Breast Feeding

Oh dear breast feeding how I hate/love, but mostly hate you. Let’s start with the good things.

• I really do think there is a bond that happens.
• It is very healthy for my baby, during Christmas Dustin’s whole family, Dustin and I were sick and all Reese got was a little stuffy nose for 2 days, nothing the good old blue sucker thing couldn’t handle.
• It is very cheap, formula is NOT!
• It’s convenient, you don’t have to worry about bringing any supplies, just myself.

Now the bad.

• Sometimes it really freakin HURTS
• Pumping makes me want to pull my hair out
• milk supply or lack there of
• Breast fed baby’s eat more often
• Depending on the baby, you may have to eliminate things from your diet like milk, chocolate and spicy things.
• It’s inconvenient if you are not at home in your PJ’s without a bra on
• Heaven forbid someone comes to the door while you are breast feeding!
• The cover blankets make things sweaty, hard to see and you may as well just do it in the open because everyone is bound to get a peek anyways, with the baby grabbing the blanket and flailing, you trying to get the baby out from underneath the blanket, and you have to be on boob alert at all times or it is probably hanging out.

You may wonder why I am writing about this. Well I will tell you, my milk supply has been very nonexistent the last month or so. I have had to give Reese formula after every feed. Then the times I pump I am getting not even an oz. Reese eats 4.

So I called the lactation specialist at the pediatrician’s office this morning to see how I can get my milk to come in better. Everything she told me depressed me to the core. She said I need to feed her every TWO hours, let me clarify every 2 hours is not from when she finishes eating it’s from when she starts, so she ate at 9:45 and finished at 10:15-10:30 and then I had to start again at 11:45, which she was hungry before then so we started at 11:30. Do you know what few things can get done in that small hour?! Definitely not getting dressed or doing your hair.

Then there is the pumping after you feed , then there are the very sore nipples (sorry TMI?) , then there is the possibility of the 6:00, 7:00 and 8:00 feeding trying to store up on calories to sleep through the night (Bag that I am totally giving her formula before bed), then there is the test of milk supply by unlatching her after she has been nursing for a few minutes, which in and of itself makes me want to cry, and hand expressing milk to make sure it squirts .

Then I asked the question that made me more depressed than any question I asked. “I know that breast feeding is always important for the baby but how long is it very important.” “For the first SIX months it is very important, especially this time of year with all the sicknesses.” It was like a dagger to my heart. 3.5 more months .

 

 

Crap I’ve got to go breast feed.