breastfeeding
I've had a few of you asking me how the breastfeeding is going and I must say it's not going like I thought it would. When Emmy was first born she actively attempted to suckle and did so for an hour or so. That first night we spent together she just wanted to sleep but the midwife had me try and feed her at midnight, 2 am, 4 am, 6am and they kept an eye on her blood sugar since I had the GDM. She went down to 2.8 which is the lowest in the normal range they wanted her to go, so we then gave her some formula. We tried all day, the following night, and the next day to get her to latch on but she makes a tiny attempt and then falls asleep. She's really too tiny and too lazy to take on my amazon sized nips. So I started out with a manual breast pump and felt pretty hopeless that I was ever going to be able to pump enough to keep her on all breast milk regardless if it's bottle fed. Kim being the awesome husband and daddy that he is went out and bought me the Ameda Purely Yours Dual Breast Pump.
I now am pumping every 3 hours to try and keep up with her demand and also to encourage my milk to fully come in.... I'm feeling like a Jersey Milk Cow.. MooOOoOOoO! Our hope is that she'll get a bit bigger and she'll want to latch on. She tries, but it's just not clicked yet.
Claira had a lot of trouble getting the hang of breastfeeding in the beginning as well. I also had to supplement with formula in the hospital, and babies don't seem to like to work for the milk when they're tiny and know there are easier sources for it! Anyway, I got to do the pump thing as well, and within a couple of weeks, I was pumping way more than she consumed each day. It took us 5 weeks of feeding her breastmilk and offering the breast before she finally decided to latch on and go for it! Just take things one day at a time and follow her lead. With Claira, she had a certain time of the day when she seemed more interested in trying so I just concentrated on that time of day for a couple of weeks. Sometimes she would suck for a few minutes, sometimes she'd suck for a half hour, and other times she'd scream her little head off! Eventually, she had a couple days in a row where she was eager to latch on and eat so I offered her the breast before each feeding and she just took it everytime. It can be a loooong road, but it's sooooo worth it!
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