There's a recent trend to push mothers to breastfeed. Of course it is the best food for a newborn, tailor-made to an individual baby's needs, chock full of antibodies and fats and goodies vital for a newborn's health and survival. Breastfeeding provides the perfect food in the perfect amount at the perfect temperature in the perfect delivery system. It provides quiet bonding with your angelic newborn who suckles peacefully at the breast. Just look at all the paintings of Madonna and Child and the living image of Charity and Generosity a la the Milk of Human Kindness. Get it?
Kaiser Willhelm is displeased with his teddy bear suit However, no lactation consultant or breast feeding educator tells a new mom how freaking hard it can be. Add the emotional and social pressure of How Good Breastfeeding Is For Baby and it becomes just that more important to succeed. Our educator, the nurses, the OB and pediatrician all told us that, barring anything physiological, there is no good reason NOT to breastfeed. Oh and there were studies, the educator said, that proved that breastfed babies were smarter, healthier and happier than formula babies.
It has been an exercise in patience and frustration. Will lacked a coordinated suck. He would latch to the breast, shallowly, grind my nipple to blisters and then get frustrated because he was not getting enough milk. Couple the lack of suck (or the suckiness of the lack of milk), with the general exhaustion of being the first time parent of a newborn and it can add up to a very emotional and frustrating experience.
We did meet with a lactation consultant as well as our pediatrician but Will was losing too much weight in too short of an amount of time (he'd lost 13% of his birthweight by the second week, which was worrisome) and had to supplement with formula for a little bit. To ensure Will was getting enough to eat we introduced breastmilk in the bottle. At that point Will discovered it was much easier to get milk from the bottle, and we discovered it was easier and more efficient to bottle feed him. We could tell how much he was eating when he finished a bottle and he seemed happier and slept longer after eating. Now we are pretty much exclusively pumping and bottle feeding. Will still gets the benefits of breast milk and it is just much more efficient to feed him with a bottle at this point. I still try to get him to take the breast, but am always ready with the bottle when he gets frustrated. Breast feeding is slipping away.
At first I was upset with this arrangement. However, three weeks and many lost hours of sleep later we move further into bottle feeding and further away from breast feeding. I worry that my milk supply won't keep up with his increasing need for milk, but I am doing my best. I'm pumping regularly and supplementing with Reglan (a prescription medication I take to increase milk supply), fenugreek (an herbal supplement supposed to help with the same) and pumping approximately every three hours. I am pumping with a Medela Pump In Style double electric breast pump. All of these things are supposed to help increase my milk supply and I suppose time will tell if we need to supplement with formula. Hopefully we can avoid it even though I know formula is fine for babies. There is just something fundamental and vital about being able to provide this basic food for my newborn that I cannot deny.
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