Baby’s age: 8 days old
Some readers may find this post more graphic than they care for. There will be much non-sexual discussion of breasts. Sorry Sevitz.
Disclaimer: My personal view is that breast feeding is absolutely crucial, as you will see from the lengths we have gone to, to make sure it happens. But priorities vary, and I understand that not everyone feels the same way; none of what I say is intended to criticise parents who opt to formula-feed. I’m writing this so that you know how many options, and how much support, is actually available.
Friday: Bernard was delivered relatively quickly. We didn’t get the water birth we wanted, but not to worry; nor did we get any of the interventions we dreaded. First degree tear and no stitches. He lay on my chest like a bedraggled little baby bird for the first hour, and we watched while he opened first one eye, and then the other, and of course focused on nothing, but hey. He was amazing and beautiful.
By some oversight [i.e. being in labour - it's a little distracting], I still had my bra on, so he didn’t suckle during that time. Policy decision: not to beat myself up about this missed opportunity. We rectified this, and found that he just couldn’t get it all in his little tiny mouth; a combination of being somewhat buxom, and having rather flat nipples, makes it difficult for the little fellow to get a good latch – that is, a very wide open mouth, taking in the whole dark-coloured area around the nipple as well as just the bit that’s supposed to be pointy. This is the only way he will get milk out; sucking on just the nipple is painful for me and yields little nutrition.
Saturday: The midwives at the hospital were absolutely fantastic during labour, and anyone considering doing this in the Berkshire or Surrey area should think about giving birth at Ascot. However their assistance in getting him to feed was inconsistent, and mainly they just grabbed a handful of boob and shoved it in his mouth. This made both Bernard and I recoil in discomfort, and feel less inclined to keep trying. Remember, I have just given birth. I already hurt all over. I am not entirely rational. I don’t dedicate every moment to getting him to latch on, and again, policy decision is not to beat oneself up about this. You just can’t.
The hospital kept me in a second night because he wasn’t feeding. That night was hell, and I fixated on getting home, a) so that I didn’t have to go through another night on my own; and b) because I was certain that all we needed to do was get to the breastfeeding clinic at the Royal Berkshire Hospital, and all our woes would be at an end. See remarks about rationality above.
Sunday: Home at last and he slept for hours. We thought this was wonderful, but were told at the clinic the next day that it was because he hadn’t had enough to eat. Way to stoke the anxieties of a brand new pair of parents.
Monday: On the other hand, the clinic also suggested that we express milk and feed it to him by another means. I opted to cup-feed, so as not to cause nipple confusion. I really want to be able to breastfeed, and bottle-feeding requires much less effort and sucking action on both his part and ours.
We stop by Mothercare and pick up a hand-pump. It takes hours and hours to extract the smallest quantity of milk, but still represents a huge leap forward, because we can see that he is definitely eating something. The disadvantage is that he consumes it faster than I can express it, which is pretty stressful. Ordered an electric pump.
Tuesday: The Health Visitor confirms that his total weight-loss is less than 10%, which is within acceptable parameters. All babies lose a little in the first few days after birth, having fattened themselves up nicely beforehand to make it harder to get them out.
Spent about 8 hours pumping away, nipples sore as *&%$. My milk came in, which means that my breasts swelled up like balloons and hurt because I just couldn’t extract it quickly enough. Pete spent nearly as long cup-feeding, which is a pretty tiresome process for both feeder and feedee. Bernard gets quite frustrated and hungry. The night shift was especially horrendous, having sent Pete to bed early [I really need him to build up sleep hours so that he can keep up his phenomenal level of help] – I have to pump, feed, and sterilise stuff single-handedly. Pete gets woken by a crying mum, never mind the crying baby, more than once during this week.
Wednesday: Pump arrives, but needs its own sterilising machine; we order this for next day delivery and start boiling things.
Our excellent health visitor encourages us to use a bottle to stuff loads of milk into him at night, and alleviate some of the heartache. She says one bottle amongst all the cups won’t hurt, and we must also keep trying the breast at every feed. She says if we give fewer, bigger feeds, rather than letting him snack on demand, he will be hungrier for the breast. Whatever method of feeding, it’s also important to give him plenty of skin contact, so Pete and I simply don’t bother getting dressed any more.
The local La Leche League counsellor talks to me for ages on the phone, and just talking about it helps so much. She suggests we try out nipple shields. She does point out that some mums consider this to be a less intimate experience, but bollocks to that; this is about getting food into him, not about having Hallmark moments. Plenty of time to cuddle when he isn’t bawling for grub.
Thursday: 1.00 am – we deliver 30ml by bottle, and it is gone in seconds. This seems really strange after taking an hour to cup-feed the same quantity. We give another 15ml but chicken out of giving any more in case baby explodes. Bernard has a short sleep but then wakes and won’t settle for hours. Shock, probably.
During the day, I commence dual pumping. You can’t do much else at the same time, so this isn’t a fun job. I’m also not sure what makes a good expressing routine, but don’t have time to look in any books.
Having obtained nipple shields from an all-night supermarket, we try them out after he has had a long sleep and is hungry. Success! He sucks for 15 minutes on one side, and five on the other, and then sleeps a little. His sucking also stimulates the let-down of milk so well that I express a vast quantity, and start the stock-pile in the fridge. All this makes for a huge reduction in stress levels.
