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Well, Cooper was an induced, medicated, hospital birth and we completely failed at BF'ing after 2 weeks. My mother (a midwife) was our saboteur who gave him his first bottle at 2 days old claiming he looked jaundiced and my milk wasn't in. After the second week of her getting up to him during the night with a bottle (her room she was staying in was next to his - ours was the other side of the house so she'd hear him, turn off his monitor and get a bottle) we finally threw in the towel.
Second baby and I was determined to do it. I still to this day hold very bitter feelings for not being stronger with Coops, but you learn.
We had Cary in a birth centre, skin to skin immediately, let her "breast crawl" at her pace, then latch and stay put til she was ready to drop off (1.5 hrs - little piggy).
At home DH moved into the spare room for the first 4 weeks so that I could co-sleep in peace and offer boob whenever Cary wanted it. This helped to establish our supply. That first month we used no dummies etc - it was all me.
Coops got "toy chests" to unpack whenever I needed to feed bubs, so that kept him amused and I am not sorry to say ABC Kids was an AWESOME babysitter LOL
Then we introduced a dummy at around 3 months to let her use it for comfort sucking - took a while to get her to take it - and once a sippy was introduced I found she was wanting more structured breastfeeds.
Nowadays she feeds twice per day, once at nap time and once at bed, although some days she'll ask for more.
So my advice is:
1) Never doubt yourself. You have the ability to feed your baby so don't let formula etc into the house if that's what you believe (and choose)
2) Never feel guilt. If you try and for some reason you can't or don't want to feed - then praise yourself for what you've done and move on happily (this is something I still work on til today xx)
3) Let baby take the lead and if something *seems* out of place, don't beat yourself up, get advice and move on. Let bub latch as much or as little as they like in the first weeks - you're both learning and you perfect this with practice
LASTLY
4) Just when you think you've found your groove, bub will switch things on you. Don't stress if previous 40 minute feeds become 10 minute feeds. Watch bub closely and take their lead. Overall if there are lots of wet and dirty nappies - then all is fine and if you are offering often enough then bub will take what's needed. Don't get hung up on mins feeding etc - and bugger off the charts. Trust your mummy gut
Enjoy my love!!
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I was determined to BF and thought that any problem could be overcome. Hmmm :)
DD1 - tried for five days in the hospital. Huge problems attaching. Sometimes the midwife tried for 1.5 hours with barely any success. Lost a lot of weight. Hospital threatened not to discharge me unless I gave her bottles. Sent me home with instructions to try attaching, then express, then feed her the expressed milk. That took an hour and a half every feed. Tried attaching for a week at home. Still no luck. Crucified myself. Had no support (DH had gone back to work) and I could barely walk from pelvic instability. Something had to give. So went to expressing. Did that for 8 weeks. Tried to attach again at the seven week mark. Seemed very easy but I fell for the line that once they have bottles there's no going back so didn't try to resume BFing.
DD2 - Put my first experience with DD1 down to lack of experience and was once again determined to make it work. Exactly the same scenario. Couldn't attach, despite all the efforts of midwives. DD2 lost weight. Sent home with the same instructions. Saw an LC who just told me to "keep trying". Tried to attach eight times per day for three weeks. Still no luck. Crucified myself AGAIN which was ruining my enjoyment of being a mum. Doing the "trying to attach, express and feeding the expressed milk" was even harder second time around because I had DD1 to look after too. Stopped all efforts and went totally to bottle. Something in me made me try to attach again around the seven week mark (same as with DD1). Easy peasy. Did some research on the web. Figured out I just have REALLY large nipples and my babies just need to get bigger before it actually works. However, by that stage I had no milk. Decided to relactate. Expressed every hour for two weeks, took Motilium for supply and fed DD2 through a supply line. Got some supply back but not enough to totally BF but did that until DD2 was about six months old.
So my advice is that it's never too late.
