albeit a bit tired.
My faithful readers may recall that the fusspot got off to a particularly bad start with breastfeeding (with lots of related maternal guilt). The brief summary is that I probably never had gestational diabetes but was just insulin resistant while pregnant, and by super-zealously following the GD diet I inadvertently starved my baby. You could see all of her ribs when she was born. And as a result she was too sleepy/low calorie to latch on and we had 3 weeks of torture where she kept losing weight. Don't worry, the story has a happy ending and she is now a roly-poly perfectly health breastfed-on-demand baby.
But the point is that I spent a lot of time with my lactation consultant (and OT for the baby, pediatrician visits every 72 hours for weeks on end ...)
And tonight I got to use all of my skills. The LC here in Lalaland who visited my friend today (at my suggestion) not only made her more nervous (told her things like 'she was very concerned'), was also a bit culturally insensitive (they are really into scheduling things here, very authoritative with patients), and basically offered her a nipple shield and got the baby to eat once but left before a second feed (my LC always stayed for the second feed to watch me implement whatever I'd learned).
Which is to say that my friend was panicked, tired, and that at 4-days-old the baby had never latched onto the breast. And I got her to do it! I used every trick I could think of on one side (swaddle baby, have mom pump off 1/2 oz. so the baby doesn't have to get letdown, dribble the warm pumped 1/2 oz. down the breast while the baby tries to latch on) and THEN after a contented-tummy-full nap the baby just latched onto the other side (no swaddle, no pumping, no dribbling milk). My friend was SO proud, and I am too.
And now it's 3 am and I've promised to go back in the morning enroute to work to see how things are going. Oh yeah, and I did all of that while keeping my beautiful fusspot happy and distracted despite the fact that it was the middle of the night.
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8 comments:
You ARE superwoman! Way to go! :-D
Lucky new mom to have you for a friend!
I also had major BFing issues with Emery in the beginning so I understand the need for support and instruction when babies just don't go to town on the boob right out of the gate. It is so important to have good support for that latch to happen and to make that mom have confidence in her ability to feed her baby.
From one breastfeeding mama to another, I'm so glad you did that for her!
I always say a girl needs at least 2 lactation consultants! I've consulted 4 during the first week.
Way to go!
Woo-hoo! You are an awesome friend. And perhaps found yourself a plan b! ;)
Dude. You ARE a super-woman! Any plans to be in west-central NC round about June? I am bound and determined to do whatever I can to BF these babies, and since this will likely end up a c-birth, I will need all the help I can get! If the whole academic thing doesn't work out, I see a second career in your future...
And you'll be arriving at my doorstep around St. Patrick's Day to assist me with my attempts to nurse, correct?!
Bring fusspot along, and she and Lil Pumpkin can have a ball together!
I am relying on my girlfriends for better advice and support than a lactation consultant. One (who will be Urban Myth's godmother) nursed all 3 of her kids, and said all 3 were different, which I think will also help matters.
Awesome! Is this perhaps a new calling?
I'm late commenting on this one, but WOW! Good for you! : )
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