Nursing was not what I had expected, in some ways much easier than I expected and in other ways much more challenging than I had anticipated.
I am writing this post to hopefully help encourage any breastfeeding moms out there, it was always so helpful to me to have other nursing moms to encourage me and talk me through the difficult times.
After Harper was born, I had my immediate bonding time with her and I tried nursing her at that point but she was pretty uninterested at first. Harper had jaundice and that made her very sleepy. The nurses told me to expect her to cluster feed and want to nurse every hour or two the first night...that did not happen, she was tired and just wanted to sleep. We had the lactation consultant come in and I pumped for a while trying to get some milk to come in. At this point Harper was trying to latch but was having a difficult time and oh my goodness it hurt so badly!! The nurse kept saying that it shouldn't hurt if she was doing it right. I tried to suck it up and continue but after a couple of hours of trying and her latch wasn't getting any better, the consultant suggested trying the nipple shield. This thing was AMAZING and I have no doubt that without it I wouldn't have been able to nurse for very long.
By the time we left the hospital Harper was still pretty sleepy from the jaundice but the best way to correct her levels was to feed her as much as I could and to flush out her system.
My milk took 5 days to come in, I think since I was induced it took longer since my body wasn't quite ready yet. I had to supplement with formula for those first few days until my milk came in because of her jaundice. Once my milk did come in I fell into a steady routine of nursing and pumping to build up my supply those first few weeks.
I got Harper on a schedule of nursing every three hours. As soon as her jaundice cleared I was able to go four hours at night which was so much better than the every two hours I had been having to do.
Using the shield, Harper's latch was great and I was so happy to be able to nurse her pain free. I still had questions though about nursing, which side I should start on, when to switch her to the other side and so on. I attended a lactation class when Harper was two weeks old and when I asked them about switching breasts during a nursing they told me not to move her until she came off on her own. Well my hungry little one never wanted to stop. She would nurse on one side for 35-45 mins and then be done. So I began to nurse her on one side per feeding, every 3 hours. This seemed to work great until Harper was around 2 months old and I noticed that my milk supply was totally going down. Harper would start screaming during nursing and get so frustrated that it wasn't coming out fast enough. I spoke to some friends and other lactation consultants who told me that since I had only been feeding her on one side per feeding it made my body think it needed to produce less since it was really 6 hours until the same side was used again. Harper was growing and wanting to eat more she wasn't satisfied.
I was so frustrated and spent about a week and a half pumping before and after each nursing, drinking tuns of water and trying to build my supply back up, all the while thinking it would maybe be easier at this point to just do formula. I had so much help and encouragement though and I was able to bring my supply up again. I was so relieved! From that point on I used a nursing app on my phone that would keep track of which side I last fed on, and each nursing I would pull her off after 15 mins and switch her to the other side. We kept up this great routine and around 3 months old I stopped using the nipple shield. I didn't even have to ween her from it, I just tried taking it off one day and it took her a few mins to latch and that was that!
We continued with our nursing of every 3 hours until Harper was around 5.5 months old, that is when we started her on avocado and I moved to every 4 hours. (except at night, she stopped nursing at night at a month and a half).
At 10 months old Harper got Roseola and dropped a nursing since she wasn't feeling well. Once she was better I tried to see if she wanted that nursing back in the day and she wasn't interested. She dropped another feeding a few weeks later. At this point I was down to only 3 nursings a day. She continued to ween down and by her first birthday she was nursing only in the morning. I planned to go another few months or so but a week after her birthday she got sick and did not want to nurse anymore. It was sad because I didn't know that her last nursing was going to be her last. My baby was growing up though and just wasn't interested anymore. As much as I do miss that closeness and bonding sometimes it is nice to be done and to be able to do things and go places without having to plan it around feedings. I am so glad that I nursed her a little over a year and definitely plan to do the same with my future kids.
Thanks for reading and please comment for any questions. Hope this can encourage and help any other breastfeeding moms out there!
