knockers for nutrition

As anyone who reads this blog knows, I had a baby a little over a month ago.

What you might not know is that I'm also breastfeeding and have a little to say about it! Before Asher was born I had lots of ideas {and fears} about what breastfeeding would be like. It's both what I expected and tremendously different than what I expected at the same time. While I was pregnant, I really appreciated other moms who wrote about their experiences on blogs, so I want to do the same.

It all started in the hospital.

Before the birth, I took a breastfeeding information class. In that class they recommended that babies remain on their mother's chest and start nursing within an hour of being born. This was my goal! I talked to my doctor about it and she agreed to play it this way with me, even though it wasn't how they normally did things.

Then reality intervened.

Asher got stuck on my pubic bone and I ended up pushing for 3 hours after being up all night in labor. When he finally emerged he was having some trouble breathing, so they wisked him right over to the warmer. To be honest, after going through the whole birth process I was pretty out of it and didn't even think twice about my birth plan. I was way more concerned with him being ok than anything else.

Once he was given the all-clear we had some limited bonding time, but then we got transferred to recovery and, well, things got busy. It was definitely over an hour before I first got to nurse him, but you know what...things are ok! Missing that initial time didn't hurt his ability to breastfeed AT ALL.

I do have some advice for new moms who are trying to learn how to breastfeed in the hospital.

1) make sure your bed is very upright. The more you can make it "like a chair" the better. It's hard to position a newborn when you're leaning back at all.

2) also make sure you have plenty of pillows or blankets to prop the baby up. Trying to lean over your baby will just make your back sore.

3) definitely ask to see the lactation consultant! They are super flattered to be summoned and have lots of great advice!!

Things started out well in the hospital for us. Asher seemed to be getting the hang of things and we were all set to keep breastfeeding at home.

Unfortunately, the timing worked out such that our arrival home {away from the nurses and lactation consultants} coincided perfectly with the arrival of my milk! This sounds like a good thing. Well, it is and it isn't.

Not having milk can be a big problem - just not my problem. I was extremely engorged and sore. It was like having really huge implants. Poor Ash couldn't get latched on properly and when he did was, well, overwhelmed, with so much milk that he started choking.

We struggled for awhile and he got hungrier and hungrier. Even been around a hungry newborn? It's not fun.

In fact, it's torture. Here was my brand new baby who was starving and I couldn't figure out how to feed him. All of the books say to avoid bottles for the first few weeks, so I was afraid to go that route.

What I ended up doing was calling the lactation consultant who promptly told me to forget the books, pump some milk and give him a bottle. Praise God! That worked perfectly and Asher was thrilled.

I still have some engorgement at certain times of day, but for the most part things have regulated and we don't have any lingering latch problems.

I've also continued pumping once a day {for 10 minutes only} to have milk in the freezer and give Asher 1 bottle a day. He is amazing at going back and forth from breast to bottle. Yay! It's great to know that I can go out and leave Drew with a bottle.

One of my big fears while I was pregnant was that breastfeeding would be painful. Let me say plainly that it's not! There was a little tenderness at first, but Lanolin is awesome and the girls have been happy ever since the first week was over!

Overall I'm so glad that I started down this path. Being able to provide all of the food my baby needs is amazing. Plus, since it takes 500+ calories a day to make milk it's like having a baby liposuction machine on me 8 times a day. Goodbye baby weight!

This turned into a really long post {and took me 2 days in 10 minute increments to write...hello newborn} but if anyone has any questions send them along! Breastfeeding is extremely demanding, but also hugely rewarding. My goal is to last a year...stay tuned. :o)