Pete and I admit to each other that we both hate cup feeding. We decide to give the nipple shields a few more days, and then resign ourselves to feeding expressed milk by bottle forever if we haven’t made any progress. Just admitting this to each other helps. Incidentally, we were told that most marriages are severely weaker one month after having a baby; we find that we’re closer than ever, teamworking to get food into our child and make sure he thrives. Cup feeding just takes so long, but has at least been a great bonding experience for Pete, requiring so much more interaction than just tipping bottles into the baby.
9pm – we have 250ml in the fridge, which is 24 hours’ supply. This is a great moment.
Friday: Bernard’s one week birthday. We give significantly less by cup, because he is managing to work the nipple shields. On two occasions we remove the shields during the feeding session, and he sucks directly from the nipple. He is happier, we are happier. We all sleep like babies.
Everyone has been so supportive, and at no time during this week has anyone suggested that we supplement with formula. Bernard’s tiny week-old stomach remains unsullied by artificial food; and Mum and Dad have themselves a nice glass of wine.
Hoooooraaaaay! My congrats to you on so many things
I had much the same problem – flat nipples, not much to hold on to for the little one.
Good for you
Also very happy that you’ve not beat yourself up about anything 
Name confusion on line one of Friday?
All of it does get better, really. It sounds like you are all three doing very well and that this wee baby is in the hands of very capable parents. Keep up the good work.
You are amazing! It must have been really hard work this. And as you’ve probably noticed by now the sore nipples do heal as they get used to the friction:-) In my experience the first two weeks are worst and then it just gets better. (Calendula cream is good for sore nipples.)
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You stars. I’m so glad. Being a graduate of the nipple-shield school myself I can begin (but only begin) to imagine what this must have been like. Hugs to you all.
You’ll be happy to know I got through that whole post without once thinking of sex.
I did want to get the pom poms out and give the three of you a cheer though. Glad end of week one is going well even if it took some time to kick off. You’re fantastic.
Also I know now a lot more about breast feeding which bring up my knowledge from “nothing” to “slightly more than nothing”. I one day might be able to have a non sexual discussion about breasts myself. Just possibly not in the summer.
I didn’t know how else to let you know what I noticed but I’m glad it was repaired. I like it very much…one we seriously considered here 20 years ago.
This all seems so familiar and yet, even at only just a bit more than five months, so very long ago. We had a few "dark days" but we (i.e. mostly Hels and Tom) stuck at it and gave His Lordship sixteen weeks of breast milk. We’re very proud of that. We (i.e. Hels – but I was there!) found hand pumping worked quite well, once we got the knack for it (I kinda helped with that at first). And, as you seem to have found, once you get past the initial bit, then it seems that baby goes for boob all by himself. Pumping is still useful even when baby has got the latch going well, particularly if you are going out to an environment where breastfeeding is either not de rigeur or not well catered for (i.e. most places, sadly). And, even though we did use a bottle, then was no shortage of bonding between father and son. I’m not sure that a cup would have increased the bonding, but it might have increased the frustration for all concerned – it was frustrating enough trying to keep Tom awake long enough to drink! As I’ve said over at Dad’s place, we found no problem switching back and forth between breast and bottle/teat, but I guess each parent/child will have a different experience.
On a slightly different topic, we are getting increasingly annoyed at the mother-centric provision of changing facilities in public places. Changing units seem to be always in the ladies’ loo, rarely in the gents or in a dedicated room. It seems to be worse for older children – my brother-in-law and his wife have recently separated and B-i-L took his daughter out this weekend (she’s six years old) and she was very sick in the car – but was there anywhere where he and she could go together in order to clean her up? Nothing in service stations, pubs, cafes or public toilets, so they had to abort their trip and drive home with very unpleasant smells in the car. You’d think that, given divorce rates in the UK, there would be more provision for dads alone with their children, but there isn’t. Maybe the government could spend money on this instead of wasting it on some of their other daft projects.
Anyhow, rant over, and congratulations for all you’ve achieved so far. There is no better feeling for parents (especially mum) when the baby starts gaining weight and the only source of that gain is from breast milk.
One week already! Sounds like things are going very well (now), so let’s raise a boob and toast the happy family!
(what?!)
We have had exactly the same issues – but thankfully my midwives were abit more supportive and gave us a lot of help, including pumping in hospital, syringe feeding, nipple shields, rebirth etc. they were also very sympathetic because i was trying to breast feed, despite having been awake for nearly 80 hours and having a c-section
Can i really STRONGLY recommend the book ‘what to expect when you’re breastfeeding and what if you can’t by Clare Byam-Cook’. Really helped me sort out myth from muddle and getting him latched on.
We are now combining EBM bottle and breast with nipple shield (when bub is so inclined) and he’s doing well, no confusion to be found. we didnt even do the cup because part of our issue was bubs being too excited for food – he’s knock the precious item to the floor given half a chance.
Gotta ask though WHY did you express colostrum for hours and hours – you either have lots (like i did, holy cow i could have fed every kid in the ward bar mine who couldnt be bothered) or you dont, before your milk comes in – you must be sore, girl!
my favorite part was the wine. and also “hungrier for the breast.”
i just spent the weekend with my mother, whom i hadn’t seen for about a year, and we spent a long time flipping through photo albums of my very early childhood. i was happy to see that there were so many pictures of my first year, not because i liked the photos of myself so very much, but because of the images of my parents with me — holding, feeding, playing — they were really heartwarming. i thought of you and pete, and i hope that you’re taking lots of photos and maybe thinking about printing them (when you have the time) for rewarding viewing later in life.
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