That’s very interesting. However, I honestly think it would help a little if they changed their name now.
Good advice.
Lavender, this might sound a little obvious, but have you ever tried expressing without a pump? I never had much success with pumps but did really well with manual expression, leaning over a big bowl at first and then, after a week or so, just holding the larger part of the breast pump (the name escapes me) under my nipple while I milked myself. If I’d relied on breastpumps I’d have given up.
Lactations consultants, and another lactation consultant when the first one didn’t work, are another thing about breastfeeding that is definitely not free.
I tried three of them initially. Two in the hospital and one outside. They were able to get the baby to latch for a while but she would drink and then stop. I got tired of it and started pumping instead.
The baby has been sleeping through the night since she was eight weeks old. She slept today from about 1:30 am to about 8:30 without a feed. I suspect that’s part of my problem but I really need as much sleep as I can as I work a full time job. I work at home so I’m trying to pump and watch her at the same again. I also suspect that’s another part of the problem.
I use both the pump and the hand milking. If I can’t get enough with the pump I use my hands. If the pumping isn’t working I try the milking technique. The problem is primarily a drop off in the mornings with volume. As last as last week I was getting 10 ounces first thing in the morning but that’s down to about six if I’m lucky.
Oh well. I’ve given her mostly breast milk and she’s 23 weeks. That’s good, right? I’m just afraid that I’ll wake up one day and find I can’t get anything. Right now I’m down to about 20ounces a day with another four or six ounces of formula supplementation and a daily feed of mashed banana, rice cereal or sweet potatoes. She’s just so big – over 20lbs already – that I’m scared she’s not getting enough nutrition.
Oh true that. Not free. Add in the cost of the extra food Moms eat (even while still losing weight) too! Then again lactation consults are often covered by many insurance plans, most Moms get by without them, the cost (if paid out of pocket) is less than a month of the formula, and if the not huge but real protection from infectious diseases saves you just one sick office visit (let alone an antibiotic couse for an ear infection) then it is worth it. (A visit with me costs more than a visit with the lactation consultant.)
Preach it!!! And good on you for keeping up with the pumping as long as you have!!
When Moon Unit was a preemie and not eating at the breast (and sorry DSeid, but she DID have nipple confusion despite what you said and what the neonatologists said), and I was despairing of her ever learning the trick, I didn’t think I’d be able to keep up the pumping if she didn’t figure things out. For the first 2 weeks she was home, my day and most of my night consisted of “offer breast, feed her a bottle, then pump” followed by an hour’s doze, and then repeat it all over again.
Possibly too late at this point, as your baby has learned to drink from a bottle and likely would have no idea what to do with the breast, but did the LCs check to see if she was tongue-tied? If you have another baby at some point and have issues then, it’s worth checking (the membrane under the tongue goes too far forward and interferes; a quick snip and it’s fixed).
I was a second-time mother, knew how to tell if feeding was going well, knew all the benefits, and STILL considered giving up and switching to formula. You’re doing better than I would have!!!
I wound up working it out, with a technique I’d stumbled across on the internet before she was born. I used one of those “supplemental feeder” bottles, with the tube taped to my fingertip (little finger), stuffed that in her mouth. used my chin to press the bottle a little whenever she sucked… and within 24 hours she was nursing full-time. She just needed to be taught that ‘X’ action resulted in food - something she hadn’t figured out at the breast.
We had four lactation consultants try to work with us, and our baby never latched onto my wife, not even for ten seconds. So she had to pump. I just don’t know what else we could have done. (One of the consultants suggested there might be something wrong with the baby’s reflexes, but we never really figured it out.)
Um. You do see what’s wrong with this statement, don’t you? That is a very well fed baby. She’s the size of many nine monthers. She is getting enough nutrition! Actually you should be forewarned that some of the … very well rounded … breastfed babies will go between six and nine months hardly gaining any weight (as they become more mobile and get more solids and less breastmilk). That will not be a sign that you are not giving her enough nutrition. It is just normal. No, what you’ve done is not “good” … it is great. It would be wonderful to keep getting some breastmilk in her as the winter infectious disease season approaches, especially given how much she is thriving on it, but honestly driving yourself nuts to make the proportion say 80 vs 60% is not worth it. Let’s be real, the next 3 to 4 months will include her getting mobile, remembering all the cool (dangerous) things behind those close cabinet doors (object permanence, comes with peek a boo , stranger and separation anxiety), and pincer grasp … exciting and fun but dangerous and exhausting times to try to get work done at home with baby. Adding more demands should be done with full consideration of what they cost, not in dollars, but in the quality of the play you get to have with her.
Thank you. The bolded part made me cry. I have tried so hard with the pumping. It is not easy. I felt so bad because I was able to get her sister to nurse for two years even though she also had initial difficulties latching. I’m a lot more sympathetic now than I was back then to the non-breast feeders.
My nickname for her is chub-chub because she’s so deliciously fat.
Wait, you’re a woman?! Crap, I think I’ve actually said that before to/about you, even. D’oh! (Well, if you’re not a woman, then hats off to you, sir! That’s what I call a dedicated father!)
While we’re on the topic of babies being well-fed, is there any link between bottle fed babies and being overweight? I had a chubster of a kid and my mom kept telling me it was because he was bottle-fed. Maybe. But he’s a rail now.
Heh, yes, I’m a woman. Funnily enough, it’s only been this year that everyone seems to think I’m male. Perhaps I’ve grown some testicles or something and not noticed.
Well sorry if it’s mutual. Pediatricians and their office staff give some of the most horrific, sabotaging breastfeeding “advice” imaginable.
Not in the least. What they do say is real is the fact that bottles are much easier for a baby to get milk from than the breast, which causes an issue when a baby can’t figure out why they have to work for the milk all of a sudden when they’re brought to breast again, especially if they’re upset, hungry and crying. And then you can get into a cycle that’s very difficult to get out of.
It’s not. It’s tiring, it’s taxing, you don’t get those moments of cuddling and bonding because plastic ain’t so cuddly and doesn’t provoke oxytocin release so well. To be willing, to put in those hours, and the fact that you’ve done it for nearly six months and can say:
Is such a testament to your dedication and your very very hard work and your commitment, seriously, take another minute to stop and feel proud. Hell, take a few hours. Congratulations to you and your chub-chub, seriously. High five.
That would be, what, a nuthead? A sackhead? Anyway, I was just suggesting one reason you hadn’t noticed your extra testicles. I picture it as like a rooster comb, wobbling away while you walk.
If I’d relied on breastpumps I’d have given up.