Feeding Frenzy

My wife and I have decided to breastfeed our son. This is a natural thing that has been around from the beginning of man. So, why does this "natural" thing seem unnatural??

The first night we had a couple of feedings that didn't go as smooth as we'd like. We had to call in a nurse for assistance. We thought that this was just a bad night. The next night the 1 am feeding was just like the night before, difficult. So we just thought some feedings were going to be harder than others. When we get home, most of the feedings are difficult. We had to "finger feed" a couple of times. This involves the wife pumping breast milk, we draw it up in a syringe and attach a feeding tube to it and run it along our finger as the baby sucks the finger. While the baby is sucking, we slowly depress the plunger to put milk into the baby's mouth. We can tell that he is not getting as much as he would at a normal feed. We had to call a "lactation specialist". She met us Sunday at 5:30. After my wife demonstrated her technique and the baby's response, it was pretty clear that the baby hadn't quite learned what he needed to do. He was doing something wrong with his tongue and couldn't grab the nipple. The consultant suggested that we use a "breast shield". Some say these are just plain "evil." When I told the consultant this, she'd explained that the shield should only be used for a very short period of time, just enough time to teach the baby that the breast is where the food is. We're going to use it for another day or two and then try to wean him off of it.

Well, after he got a good latch, he nursed for about 30 minutes on that sitting. This was the start of going from almost fighting him to latch to him latching within a minute (far from the 30-40 minutes of the past). Now he's eating every 3 hours and is having regular stools and urine filled diapers. I never thought I'd actually WANT to see a soiled diaper. You see, the diaper is the gauge on how well the baby is getting fed via the breast. With bottle fed babies, you can see how much he is taking in because you are the one that created the bottle and can monitor what he's eating. With the breast, you have to go by the pull and the feeling of the breast after the feeding. Anyway, one should see at least 6 wet diapers and 2 stools in a 24 hour period. If this is happening, the baby should be getting enough milk from mom. Since we started keeping track of how long he feeds and his diaper count, we can tell that he is doing just fine.

Now we set the alarm for every 3 hours, if he wakes up before this we go ahead and feed him, if he's not awake, we wake him to feed. This is what our doctor has told us. And we must not go for more than 4 hours without feeding him. So, when the alarm goes off or his alarm goes off we change him, feed him and get him back into bed and all within about an hour. Now we can get about two hours of sleep between feedings. Right now, that's enough, but we will see.

God is good

Bill