Breastfeeding story
Well, it was never a question that I would nurse Hannah. When I got pregnant it was the last thing on my mind (obviously) but when people would ask me if I planned to breastfeed, the answer was always "of course". It just never really occurred to me that I wouldn't; I mean, that's what they're for, right?
It was about 7 months into my pregnancy that I started to get nervous. Every time someone asked if I would breastfeed, there was always the warning that followed: "Hopefully you make enough milk. My friend/aunt/sister/cousin couldn't and her baby had to be put in the hospital!" This is when the self-doubt came creeping in. When I started to receive formula samples (whole cans!) in the mail I was glad because that way "just in case" something happened, we had a backup plan. Nate was very laidback about the whole thing. "If you can breastfeed her then great, if we have to buy formula that's fine too." It was nice not to have the pressure but a little confidence in me couldn't have hurt either. Even still, I was determined.
When I was 33 weeks pregnant, I was put on bed rest because of pre-term contractions that were causing me to dilate. I used this time to absorb information like a sponge. I finally had the chance to look through the information I was given by my OB/GYN back when I first got pregnant, and there was a little excerpt of the book "The Nursing Mother's Companion". I read that over and over, trying to memorize exactly how a latch should look, what sorts of things to expect from a newborn and how often she'd nurse. Just before bed rest was over (36 weeks) we attended our birthing class through the hospital. The nurse spent a lot of time on breastfeeding techniques, holds, and what to look out for, but never once mentioned the "supply problems" that most women think they have.
By the time the big day came, I felt ready. I knew it was important to nurse within an hour of birth and I was really looking forward to it.
At 12:10pm, Hannah was born. When she was placed on my belly she was covered in blood that I later realized was my own. I tore pretty extensively and had to be stitched up for the first 45 minutes of her life. She was being cleaned up for this time and was with her dad and grandparents while I waited not-so-patiently to finally "meet" my baby. I nursed her for the first time shortly after 1pm on Friday April 18th, 2008.
To my surprise... it hurt! My flat nipples were the cause of the problem. I requested to see a lactation consultant and when she came in she watched Hannah latch, said it was fine, and left. That was the last I saw of her.
I discovered a crack on my right nipple the day we were discharged; it bled all over her homecoming outfit. That night, my milk came in. Hannah had a really hard time latching onto my extremely engorged breasts; I was crying and she was crying and Nate was feeling useless until I remembered the breast pump I was given. I went into her room and pumped about 2oz, which was just enough to soften the nipple, and she happily latched on. We had her in the bassinet next to our bed, and she would wake up every 2 hours to nurse. I would get up with her, nurse her, change her diaper, swaddle her, and put her back in the bassinet to sleep. Of course the whole routine took about an hour, so just as I was falling back to sleep she was waking up again. My body was sore from giving birth (I felt like my hips and back were going to come apart), my boobs hurt so much from engorgement and soreness that it was painful to even think about them, and I was, in a word, exhausted. I finally brought her into our bed one night (at Nate's insistence: "you're too tired! Just lay down with her!") and we perfected sidelie nursing on the fly.
At her first pediatrician's visit, the doctor confirmed my suspicions that Hannah was jaundiced. We had to go for a few blood draws but the wonderful doctor just kept telling me to nurse, nurse, nurse. "That's all she needs! Get her in the sunlight and nurse her!" It worked, and within 5 days of my milk coming in, the jaundice was all but gone.
I struggled with an overactive letdown that tended to overwhelm her, so I was constantly needing nursing pads and new towels to catch the spray of milk. And the thirst! Oh my god, I could have been consuming Niagra Falls every morning and still be parched. It continued on like this for about three or four weeks. Nate would leave for work in the morning and bring me my pump, some bags to pump into, diapers, burp rags, water, snacks, and the remote. It was our routine. Every time she latched onto my right breast I would cringe and whimper in pain, sometimes even biting pillows to keep myself from crying out and startling her. I kept hearing "if it hurts, you're doing something wrong" over and over in my head, but I didn't know what I was doing wrong. One day while burping her, she spit up some blood. Naturally I freaked out and called my mom (who had nursed Simon for three years, so she had to know something). She told me to call the LC at the hospital. They asked if I had cracks or open sores on my nipples and when I told her I did, she told me to put a tiny bit of neosporin and lanolin on them. Within days the crack was healed! It took quite some time for me to be able to nurse her on that side without it hurting, however. Finally when she was 5.5 weeks old, I nursed her without pain for the first time ever. It was amazing.
