My daughter didn’t latch for five days. My nephews didn’t either. (Women in my family don’t have their milk come in for five to seven days after birth). They go back to sleep. After about four days, you have to give them a bottle (or use a SNS) or you risk breastfeeding jaundice. If they aren’t latching after you get out of the hospital, you should be talking to an M.D. - not a lactation consultant - because you need to be watching for severe dehydration. Breastfeeding jaundice can cause brain damage. If you are fine at 10pm when Mom leaves, you’ll be fine until 8am when you can get into the pediatrician.
Dangerosa, my firstborn did NOT just go back to sleep when he couldn’t latch on. Instead, he screamed. It was not pretty, having a baby at my breast screaming and myself in tears. After all these years (21!) I still feel sorry for both of us when I remember those long difficult nights before we both got the hang of breastfeeding. (I did supplement with a bottle on the pediatrician’s advice, but it was still a fairly exhausting experience.) Not that I think about it often, but this thread has sure brought back memories!
Anyway, glad to read, Chipmunk, that you have decided to do what is best for you and the baby.
Mine didn’t go back to sleep. Up until 18 months or so, if she was hungry she would cry until she was fed. Eventually she would get so tired that she would drop off, and then as soon as she had enough rest that she could cry some more, usually after about two minutes, she would. Rinse and repeat, for, literally, hours.
And why was she crying for hours? Because I listened to too many people like you who said that she would eventually stop. Well, she didn’t. To my credit, she only had to do this a couple of times before I got the message.
At around 18 months, she started being able to sleep if she was only mildly hungry.
All babies are different. Just because your babies went back to sleep doesn’t mean you can say that about all other babies.
ETA: We did supplement with formula for a while because she was losing an alarming percentage of body weight.
This is a mixture of decent advice and terrible advice. (Welcome to the Internet, right?)
When your milk comes in has nothing to do with when your baby latches on. “Latching on” means the infant is correctly sucking from the breast in a way that will stimulate the milk ducts and activate the letdown reflex. Even if your milk hasn’t come in yet, the baby can still latch on and get colostrum (which is typically enough to sustain them until the milk does come in, although Dangerosa is right that you want to pay close attention to make sure the baby isn’t getting dehydrated in the interim).
If the baby isn’t latching after you get out of the hospital, you should consult with a pediatrician (to make sure baby is staying healthy) AND a lactation consultant (to help fix the latch problems).
And no, it is not normal for a hungry baby to just give up and go back to sleep after missing a feeding. I am perfectly willing to believe it does happen, but that doesn’t make it normal, or something you should expect or anticipate.
It happens, but you’re dealing with a baby who doesn’t have the energy to kick up a fuss and is compromised. This is not a good situation and should not be considered normal. The first 24 hours are loosey-goosey - not every baby is interested in feeding to begin with - but doing lots of skin to skin contact with baby can help them get their act together. After that, babies should be fed on a regular basis (every 2-3 hours for a breastfed newborn). Be ready to to it more often, though - it’s that cluster feeding that really brings your milk in.
My mother is not just a Lactation Consultant. She is also an RN whose day job is evaluating newborns to make sure that are receiving sufficient nutrition and are healthy upon returning home. She certainly has the tools and expertise required to let me know if there was a serious problem that needed to be addressed by a pediatrician. She is qualified enough that when my sister had her child, Kaiser allowed my mother to perform the normal evaluations (testing for jaundice, etc) instead of my sister having to bring the baby back to the medical center.
Personally, I would not be okay with just rolling over and going back to sleep if my child was crying and hungry. Even if I couldn’t do anything about it, I would still try and fret, and likely cry, etc.
Major medical trumps everything. You have no idea how stressful major medical and dealing with inlaws can be. Having a kid is stressful enough, adding in guests that you do not actually get along swimmingly with is absolute torture. Adding in someone who will be telling you how to deal with your child is adding another circle of hell to the mix.
If I were her, I would forbid anybody I personally did not invite from dropping by.
hell, I told my parents that I would meet them at their hotel one visit, when they showed up at my doorstep, I left and went to a hotel for 2 days. [It can be difficult getting parents to treat you like an adult, sometimes you really have to demonstrate absolutely that you will not be walked on.]
