Wow, this was a total shock to my system. I am the first of my family and my friends to have a baby. I have tons of co-workers who have kids, but I work about an hour away from my home, so I don’t get to socialize much with these gals. I was fully unprepared for the lack of sleep! Yikes, that is rough!
We saw our pediatrician on day 3, and it looked like Ben had gained about an ounce from the night before in the hospital. We assumed breastfeeding was going well. The Doc said we should come back in two weeks, since I was a NICU nurse, we would be fine. Well, the next two weeks were pretty awful! He was so fussy and would eat for hours on end it seemed like. It was hard to have visitors over because we were still working on breastfeeding and it would take 45minutes and he would want to eat again an hour later. I went to see the lactation nurse at work because he preferred the right side to the left and I was worried about my supply. I used a hand pump on the left to make sure it got some stimulation and emptying. At the lactation visit, we didn’t do a pre/post weight, and she said she thought he looked good. We weighed him naked and he was only 7#1oz, at 12 days old. Hmm… that’s only two ounces up from 9 days ago… that’s weird I thought. She gave me the nipple shield to try and get him to latch better on the left because that side didn’t protrude as much as the right. I tried the shield over the weekend and he was not eating well at all. We went to see the Dr again on Monday, day of like #15. Before the visit, I got out the bottles I had packed away for when he was 6 weeks old and we would start to introduce that after establishing good breastfeeding…. ha! He had other plans.
At the Dr appt for two weeks, he was down to 6#15oz again. Wah-wah, begin the tears. I felt like a total failure. How could I not know that he wasn’t eating enough, how horrible was I for starving my child. It was weird because he was still stooling a couple times a day and having wet diapers, fontanel was not sunken, his mouth was moist. What other signs could I have looked for besides weight? My confidence was totally shaken. We made a plan to do every 2 hour feedings and pump and offer a bottle after each one. We went back to two days later and he had gained 4 ounces! Yay! Except, the two hour feeding schedule was killing me. My husband had gone back to work at that point, so it was just me and the baby, non-stop feeding, all. day. long. I cried a lot that week. Thankfully he was gaining weight, but he really wasn’t up for breastfeeding. He would barely get to sleep and then it was time to start the whole process over again. I wasn’t getting to snuggle him to sleep and take naps like I had imagined I would. I sometimes pumped and bottle fed him at the same time to save time, so I barely held him while he ate. I felt so disconnected from him.
As a NICU nurse, I expected the first few weeks to be different. Like I said, I was totally unprepared for the lack of sleep. It’s not just little sleep, it’s broken sleep. An hour here, two hours there, not conducive to good rest. I was trying not to pretend that I knew what I was doing, but through my work I had a certain level of familiarity with the basics- diaper change, bathing, feeding (although, not breastfeeding!), general well-being etc. Let me tell you, this was a whole different ball game than being at work! With the whole no weight gain/not feeding well thing, all my confidence was gone. Suddenly I was questioning everything and second guessing my every move. I was bogged down in the monotony of feedings, and was totally obsessed with him getting enough and the quality of his poops etc.
We continued the 2 hour feeds for one week. A week later, he had gained 15oz! Yay! The Dr said he probably had enough stamina now to get back to mostly breastfeeding. She said to use my judgement on if he was satisfied or not and slowly cut back the bottles. We did a pre-post weight with a feeding. It was a mediocre feeding as he was still really sleepy. It said he took 1.5oz. I was surprised by that, and I still think the nurse didn’t do the pre-weight correctly. Oh well, he’s getting something, I thought. I was in touch with a lactation nurse from work via phone still. I decided that the shield wasn’t working, so I stopped using that. I still felt he wasn’t really getting latched right. So I went into work for another lactation consult. We did a weight this time and it said he took almost four ounces on one side! I was shocked by this since I’ve never pumped more than two ounces on that side before! I again questioned whether or not she did the pre-weight right. He then proceeded to take only half an ounce from the side that just drips milk when I look at him. I still felt he wasn’t getting enough, so I made an appointment with the lactation nurse at the hospital where I delivered. This time, the weight was correct, he had a decent feeding, and it said he only got an ounce. Now, I finally felt validated. She thought he just couldn’t get a deep enough latch, so she gave me some positioning tips (asymmetrical latch, snug him in tight) and said to come back in a few days. A few days later we came back and did a naked weight. We had cut out most of the bottles that week and he was barely above the weight a week before. Ugh! When is this going to end, I thought! This lactation nurse thought I should use the shield again. She gave me a smaller one and he actually used it! His face was covered in milk and he sucked so vigorously. Finally, I thought!
We went to the doctor again, he was 3 weeks old at this point. As we had suspected the day before at the lactation visit, he wasn’t gaining weight without the bottles. AKA, he wasn’t breastfeeding well. The Dr said we should just keep working on it and asked if we wanted to see the lactation nurse in the office. At least she was supportive of breastfeeding. I saw the lactation nurse from work again, actually she was kind enough to drive to my home on the weekend. She wanted me to use the larger nipple shield to get him used to opening his mouth wider. He really didn’t care for that. So she referred me to a breastfeeding clinic through the local Children’s Hospital. More on the breastfeeding struggles later…
When Ben turned 1 month and I reflected on the last four weeks, I was feeling cheated. I felt cheated out of the snuggles and the bonding. I spent the first month obsessing about feedings and weight gain, and becoming intimate with that little yellow pump! I felt like my son hated me because I couldn’t give him what he needed! I felt totally alone as none of my friends could identify with me, and my husband didn’t know how to help me. I don’t think I was quite depressed, I just felt stuck. It was not enjoyable at all. It was so much more work than I imagined. At this point, if someone had told me what it was going to be like, I would have thought twice about having a baby.
We got out of the house a fair amount in the first month. We walked every day. We attended several social gatherings, going over to friends houses for dinner etc. I got a little tired of the visitors because breastfeeding was such a frustrating and long process that it was hard to plan visits around his feeding time.
But somehow things get better, and you don’t really realize it until you sit back and reflect. More on that later.