I had been building up a freezer stash for when I returned to work during my morning pumping sessions, and when I returned to work when she was 6 weeks old I figured I'd pump just enough for her to eat the next day. I was wrong. Apparently all of the pumping told my body that I had to feed more than just one baby, and the first day I pumped more than double the amount she was eating. I quickly filled my freezer and started looking into milk donation as a possibility.
It was shortly after returning to work that I got my first clogged milk duct. I knew that I risked developing mastitis but I just couldn't clear the duct on my own, so Hannah came to the rescue. I got a newborn disposable diaper soaked with hot water and used it as a compress while she nursed and sure enough, it cleared within minutes. I learned that lesson: pump regularly while away from baby!
Hannah was nearly 6 months old the first time I donated breastmilk. We used Milkshare to meet the recipient mom and baby. As of writing this (April 22nd, 2009), I've donated to 4 babies across the country, something I'm very proud of. :)
Right around that time I thought for sure my milk was drying up. She was nursing constantly, almost like when she was a newborn, and I felt a certain "tug" that I'd never felt before. Ahh, growth spurts. That's all it turned out to be. And it's a good thing, because she didn't really take to solid foods until she was 9 months old. Even with all the information I had, I still couldn't 100% trust in my body to know what to do, unfortunately. I just kept watching her diaper output and making sure she wasn't becoming dehydrated. Obviously it worked out but it was definitely a test for the nerves.
She got her first tooth at 8 months old and six more quickly followed, so that she had seven teeth by the time she was 10.5 months old. Every time she got a tooth her latch would go to shit, causing me to be in a lot of pain. It was a rough couple of months, that's for sure. It felt like I was nursing her through a broken window at times. Lanolin was my friend.
So that's about it. Our nursing story. Somewhere along the way I discovered that she is sensitive if I eat tomato products (like spaghetti or pizza); she developed an anal fissure from so much pooping in one weekend that I cut out tomatoes from my diet for months. Now that she's older she's fine with it, though. I have to limit the amount of dairy I eat because she gets diarrhea from that, too. I still get clogged ducts to this day, and I developed a bleb a few weeks ago. I don't wear underwire bras or sleep on my stomach, so I suppose I'm just prone to them. All in all, things have been pretty smooth sailing. I don't know how long I'll nurse Hannah. I would like to let her decide when she's done. She can't do it forever, right? I mean, what college kid do you know that goes off with a thermos full of mommy's milk? ;)
UPDATE 7/9/09: I have mastitis. Whee! I don't know how I got it (I didn't even get a plugged duct first!) but I do have it and it really sucks. I'm on antibiotics right now and hopefully it'll clear up soon.
UPDATE 7/22/09: Hannah is going to her 15 month well visit today. I'm going to talk to the doctor about her upper lip tie. I'm sure it's what caused all of our latch issues in the beginning; my flat nipples just didn't help matters. We'll see what the doctor says!
UPDATE 11/3/09: I forgot to update about Hannah's upper lip tie. Alright, the dentist took a look at her teeth and said they were beautiful and perfect. At first he gave me a hard time (before he looked at them, might I add) for nursing her at night but I told him she gets her teeth brushed before bed (which significantly reduces the risk of cavities resulting from breastmilk) and he said "OK fine" basically. Then he looked at them and said, "So... what I just said about not nursing her at night? Forget about it. You're doing a wonderful job, keep at it." That was awesome. :)
He agrees that she has an upper lip tie, but said to wait until her adult teeth come in before thinking about snipping it, because if it's done before then it could create scar tissue that will force her permanent teeth apart. Makes perfect sense to me. He said that 99% of kids with that ailment end up clipping it themselves by tripping and knocking their mouth and it cutting the tie naturally, so to speak, but if it doesn't happen we'll think about it much later. It's not causing any issues now with regards to speech or cavities (I was concerned that food would get caught up there because she's sensitive about her top teeth being brushed) so it's a non issue at the moment.
As for actual exam, it was only about 30 seconds long. He sat with me, knee to knee, in a room with a ton of toys. Hannah laid back and rested her head on his knee and he took a peek with his tools. She was pissed, of course, but it didn't last long and soon he was done.
It seems to me that the space between her teeth is getting smaller as more teeth come in, so hopefully she won't have to worry about that in her older years.
Right now our biggest hurdle is getting past the toddler nursing antics. She is pretty good with her nursing manners but she's still a toddler, so those can go out the window at any time. She has this awful habit of twiddling the free nipple while nursing, and to sum it up nicely, it drives me up the freaking wall. I cannot stand it. She responds well when I tell her to stop but it's like she can't stop herself and 12 seconds later her hand is right back where I don't want it.
