My Breastfeeding Journey – Part 1

With Child #1, I was sold on the demand feeding theory. This was what I was told – feed the baby everytime he cries. So that was what I did.

#1 was a wonderfully placid baby at birth – maybe due to the pethedine shot I had. He would only wake up to nurse at 3 to 4hr intervals! I was dellighted since that meant I could sleep! And boy! Did I need to sleep after that l-o-n-g drawn out labour I had due to the doctor accelerating my labour by breaking my waters & putting me on a drip. See Birth Story #1.

Child #1 ended up with extremely high jaundice! He had to be hospitalised for 2 days & I was a mess! I was in shock – from having to nurse & care for him singlehandedly for the 1st 5 days of his life to suddenly being forced to leave him behind in the hospital all alone! And he had to sleep in a plastic bassinet without any clothes on! Just his diapers & a blindfold to protect his eyes from the UV lights.

Oh how I cried & cried! And to top it off, I had to stop nursing him for at least 1 day. In order to keep up my milk supply, I had to diligently pump every 3hrs, even through the night. The doctor was most kind though. He instructed the nurse to feed the baby with a cup spoon & not with the teat to prevent any possibility of nipple confusion. And I thank God that the baby returned to the breast with no hesitation.

I later found out that the best way to prevent such a high onset of jaundice was to nurse the baby at every 2hrs & not only when the baby cried for milk! A newborn baby is extremely sleepy, especially if the mother has had medication during labour. To wait for the baby to cry for milk was just not a wise decision at all!

Also, there was a vicious cycle being set in place – sleepy babies nurse less often. Less intake of breastmilk causes the bilirubin to buildup. With the build up, baby gets more jaundiced. The more jaundiced a baby, the sleepier the baby gets…………

So for the next 4 babies, I made sure I woke the baby up every 2hrs during the day & nursed them. I didn’t have to put any of them through the trauma of being hospitalised again! Yes, they all still had jaundice but never high enough to warrant a hospital stay or any other treatment.

As an aside, jaundice is very common in Asian babies. And I have been told that while breastfeeding seemed to increase the likelhood of jaundice, we are seeing it through a wrong mindset. Meaning – since breastfeeding is God’s way of feeding babies & breastfed babies tend to develop jaundice, then maybe jaundice is normal. But because so many babies are put on formula from birth & formula fed babies tend to have lower or no jaundice, doctors often panic when they see jaundice in breastfed babies & tend to be very aggressive in “treating” it.

After the jaundice drama, we went on to have more drama with #1! I have often said that if I weren’t that determined to breastfeed, I would have given up! This baby loved to suckle but didn’t want the milk that comes with nursing at the breast! So he would happily latch on & nurse & then as soon as the letdown occured, he would scream blue murder!

At 1st, I couldn’t figure out why he was crying when I had this copious amount of milk spurting out. Then I realised what his issue was. Out of desperation, I offered him the pacifer! He took it for 1 night & then the next night, he spat it out & would wail till I nursed him & then wail again as the milk flowed. It didn’t help that I had an overactive letdown (OAL). It was a nightmare!

I remember crying – from sleep deprivation & from being helpless. Dh was sweet, he never even offered the option of putting him on formula. All he said was – why not express & cup feed him so that you can get some rest. Well, we tried & that failed too!

So in desperation, I would pray at every feeding. Prayed that he would be able to cope with the OAL, pray that he would be able to go to sleep after each nursing session, pray that my body will quickly adjust to his needs & so on.

And God came to the rescue – of course! Both mother & child adjusted to each other & we continued to breastfeed till he turned 1yr old. We switched however to a more scheduled feeding pattern than a demand feeding pattern at about 3months.

To have discovered it was heaven sent! I no longer had to guess why he was crying & whether he needed to be fed or not. Being a 1st time mother, a schedule brought sanity into my life!

I weaned him at about 13mths. At that point in time, I didn’t know anyone who had nursed successfully & I thought that nursing till he was 1 was an achievement for both of us. And weaning him was a piece of cake. I just replaced 1 feed with a milk feed & within 2 weeks he was weaned with no fuss.

to be continued…