Friday, February 4, 2011

Breastfeeding Blues

I'm having issues with breastfeeding and I blame it on the hospital. About 2 hours after C was born they brought him to me and I breastfed. He latched on and did very well. I did both breasts but only for a few minutes each. I had no idea how long I was supposed to feed him. The NICU nurse was like, "boys will suck you dry if you let them". I just think she was in a hurry to get him back to NICU because it was shift change. The lactation nurse later told me they should have let him eat as long as he wanted and this is probobly why his blood sugars dipped way low a few hours later. Due to his blood sugars being low we had to formula feed him for 24 hours. He got used to a bottle nipple and had a hard time wanting my nipple after that. The lactation nurse gave me a nipple shield to use. It is a silicone thingy that goes over my nipple but has a hard nipple thing that is similar to a bottle. So it makes my nipple into a bottle nipple. Using this allows C to get my milk straight from my breast. The down fall is that he won't eat breastmilk without this shield. It also causes him to suck in a lot of air and he gets miserable a few times a day and cries and cries. It breaks my heart. I decided to pump my milk since essentially he isn't eating from my nipple anyway and it is tiresome at night. I had a hand pump to express my milk but it took so long to get 2 oz of milk out. He eats every 1-4 hours so it is hard to pump because he is always eating. Pumping with the hand pump just takes to long. I usually only can pump one bottle a day. Today I got a top of the line $250(on sale) electric double breast pump and was SO disappointed. It gave me 2 oz in 15 minutes of pumping and THAT WAS IT. How am I ever going to catch up so that he is only eating pumped bottles? I was literally in tears because it is so frustrating. P felt so bad for me. I want C to have breast milk so bad and I feel like I just want to give up. I think I was crying because I feel like I am failing C if he has to drink formula. There is nothing wrong with formula; I mean nobody I know was breastfed. It's just that it is so much better for him and I want to do the best that I can possibly do for my son. He deserves only the best. I hope it gets better.

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