She's 18.5 months and still nurses very often. I do not think she will self-wean before 2 years old. I have started to enforce time restrictions. To clarify: if she's nursed from both sides for at least 5-10 minutes each and is just latched on while watching the world go by, I ask her if she's all done. Sometimes she'll shake her head no and sometimes she'll pop off and run to go play elsewhere. If she wants to continue to nurse I tell her we are going to go in the bedroom to cuddle. She either loves or loathes this idea. Either way, it keeps me from feeling like I'm nothing but a set of feed bags.
UPDATE 7/8/10: Hannah is still nursing! She's 2 years, 2.5 months old. She's down to nursing at bedtime, naptimes, and maybe a few times during the day (like when I get home from work) or when she's especially bored. I remember thinking that a day like this would never come and here we are. :)
UPDATE 11/8/10: We've finally started nightweaning. Using time restrictions really helped give me a way to do this, so I'm really glad we started using those. If I'm having a particularly touched-out day I tell her she can have "ABC milk" and I'll sing the ABCs while she nurses, and when the song is finished so is she. It surprised me how well she took to this.
Last weekend I woke up after a night full of her tossing and turning and grabbing at my shirt and said "ENOUGH." I told her right then and there that the milk was going to start to go to sleep at night when the sun is sleeping. She thinks they sleep together now. :) It works! She still gets a little angry at me when I remind her that she can't have the milk because it's sleeping, but she usually settles within a couple minutes and goes back to sleep. Last night was one of the more rough nights since we started this process but I just cannot handle nursing her at all hours anymore. I'm hoping that she'll be in her own bed around Christmas. We'll see.
UPDATE 1/25/12: She's still at it! She got Hand Foot and Mouth disease a few months ago and stopped nursing for over a week. I thought she would wean then, because she told me it hurt her and refused to latch, but once the sores completely healed she started asking for "milkie" again. She is 3 years, 9 months, and one week old as of today. Wow.
I'm 17 weeks pregnant and there is no milk left at all, but she is not ready to stop yet and so we soldier on. Her initial latch hurts - A LOT - but it goes away after a few seconds and I don't notice any discomfort at all after that. She is very excited to be a big sister and talks about sharing the milkie, often designating one breast for the baby and one for her. I'm looking forward to tandem nursing. ♥
moar funny pictures
It was about 7 months into my pregnancy that I started to get nervous. Every time someone asked if I would breastfeed, there was always the warning that followed: "Hopefully you make enough milk. My friend/aunt/sister/cousin couldn't and her baby had to be put in the hospital!" This is when the self-doubt came creeping in. When I started to receive formula samples (whole cans!) in the mail I was glad because that way "just in case" something happened, we had a backup plan. Nate was very laidback about the whole thing. "If you can breastfeed her then great, if we have to buy formula that's fine too." It was nice not to have the pressure but a little confidence in me couldn't have hurt either. Even still, I was determined.
When I was 33 weeks pregnant, I was put on bed rest because of pre-term contractions that were causing me to dilate. I used this time to absorb information like a sponge. I finally had the chance to look through the information I was given by my OB/GYN back when I first got pregnant, and there was a little excerpt of the book "The Nursing Mother's Companion". I read that over and over, trying to memorize exactly how a latch should look, what sorts of things to expect from a newborn and how often she'd nurse. Just before bed rest was over (36 weeks) we attended our birthing class through the hospital. The nurse spent a lot of time on breastfeeding techniques, holds, and what to look out for, but never once mentioned the "supply problems" that most women think they have.
By the time the big day came, I felt ready. I knew it was important to nurse within an hour of birth and I was really looking forward to it.
At 12:10pm, Hannah was born. When she was placed on my belly she was covered in blood that I later realized was my own. I tore pretty extensively and had to be stitched up for the first 45 minutes of her life. She was being cleaned up for this time and was with her dad and grandparents while I waited not-so-patiently to finally "meet" my baby. I nursed her for the first time shortly after 1pm on Friday April 18th, 2008.
To my surprise... it hurt! My flat nipples were the cause of the problem. I requested to see a lactation consultant and when she came in she watched Hannah latch, said it was fine, and left. That was the last I saw of her.
