New Thoughts on BFing

I've had a loooong post saved in my drafts folder for more than a week now, walking through our less-than-smooth start with breast feeding. I keep going in and adding a bit more to the story, never quite satisfied with how it's turning out.

I'm scrapping that post. The long, sordid details are not worth it.

So, here's my new post on breast feeding.

It's hard. There really should be a public awareness campaign about how difficult breast feeding can be. And I'm not even talking about the physical difficulties, of which I've actually had relatively few (only the occasional sore/stingy nipple). I'm talking about the mental difficulties.

The anxiety over whether or not your child is getting enough to eat (you can't really tell how much she is getting, can you? You can only rely on her to eat as much as she needs).

Over your supply (you can't really tell how much you're making, either. Is it enough to feed my child? Is she going to go hungry? Will my supply be affected if I don't pump after every feeding? Should I be drinking special tea, eating special foods, etc. What happens if I start having too much milk . . . and why on earth would that be a problem??).

Over the feeding schedule (why, oh why doesn't my baby want to eat every 2-3 hours like all the books say she will? Now I have to wake her to eat, and she just falls asleep on the boob after like three minutes anyway, and that brings us back to worry #1.).

I have never before found something so easy to obsess over.

Crazy, huh? I'm obsessing because my baby is a great sleeper. A great sleeper and a bad, bad eater.

Part of the problem (my mental problem, that is, the thing that is making it possible for me to obsess about this) is that she did not regain her birth weight by her 2-week appointment. About that time, I noted a noticeable drop in her nursing time. I freaked. I called lactation consultants. The phrase "failure to thrive" haunted my every waking and dreaming moment. We started supplementing with breast milk from the bottle at the start of every feeding (to attempt to wake her more gently than the bright lights, naked, cold rag, loud noise routine we had been following), then nursing on both sides, then pumping. The feeding routine took upwards of an hour and a half, sometimes longer. It worked though. She regained her birth weight by 2 weeks, 3 days. But I was exhausted. I came to dread feeding time. I could feel my anxiety start to build about an hour out from when the wake up - bottle feed - attempt to nurse - pump cycle would begin.

I met with a lactation consultant. Ali was examined. My boobs were examined. A nursing session was examined. Ali was proclaimed to be a "gourmet diner." As in, she took her damn sweet time to eat. We created a breast feeding plan that got rid of the bottle supplement and focused on responding more to her hunger cues rather than worrying so much about a schedule. We were told to just experiment over the weekend.

It was very hard for me to let go of the plan that had worked so well in putting on the weight. But I gave it a shot. And I'm still trying to give it a shot. I'm trying not to worry when she has a very sleepy day (I wish I had never read that sentence in the book about how babies who don't get enough will often be very lethargic and sleepy). I'm trying not to get frustrated when she falls asleep after only five minutes. I'm trying to trust that she is a healthy baby who just has a more relaxed eating schedule than most other babies.

I'm still pumping after every feeding to make sure that her not eating enough doesn't tell my body to start making less food. I honestly can't imagine a future where I'm not pumping after every session. Hopefully the lactation consultant will have a new plan for us to make that happen.

So yeah. Breast feeding has been hard for us. Not physically. But mentally. Emotionally. It has not come easy. But we are forging ahead, Ali and me. If nothing else, my own stubbornness has served me well in not giving up.

And for those three to five minutes when she is awake and contentedly nursing (ok, I really should say awake and sucking so noisily that I am not sure I'll ever be able to nurse in public because of the stares we would get), and she looks up into my eyes and just stares . . . it's those three to five minutes that keep me coming back the next time.