump during the times she's not nursing. We'll see how it goes. This is all new to me... I've never made it this far. I have to say though, I firmly believe that my success partly stems from how awesome her birth was. It truly went exactly how I wanted it to go... it was different than I had originally planned, but ultimately it was everything I wanted. I was overwhelmed by the love and support of those I'm closest to, (well most of the ones I'm closest to) as well as awesome nurses and a great doc, and it was perfectly calm and peaceful. No stress! That made a huge difference I think.
A lot of this probably just seems like common sense to a lot of moms, but seriously, it took a lot of trial and error (obviously) for me to figure all of that out... Unfortunately. I do know I can't be the only mom in the world to have had trouble like this. Breast feeding is harder than it looks. I never did a lot of research on the topic because I figured it was stupid proof since women have done it for so many years. Wrong. It's time consuming (not really in a bad way), exhausting at times, and it requires a lot of patience. One other thing I learned about breast feeding, is it's so super important to know the typical times during baby's development in which they go on growth spurts. They often want to eat more, eat more often, and are mildly fussy... At least that's how it's gone with me. These things can sometimes be misinterpreted as a dip in supply. Not so! It's baby's way of stimulating your body to make more to nourish their growing little body.
Ultimately, I'm just thankful I figured out how my body works and responds to stress. I've learned so much about myself. It's truly been a blessing to be able to have this experience with Macie.
My purpose in sharing my experience is solely to give a heads up to other moms and expectant moms. It's good to hear other people's experiences... Personally I like learning from other peoples experiences so as to save myself from trouble later. Anyway, there you have it. Not that you asked. I just felt compelled to share. Hope it was helpful! God bless!
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