After we brought our little man home, he was having a really hard time eating. He WOULD NOT wake up to eat!! Rylee was the exact same way, and I know newborns are like this, but he literally would not wake up!!! We took him in to the doctor a few days after our hospital stay and he wasn't gaining any weight. So they told me to bring him back in 5 days and we'll weigh him again to see how he was growing. Well, the silly boy still wouldn't wake up to eat, but he would still eat, but only every 4 hours and sometimes going as long as 7 hours at night!!! Not normal, I know. So, when it was time to take him in again we went back and he had actually LOST weight. I started crying. I didn't know what I was doing wrong. My mom gave me a big hug and told me it wasn't my fault and that we would figure all of this out. The nurse asked me to nurse him while we were there so that she could weigh him after his feeding to see how much he was actually getting. I told her that he probably wouldn't eat much because I fed him right before we came over. But I did as I was told. She weighed him after his feeding and he hadn't gained much. She told me that I probably wasn't producing enough milk. I found that odd, considering that I had nursed 2 of my other babies very well and they were all healthy and chubby little bebe's. She gave me some formula and told me to supplement his feedings at night with those and to start pumping so I could let her know how much milk I was actually getting. I rolled my eyes at my mom, because I KNEW it wasn't my milk supply.
Anyway, my mom and left the doctor and made our way over to Nell Hills. Landry slept the ENTIRE time there and the whole time we were shopping (probably a good 4 hours). I went to wake him up to feed him before our 1 1/2 hour drive back home and he WOULD.NOT.WAKE.UP.
My mom and I did everything we could to wake this little man up. We would wake him up and he would start crying for a few seconds and then he would ZONK out again. I decided to use one of the sample of formula the doctor gave to me to see if that would work, and it DID!!! So frustrating. He totally sucked on that bottle and drank the entire thing (while sleeping).
When we got home, I HAD to pump. This was my first time doing so, and I was REALLY nervous about it all. I had heard that it hurts more than nursing. So that REALLY scared me because the first 6 weeks of nursing is a near death experience for me, it is THAT painful. So I was really nervous to start pumping, but I had to. After a good 30 minutes of talking myself into it, I finally started pumping and it wasn't painful AT ALL!!!! YAY!!!! The only sad thing is that I only produced about 3 ounces of milk.
I kept staying consistent with the pumping and was pumping every 3 hours or so, to make sure that Landry had enough to drink at his next feeding. The bottles worked great, because if he didn't wake up to eat, it was alot easier to shove a bottle in his mouth than my boob. =) There were times when I wasn't making enough milk, so for a feeding, he had to have formula. Still no matter what I did, I still wasn't producing enough milk. My sister told me about Fenegreek, an herbal pill, that helps your milk supply. I started taking that and after a week or so, my supply got better, but not enough to keep a nice supply of milk in my freezer. So after 6 weeks of pumping, and with my little man getting bigger and eating more, the milk in the freezer was gone and I finally had to switch completely over to formula. It was hard at first, but I am grateful for formula in situations like these, when there was nothing else for me to do. Landry is slowly growing like a weed and I hope continues to do so! =)
3 comments:
You're a GREAT momma AND Landry is growing like a weed. Can you believe how far he has come?? Thanks for being such a great example of what a momma should be!
This is exactly how it was with Krew too! It's good to know I wasn't the only one with these problems. He was so hard to wake up...even getting him undressed and in the bath kept him asleep! It was a lot easier to shove a bottle in his mouth and make sure he got some milk then trying to nurse a sleeping baby and him not gaining any weight. Now sweet Landry wants to eat anything you give him! That's so nice and I hope it continues this way for him as he gets older. I would give anything to have a child that would love to sit and eat their food! ANYTHING! I love all these pictures of Landry when he was just little little...he is such a sweet baby and hopefully next time I see him he won't be as shy and will want to come to me better even with his momma around :) I guess he's just a momma's boy...and probably because your such a good mommy he wants to always be around you. :)
Oh that was a challenging day! But we sure had fun shopping at Nell Hill!!!
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