em - how have you found feeding during PG? i weaned my DS before i fell PG so i never experienced it.
jennifer - hope the mastitis is on its way out & you're feeling much better.
i was a bit shocked the other day - had my 2nd m/w visit at home & she asked how the feeding was going & i said i was feeding on demand & wasn't really watching the time but i guessed it worked out to every 2 hours. she was half shocked & said that if i wanted to, i could stretch the feeds out to 3 hourly. i was a bit dumbfounded tbh - we're talking about a baby who was 5 days old at the time...stretch out feeds? when she's trying to establish supply & is so tiny that (to me) stretching her out would just be cruel. weird & not great advice i thought.
How odd? I got asked if I was demand feeding or schedule feeding at about 10 days with DS, I blinked a bit and asked if people actually did that with such young babies? My CHN shook her head, said "I don't get it either, sounds like you've got things under control then?" didn't ask how often he was feeding at all, just that he was having plenty of wet nappies and we'd already seen he was putting plenty of weight on. Made me laugh because she had his nappy off and he peed on her.
Had a bollocks of a day yesterday - started off okay but in the afternoon Monkey just didn't want to sleep. Spent ages trying to settle him only to have him wake up barely half an hour later. And feeding constantly, together with newly acquired bad booby manners in the form of scrunching, pinching, scrunching and pulling my nipple away while still attached (ouch!) saw me chuck a hissy fit, throw him at DH and tell him to go for a drive while I had an hour's peace. And then proceed to cry myself to sleep
Later I realised that not only had I not eaten properly that day so was exhausted and running on empty from all the feeding, DS has just hit a wonder week. Joy oh joy oh joy.....
thankfully you know better, hey Sloane There are certainly very good reasons to allow baby to feed as often as they wish in the early weeks - unless they don't feed often enough!
I agree with everyone Sloane! My MCHN asked at the 4 week visit how often she was feeding and I said "I dunno, whenever she wants it", then I thought and said "probably only 5 times a day". MCHN had guessed a frequent feeder given how big she was, I think had DD not been putting on weight she would have told me to increase feeds but instead she said "well, I'm not going to tell you what to do, it's obviously working". It's nice when they trust you.
Sloane: very uncomfortable at times as nipples are quite sensitive so sometimes it hurts and other times feels horrible you know that I wanna chuck baby against the wall feeling (no I wouldn't chuck her lol) but at other times it's ok as long as I feed her when I'm feeling ok about it too. She has not seemed fussed at all either by the change from BM to colostrum she'd feed every ten minutes if I let her!
It annoyed me because i was thinking how damaging that advice could for someone who didnt know better and then wondered why they had a fussy baby/a baby not putting on weight/suppised supply problems. At least she had the decency to say if i was happy then it wasnt a problem
Cranky kitten - sounds like you had a tough day. Sometimes it's hard to remember that we need to take really good care of ourselves as well as everyone else. I hope the wonder week passes quickly for you.
ETA - i missed your post em! that doesn't sound too bad - at least at 15 months your DD would be able to be distracted etc if you really didn't feel up to it/it was too painful.
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Last edited by sloane; April 7th, 2012 at 04:47 PM.
He's a few days shy of 5 months. Won't be too long and we'll be starting solids I think. Having a better day, it's surprising how much of an effect not eating well has on my energy levels. Had a massage today too, while DH had Monkeyboy in the carrier
I'm looking forward to joining in properly in here again sometime in the next few weeks after my 8 month break from bfing. Although I'm not looking forward to the ouchy beginning again until things settle down.
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I was hormone central at first too... I think until 5 or 6 weeks actually as I'm only now not wanting to burst into tears at random moments and starting to feel more relaxed like 'This feels pretty good, I can do this.' it has also taken my nipples the best part of five weeks to heal properly though they are still a little tender. I used to find I was stupidly emotional between about 4pm and 9pm every day for some reason.
Ok DD is driving me crazy with the half heartedly sucking, pulling off, getting upset at being off then nearly killing my nipple by trying to get back on by taking the edge of the nipple tightly between her gums and sort of sucking it back into her mouth. It really hurts! Especially on the right nipple as one especially hard suck/bight hinders its inner healing from a bad latch at birth. Why would she do this? She's started randomly doing it during day feeds and sometimes at her last feed before bed. I think it's because she's not hungry or maybe is too lazy or tired to suck properly and get the milk flowing? But she acts like she's still hungry but then won't actually drink properly.
She's probably jsut trying something new I'd take her off if she does it. And if she persists, maybe put her down for a moment. They soon get the message.
Sounds like experimenting - MadB's got good advice, it worked for when Alex took to biting down on my nipple at the end of a feed.
Monkeyboy has been a little limpet today, after a bit of a quiet day yesterday where he didn't feed much until after bedtime. We were at the zoo and there was too much to look at I guess, too busy playing with his Nanna and looking at everything to concentrate on feeding properly. Oh well, he made up for it getting up 4 or 5 times overnight and then feeding every 2 hours or so today as well.
I think you're all right. I was originally thinking oh no, she's finished all my milk and she's still hungry!! But when I hand expressed there was still milk there. If she had drained one breast and did it, I'd move her to the next one thinking she was still hungry but she did the same thing so I'm guessing you are right and she's just not hungry but likes to hang out on my boob. And though she cries when I take her off (this is why I thought she was still hungry) most often the tears disappear within a few minutes UNLESS she is already tired in which case she keeps on crying until she suddenly falls asleep. She's not a grizzle kind of girl- its sudden screaming or nothing. I like to call her openly expressive
And soon to enter the world of tandem feeding.
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