As much as I appreciate the Dope, this might be something to talk about on a parenting board. I don’t know what “type” of parenting you are planning, but if it’s the breastfeeding, co-sleeping, attachment-type, you might find www.drmomma.org or the Peaceful Parenting site helpful. There are many other parenting sites out there, depending on your needs, where you might find a little less judgmental advice.
It saddens me that anyone thinks you should be doing anything that first week or two but doting on your new baby and making sure his/her needs are met on demand. Frankly, that’s just what most normal parents do with a newborn. Babies are incapable of manipulation or anything lke it, especially at that tiny size. And YOU get precedence over your husband for that few weeks. It’s upsetting that this is somehow controversial here. It just makes sense to me that the woman who has given her body and soul to this growing infant, and who will give birth and be the one feeding and tending to the baby’s early needs, should be allowed some concessions. Frankly, anything else just seems insane to me, and selfish on the part of the ones who are trying to hone in on that or make it about them.
It’s just an aside, but I watched this documentary about women who’d already had sons and were trying to have daughters. What struck me was that all of the all-boy families were very boyish, leaving the mum out a bit. I’m not saying that this is inevitable, because gender isn’t as simple as that, but… it could mean that your MIL is looking forward to having a granddaughter even more than just being a grandparent (from what you said), and that maybe she’s been looking forward to this since before you were born. That’s a long time of longing, irrational as it may be.
I don’t mean that you should change what you’re doing when it’s in your own best interests and in the best interests of your child. If you need to not have anyone around when your baby’s born, except for your mother who is there as a specialist as well as your mother, then that makes sense, and is the right thing to do; however, have some sympathy for your MIL when it comes to her reactions to the choices you make.
I think you probably hurt the MIL’s feelings. I mean, if your position of “I don’t want to play hostess” implies that she’s a bother. And someone who is a bothersome stranger is typically not your family.
I only read the OP and jumped straight into reply mode.
When my wife and I had our first child we agreed that visitors would be a bad idea for a while; the labor was long and difficult, we were both tired and have very problematic parents. You know how being around some people makes you feel relaxed or energized while others make you tired and anxious, well think of being in a coven of vampires.
So I rang everyone on the list and when anyone mentioned coming around I politely informed them that, while we treasured their good will towards us, I would call them when we were willing to have visitors.
Our parents were pissed off but our friends and siblings took it with good grace. Mind you this was in the days before mobile phones, email etc. It was a lot easier to keep a civilized distance then.
The fact that the husband had to relay this info to the MIL instead of the OP being able to talk to her directly speaks volumes. I think she should’ve talked to the MIL. I know if I were in the MIL’s position I could be understanding and sympathetic if my daughter in law actually spoke to me. I have a son and if his wife had a similar reaction to the OP, I’d be really hurt and upset.
I disagree. If the OP and her husband came to a decision together, then having the OP tell the MiL makes it seem like it’s all her doing rather than a joint decision. It takes the responsibility entirely off her husband for dealing with his parents, with whom the OP already has a difficult relationship.
If my mother was bothered about something my husband and I decided to do, there’s no way I’d send him to deal with her.
As someone who has been married quite awhile, and who has a great relationship with my inlaws I can say that my husband has the difficult conversations with his folks and I with mine. We never (or try to minimize it at least) put each other in the position of being the bad guy with our families. We have at times run interference for each other with our own parents (taking a message if I’m not ready to talk to my mom after a fight or something) though. But it is not his job to deal (with negative stuff) with my folks and not my job with his. It’s worked beautifully and we all get a long great.
Look, I have a lot of family members that I love and cherish deeply. Many of these people are also people that I know damn well I cannot live with under the same roof, if I want to continue to love and cherish them.
And if you’re the type of person who will become hurt and offended because you’re not invited to stay at your daughter-in-law’s house immediately after she gives birth, you need to get over yourself. You’ll have the rest of your life to be a doting grandparent or whatever. Give the new parents a couple of weeks to themselves if they want. Cripes.