I discovered a crack on my right nipple the day we were discharged; it bled all over her homecoming outfit. That night, my milk came in. Hannah had a really hard time latching onto my extremely engorged breasts; I was crying and she was crying and Nate was feeling useless until I remembered the breast pump I was given. I went into her room and pumped about 2oz, which was just enough to soften the nipple, and she happily latched on. We had her in the bassinet next to our bed, and she would wake up every 2 hours to nurse. I would get up with her, nurse her, change her diaper, swaddle her, and put her back in the bassinet to sleep. Of course the whole routine took about an hour, so just as I was falling back to sleep she was waking up again. My body was sore from giving birth (I felt like my hips and back were going to come apart), my boobs hurt so much from engorgement and soreness that it was painful to even think about them, and I was, in a word, exhausted. I finally brought her into our bed one night (at Nate's insistence: "you're too tired! Just lay down with her!") and we perfected sidelie nursing on the fly.
At her first pediatrician's visit, the doctor confirmed my suspicions that Hannah was jaundiced. We had to go for a few blood draws but the wonderful doctor just kept telling me to nurse, nurse, nurse. "That's all she needs! Get her in the sunlight and nurse her!" It worked, and within 5 days of my milk coming in, the jaundice was all but gone.
I struggled with an overactive letdown that tended to overwhelm her, so I was constantly needing nursing pads and new towels to catch the spray of milk. And the thirst! Oh my god, I could have been consuming Niagra Falls every morning and still be parched. It continued on like this for about three or four weeks. Nate would leave for work in the morning and bring me my pump, some bags to pump into, diapers, burp rags, water, snacks, and the remote. It was our routine. Every time she latched onto my right breast I would cringe and whimper in pain, sometimes even biting pillows to keep myself from crying out and startling her. I kept hearing "if it hurts, you're doing something wrong" over and over in my head, but I didn't know what I was doing wrong. One day while burping her, she spit up some blood. Naturally I freaked out and called my mom (who had nursed Simon for three years, so she had to know something). She told me to call the LC at the hospital. They asked if I had cracks or open sores on my nipples and when I told her I did, she told me to put a tiny bit of neosporin and lanolin on them. Within days the crack was healed! It took quite some time for me to be able to nurse her on that side without it hurting, however. Finally when she was 5.5 weeks old, I nursed her without pain for the first time ever. It was amazing.
I had been building up a freezer stash for when I returned to work during my morning pumping sessions, and when I returned to work when she was 6 weeks old I figured I'd pump just enough for her to eat the next day. I was wrong. Apparently all of the pumping told my body that I had to feed more than just one baby, and the first day I pumped more than double the amount she was eating. I quickly filled my freezer and started looking into milk donation as a possibility.
It was shortly after returning to work that I got my first clogged milk duct. I knew that I risked developing mastitis but I just couldn't clear the duct on my own, so Hannah came to the rescue. I got a newborn disposable diaper soaked with hot water and used it as a compress while she nursed and sure enough, it cleared within minutes. I learned that lesson: pump regularly while away from baby!
Hannah was nearly 6 months old the first time I donated breastmilk. We used Milkshare to meet the recipient mom and baby. As of writing this (April 22nd, 2009), I've donated to 4 babies across the country, something I'm very proud of. :)
Right around that time I thought for sure my milk was drying up. She was nursing constantly, almost like when she was a newborn, and I felt a certain "tug" that I'd never felt before. Ahh, growth spurts. That's all it turned out to be. And it's a good thing, because she didn't really take to solid foods until she was 9 months old. Even with all the information I had, I still couldn't 100% trust in my body to know what to do, unfortunately. I just kept watching her diaper output and making sure she wasn't becoming dehydrated. Obviously it worked out but it was definitely a test for the nerves.
She got her first tooth at 8 months old and six more quickly followed, so that she had seven teeth by the time she was 10.5 months old. Every time she got a tooth her latch would go to shit, causing me to be in a lot of pain. It was a rough couple of months, that's for sure. It felt like I was nursing her through a broken window at times. Lanolin was my friend.
So that's about it. Our nursing story. Somewhere along the way I discovered that she is sensitive if I eat tomato products (like spaghetti or pizza); she developed an anal fissure from so much pooping in one weekend that I cut out tomatoes from my diet for months. Now that she's older she's fine with it, though. I have to limit the amount of dairy I eat because she gets diarrhea from that, too. I still get clogged ducts to this day, and I developed a bleb a few weeks ago. I don't wear underwire bras or sleep on my stomach, so I suppose I'm just prone to them. All in all, things have been pretty smooth sailing. I don't know how long I'll nurse Hannah. I would like to let her decide when she's done. She can't do it forever, right? I mean, what college kid do you know that goes off with a thermos full of mommy's milk? ;)
UPDATE 7/9/09: I have mastitis. Whee! I don't know how I got it (I didn't even get a plugged duct first!) but I do have it and it really sucks. I'm on antibiotics right now and hopefully it'll clear up soon.
