It Doesn’t Make You a Bad Mom!
It’s easy to feel like a failure when it comes to all the different aspects of motherhood. For me it was not being able to exclusively nurse. I’m an RN with past experience in L&D/postpartum/nursery so with that comes a lot of lactation consulting. I felt confident in my know how of breast feeding and knew it was the best thing for my baby. So Duh! Well that was the plan. Once you become the patient, knowing and doing are very different things. Turns out breast feeding is a feat of its own!
The first 2 weeks were so painful! I would kick my leg at the ground during the first latch. Luke called it my hillbilly stomp ha! Between the ice packs, lanolin, pumping, and milk increasing supplements, I was tied to the wall. Poor Boone was beyond fussy, never sleeping more than 30 minutes at a time.
Turns out, he was simply hungry. His birth weight dropped significantly and our pediatrician advised me that my milk probably hadn’t totally come in and to get us over the hump we could try formula. I shuddered at the thought! Formula?! No way. But another sleepless night went by, so being frustrated with a low supply, I gave in.
Hello game changer! Our little man has a big appetite and just needed his tummy more full. His weight popped back up and we all got more rest. I am able to alternate each feed between breast and bottle. Being able to snuggle and play with my baby was more important to me than tying myself to a pump. Of course nothing replaces the antibodies in breast milk, but formula has been advanced greatly to provided them with tons of vitamins. All that to say, do what works for you and baby. Stress less and cuddle more. You can’t give them too much love and attention during this time. It doesn’t make you a bad mom if breast feeding doesn’t work out for you! That’s something I had to accept and get through my head.
The first 2 weeks were so painful! I would kick my leg at the ground during the first latch. Luke called it my hillbilly stomp ha! Between the ice packs, lanolin, pumping, and milk increasing supplements, I was tied to the wall. Poor Boone was beyond fussy, never sleeping more than 30 minutes at a time.
Turns out, he was simply hungry. His birth weight dropped significantly and our pediatrician advised me that my milk probably hadn’t totally come in and to get us over the hump we could try formula. I shuddered at the thought! Formula?! No way. But another sleepless night went by, so being frustrated with a low supply, I gave in.
Hello game changer! Our little man has a big appetite and just needed his tummy more full. His weight popped back up and we all got more rest. I am able to alternate each feed between breast and bottle. Being able to snuggle and play with my baby was more important to me than tying myself to a pump. Of course nothing replaces the antibodies in breast milk, but formula has been advanced greatly to provided them with tons of vitamins. All that to say, do what works for you and baby. Stress less and cuddle more. You can’t give them too much love and attention during this time. It doesn’t make you a bad mom if breast feeding doesn’t work out for you! That’s something I had to accept and get through my head.
Here are a couple things I did to increase my supply:
1) Drink water! I mean like til it feels like you are drowning.
2) Supplements - lactation cookies, let there be milk!
As far as formula goes we had the best luck with Gerber and Enfamil for their consistency.
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