Breastfeeding

I never thought of myself as the kind of mom who would breast feed my child.  I alway found it to be a little creepy.  However, after attending my natural childbirth class and being around a bunch of people who planned on breastfeeding, I felt like I should at least give it a try.

From the begining, it was a challange.  Alex was in the NICU for a week being bottle feed, he had a tounge tie, that made it difficult for him to latch, and he just didn't seem interested. 

I pumped every two hours the first week he was in the NICU.  It took about 4 days for my milk to come in and once it did, boy did I know it.  We tried to get him to latch on towards to end of his stay in the NICU, however he would just get so upset, his breathing would get elevated again, and it was a little bit of a disaster.  Finally, the lactation consultants gave me this nipple shield that basically turned my boob into a bottle.  He took immediately to that and I thought we had solved our problem.

About a month into feeding him, I had noticed that my supply had gone down substancially, and I could not figure out why.  I told Matt about my concerns and he didn't think it was a problem. Well, one day I went out to the lactation center to get e new bra and found out that I was suppose to be pumping evertime I used the shield.  I had not know that and it caused my supply to dwindle.  Apparently, if you use the shield, there is not the direct stimulation needed to keep your supply going.  I immediately started pumping after each feeding and also drinking mother's milk, a tea that helps to promote milk production.

I continued to breastfeed Alex for another month.  The week right before I started back to work, I moved him over to only bottle feeding.  He still got breast milk, since I was pumping, just from a bottle.  I was much happier with this arrangement.  I had been so fustrated with the whole process, and I liked being able to see exactly what he was taking in at each feeding.