Nursing can be a wonderful experience, but this 4 month learning process taught me compassion for mothers who have to jump hurdle after hurdle to nurse their precious babies. With all the information about why breastfeeding is best, some wonder why any mother would choose a different way. I have deep empathy for those mothers and hope in no way any mother reading this would feel even more added guilt for her decisions. Breastfeeding is such a personal matter. This post is not to add to the heartache women feel when they have to quit nursing, but instead to provide encouragement and tips that helped me.
Beginning
Right off the bat, Lincoln was given a bottle from the nurses at the hospital following my cesarean. Then later that night I just minded the nurses. They brought in pumping stuff. I figured at some points I would do some pumping because I was going to be going back to school. Anyway, I didn't really feel like they explained to me the point of pumping at the hospital. I didn't really think through any of that. I got a hot pad and put that on. I tried to nurse and I pumped. I thought this was going to be cake for me... Ha haha. Bless my heart...
Beginning of my troubles- tongue tied
Lincoln was tongue tied. I asked at the hospital if we could have his tongue clipped in something called a frentonomy. This is where they snip the frenulum under the tongue. At the hospital I was told over and over that we should wait to see how bad it was before jumping to surgical intervention. They said sometimes it doesn't need to get corrected until they can't talk properly. I was bothered by this in the hospital since the nurses kept commenting on how his tongue was tied. Not till after I got home and my milk supply was gone did I realize Lincoln was not sucking properly. I turned to the internet for information and discovered that having a low milk supply often is the result of the baby being tongue tied. Then I had to worry about taking my newborn into doctors offices with sick people to get it fixed. It took us a few days to get a doctor who would do the procedure. When you're talking about problems with nursing, problems need to be fixed ASAP. (I had to take fenugreek several times to get my supply back) I realized that hiccups like this were probably some of the reasons that mothers quit nursing.
Extremely time consuming
I felt so bad for lincoln and knew that nursing was so difficult for him, I just let him nurse as long as he needed ( or I thought he needed). My nursing sessions were usually over an hour long... About every 2-3 hours. One day I realized I spent 12 hours nursing! No joke. As a new tired mom, this was causing extreme fatigue.
Painful beyond painful
The only advice I remember being given about breastfeeding was, "just stick with it. It's painful for a few weeks but just when you want to quit it gets better. Those who quit, quit before that time"
Awesome.... That advice did NOTHING for me. I got to where I was literally curling my toes and banging my head. I would cry while nursing sometimes. I would express this to my mom and other women but their reply's were the same, "it gets better. Use lanolin. Just stick with it." Um... Okay? Finally Caleb said he didn't want me to nurse anymore if it was going to be this difficult for me. He said he supports me 100% in stopping. I had a melt down one day (sorry Caleb) and I decided to do exclusive pumping. That was the beginning of October I believe. I pumped until Christmas time. (I will do a whole other post about exclusive pumping)
Finding answers
I looked around me and realized there has to be more to this nursing thing that I'm not getting. How can so many women do it for thousands of years. Did they all "just stick it out?" I thought, if they can do it, I can do it! I missed my time with Lincoln. I felt like Caleb, grandparents, and other people were getting all the sweet special moments because i was glued to my pump. (Which, still was 10x easier than nursing was). I missed nursing him. My whole life I've thought breastfeeding was a weird thing. I was embarrassed when others talked about it. I felt like it was inappropriate to discuss. But here I found myself missing it. I felt like it was a beatiful thing that was just for him and I. To me, it wasn't especially bonding because of the act of breastfeeding itself, but because it forced me to slow down and give him all my attention. It forced me to take time-outs to spend with this baby who was changing by the minute. Those minutes would never return and it helped me to soak in them.
I started researching. I found hope in that so many women had switched back from exclusive bottle feeding to breastfeeding. I got serous about learning the proper technique. I was set on teaching Lincoln to nurse properly.
What I learned that helped me nurse properly
- it was CRITICAL that Lincoln's whole body was facing me. Somehow even his legs are connected to his tongue. We needed to be belly's touching.
- Lincoln needed to make effort. He needed to LIFT his chin and open his mouth wide. (This was the most difficult technique to implement. His "rooting" relux left fast when he began bottle feeding and he was content with us shoving a bottle deep in his mouth without any effort on his part) if he has to turn down to get latched, he needs to be brought more to the opposite side. Having their body positioned too far to the side you're nursing on causes them to put their chin to their chest which will cause improper latch.
- When he opened his mouth I needed to pull him close to me and make sure it was a very deep latch. If not, it rubs agains his hard palate and causes nipple damage... AKA excruciating pain.
- I needed to hold my breast from underneath, in a cupping (U) shape. This hold needs to be away from the nipple. Do not try to manipulate the latch by putting your fingers close to the Areola. I don't know exactly why this helped so much, but my hunch is that when I wasn't holding my breast, the weight of it would pull it out of his mouth, thus creating a shallow latch. If you're well-endowed this trick is for you! Once he had been nursing for a while, I could let go and he continued in proper technique.
- if you move to reach for something or stop paying attention, you could ruin the good latch you originally created. If you're thinking you aren't latched right for whatever reason, put one finger inside their mouth to break the suction, pull out, then re-position.
Switching
For me, switching back was not easy. I had a huge learning curve. I thought, now that I knew how to do it, I could just make the switch. What I didn't expect is how upset Lincoln was about it. He got hysterical every time is attempted to nurse him. So I kept doing both. He was a hit or miss for about a week. When it was a miss I just pumped. It seemed with each bottle feeding he was even more reluctant to go to nursing. I realized that if he was good at nursing, then for whatever reason I pumped and let him have a bottle, it was a nightmare to switch again. I quite pumping cold turkey because of my tendinitis. I had no choice. I either needed to nurse Lincoln or switch to formula. I was running out of stored breastmilk. Lincoln got so hysterical while trying to nurse him that it broke my heart. Caleb and I wondered if we were traumatizing him.
The long process
I decided this was going to be hard work. I had come so far between nursing and pumping I just wanted to give it my best shot. I started just cuddling with Lincoln - skin on skin. That way he didn't think he was going to be nursed and he could get over some of the triggers that were terrifying him, I would even bottle feed him skin on skin. If ever he got crying we just stopped. I made sure I was doing all the feeding. Important: I took deep breaths and just calmed down. If I was stressed, he would be too! After a week of that, and almost quitting, he finally starting wanting to latch. It was so hard because I was afraid that if I repositioned him, due to being improperly latched, that he would get upset and not nurse. Sometimes this was the case. But I learned that if I talked to him in a really gentle voice and smiled, the reposition didn't upset him. I had to be diligent about good technique. We would get to two nursing feedings without a bottle, and then finally a whole day without a bottle, then several days without a bottle. I still brought milk everywhere because I was nervous that he wasn't going to nurse, but eventually I gained more confidence in him and myself.
Conclusion
Now Lincoln nurses for 5-10 minutes every 3 hours. One side each time. It has been a wonderful experience and I am enjoying it. I believe that cultural norms are sometimes not conducive to an environment of learning about nurturing your baby through nursing. Although I appreciate the encouragement to "stick it out" there is so much more to nursing then just blindly putting yourself through so much - physically, mentally, emotionally, and spiritually. I learned so much going thought this process. I couldn't possibly share all that I learned in this one post. I will be doing one soon about exclusive pumping and what I learned. Feel free to share insights or suggestions. Also, if you have any questions, I would be happy to answer.
My favorite website for information was http://www.llli.org
