My sleepy spunky boy
I dressed him up today as his Nana was coming over - I think he looks sooooo spunky in his outfit and I cannot wait for his Daddy to come home to see what he thinks of his little man.
Thank you so much for your breastfeeding suggestions - they all help.
I thought I would document what a normal breastfeed is like for us and then if anyone can think of any things I can do to improve it, then that would be great.
We latch on pretty easily and he will suck for about 5 minutes quite effectively, and then i will encourage* him for another 5 mins or so until he pulls off himself. Then we switch sides and do the same thing on the other side. Once he has pulled off that, we switch sides again and try some more. I keep doing this for up to an hour until he pulls off and just won't latch onto the boob again.
I then try to settle him, cuddle him etc and see if that has satisfied him enough. But 9 times out of 10 it doesn't and he searches with his mouth and has that little "uh uh uh uh uh" sound he does which means he is still hungry. If he is really hungry he starts adding "hungee" to his cry as well.
So after about 5 mins of him either crying, searching, or, worst case - going red in the face in frustration, I give in and get him a bottle.
Today he has wanted less bottle than before - he has done one at 120mls but all others have been about 60 mls so maybe he is getting more of the breastmilk than before.
I have been pumping after each feed and so far after all the pumping efforts put together I have retrieved a total of 22 mls today - pretty crap really! but still it is the stimulation I am after to try to build it up - I am on a mission now to achieve it, so we will see how we go.
I think that is all - So - what do you think?
* encourage him by touching his face, playing with his feet, undressing him a little and tickling his tummy etc - anything which encourages him to stop flutter sucking and really suck effectively.
Labels: Alex, breastfeeding
posted by Bugsy @ 9:21:00 pm
7 comments
7 Comments:
Wow. He looks so much bigger. He is a spunky little boy.
Hi mate,
if Jesse is playing around after 30 mins, I give him a dummy, that will sooth him till he goes to
sleep. I find if I give him too much he will bring it up. Sometime they just want to suck something.
I have to just judge what is enough of a feed, I am getting 3-4 hours of sleep with the way I am doing things, too scared to give him more
as I don't want him to bring it all up. Jesse put on 700grams in 2 weeks, so I guess things are going ok. Andrea
Drinking fenegreek tea can really help. You just pour boiling water over 1 tsp of fenegreek seeds. Once you've drunk it you can just add more boiling water to the same seeds. It is an acquired taste but you get used to it. Or they come as tablets if you really don't like it.
Hi Bugs,
I think you are doing really well on the BF front! By the sounds of it Alex is not getting his milk from your breats fast enough (slow let down) hence the sucking, stopping, sucking etc. How long did it take you to pump the 22mls out of interst? Do you drink lots of water? Just another tip that may boost supply. At the end of the day you can give it your best shot, but please don't beat youself up if at the end of all this Alex goes fully onto the bottle. But you are 110% doing everything correct, and that is all anyone can ask for.
He's sooo cute in that pic ;-)
cheers,
leoni
Woohoo, giving breastfeeding advice to Bugsy! *does a little happy dance*
You may remember I had all sorts of supply issues when Spudly was this age. Two thing scome immediately to mind:
1. is he putting on enough weight each week? This should really be your main guide to whether there are supply issues.
2. To increase supply on top of pumping you can try Fenugreek tablets 1000mg a day or Maxilon tablets (prescription only, and these made me sooooo tired) or Domperidone tablets (prescription only, and these worked the best for me).
I found that I could pump quite a bit at the beginning of the day (50-100ml after a feed) but by afternoon it was down to 10ml after a feed if I was lucky. Being tired and stressed makes the supply lower as well as reducing the fat content of the milk, so the baby is hungrier. There's not a lot you can do about that though...try being rested and relaxed with a new baby!
I'm happy to go into my experience of breastfeeding, pumping and comp feeding with you via email if you like.
Bugsy - One thing to remember with supply issues is that you don't want to press the point too much because they can really start breast-refusing if they get frustrated too consistently. I find I actually have more success if I give J his top up first, so he's not so urgently wanting it.
Have you been to see an LC? They do test weighs so you can see how much he's actually taking in. The people at the Mercy are good - Kellie Rose in particular.
Also, what kind of bottle are you using? Some are better than others at stopping nipple confusion. Have you thought about an SNS?
The thing you have to remember is that if there are hormonal reasons for low supply (like pcos) then all the stimulation in the world is not going to bring things beyond a certain point. You need to be thinking about what you can do for the endocrine system - dom, herbs etc.
Sorry to be so bossy, Bugsy. I've just been given such shithouse irrelevant advice over the last few months, and I don't want to see you go through that. Not everyone responds to the normal "rules" of breastfeeding such as supply and demand. Does that make sense?
Meg xxx
Email me if you need any help.
I just wanted to add... Goat's Rue might help... apparently it's got some of the same compounds as metformin, and some women in one of my listservs with pcos have found it helpful. It increases my suppy by about 25%. A company called Motherlove based in US makes a tincture of it. http://www.motherlove.com/product_goats_rue.php
email me if you want the number of the mercy. It's covered by medicare. journeytothecentre@hotmail.com
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