UPDATE 7/22/09: Hannah is going to her 15 month well visit today. I'm going to talk to the doctor about her upper lip tie. I'm sure it's what caused all of our latch issues in the beginning; my flat nipples just didn't help matters. We'll see what the doctor says!
UPDATE 11/3/09: I forgot to update about Hannah's upper lip tie. Alright, the dentist took a look at her teeth and said they were beautiful and perfect. At first he gave me a hard time (before he looked at them, might I add) for nursing her at night but I told him she gets her teeth brushed before bed (which significantly reduces the risk of cavities resulting from breastmilk) and he said "OK fine" basically. Then he looked at them and said, "So... what I just said about not nursing her at night? Forget about it. You're doing a wonderful job, keep at it." That was awesome. :)
He agrees that she has an upper lip tie, but said to wait until her adult teeth come in before thinking about snipping it, because if it's done before then it could create scar tissue that will force her permanent teeth apart. Makes perfect sense to me. He said that 99% of kids with that ailment end up clipping it themselves by tripping and knocking their mouth and it cutting the tie naturally, so to speak, but if it doesn't happen we'll think about it much later. It's not causing any issues now with regards to speech or cavities (I was concerned that food would get caught up there because she's sensitive about her top teeth being brushed) so it's a non issue at the moment.
As for actual exam, it was only about 30 seconds long. He sat with me, knee to knee, in a room with a ton of toys. Hannah laid back and rested her head on his knee and he took a peek with his tools. She was pissed, of course, but it didn't last long and soon he was done.
It seems to me that the space between her teeth is getting smaller as more teeth come in, so hopefully she won't have to worry about that in her older years.
Right now our biggest hurdle is getting past the toddler nursing antics. She is pretty good with her nursing manners but she's still a toddler, so those can go out the window at any time. She has this awful habit of twiddling the free nipple while nursing, and to sum it up nicely, it drives me up the freaking wall. I cannot stand it. She responds well when I tell her to stop but it's like she can't stop herself and 12 seconds later her hand is right back where I don't want it.
She's 18.5 months and still nurses very often. I do not think she will self-wean before 2 years old. I have started to enforce time restrictions. To clarify: if she's nursed from both sides for at least 5-10 minutes each and is just latched on while watching the world go by, I ask her if she's all done. Sometimes she'll shake her head no and sometimes she'll pop off and run to go play elsewhere. If she wants to continue to nurse I tell her we are going to go in the bedroom to cuddle. She either loves or loathes this idea. Either way, it keeps me from feeling like I'm nothing but a set of feed bags.
UPDATE 7/8/10: Hannah is still nursing! She's 2 years, 2.5 months old. She's down to nursing at bedtime, naptimes, and maybe a few times during the day (like when I get home from work) or when she's especially bored. I remember thinking that a day like this would never come and here we are. :)
UPDATE 11/8/10: We've finally started nightweaning. Using time restrictions really helped give me a way to do this, so I'm really glad we started using those. If I'm having a particularly touched-out day I tell her she can have "ABC milk" and I'll sing the ABCs while she nurses, and when the song is finished so is she. It surprised me how well she took to this.
Last weekend I woke up after a night full of her tossing and turning and grabbing at my shirt and said "ENOUGH." I told her right then and there that the milk was going to start to go to sleep at night when the sun is sleeping. She thinks they sleep together now. :) It works! She still gets a little angry at me when I remind her that she can't have the milk because it's sleeping, but she usually settles within a couple minutes and goes back to sleep. Last night was one of the more rough nights since we started this process but I just cannot handle nursing her at all hours anymore. I'm hoping that she'll be in her own bed around Christmas. We'll see.
UPDATE 1/25/12: She's still at it! She got Hand Foot and Mouth disease a few months ago and stopped nursing for over a week. I thought she would wean then, because she told me it hurt her and refused to latch, but once the sores completely healed she started asking for "milkie" again. She is 3 years, 9 months, and one week old as of today. Wow.
I'm 17 weeks pregnant and there is no milk left at all, but she is not ready to stop yet and so we soldier on. Her initial latch hurts - A LOT - but it goes away after a few seconds and I don't notice any discomfort at all after that. She is very excited to be a big sister and talks about sharing the milkie, often designating one breast for the baby and one for her. I'm looking forward to tandem nursing. ♥
moar funny pictures