challenges

For any mother who attempted breastfeeding this will come as no shock, but I need to put it out there if for nothing else than for the benefit of venting. Breastfeeding is hard y'all.

No matter how much you read, how many classes you attend, or how many people give you advice, you are never prepared. I had heard the horror stories but until it's four in the morning and your precious little baby has been crying and kicking with gas pains for the past three hours and you break down yourself, you just don't know. I didn't know.

Quinn definitely gave me a false sense of ease about breastfeeding at first. He was latching fairly quickly and was on a consistent two hour schedule. He slept soundly between each feeding and we all were happy. Well, this was when he was still getting the colostrum which your body produces late in the pregnancy. Once my milk came in everything changed.

One of the worst nights of nursing after my milk came in was when I had eaten broccoli for dinner. As a result Quinn had awful gas pains that his little body could not push out. We were up all night trying to comfort him. After three hours of being unsuccessful I completely broke down and the hubs took him into the other room. He managed to contort Quinn into what looked like the most uncomfortable position ever, but it must have felt good because he finally fell asleep.

Unfortunately the same thing happened the next day after I ate green bell peppers. It became quickly obviously that I needed to adjust my diet. I started eating bananas, oatmeal, saltines, apple sauce, basically all the foods you would eat if you were sick.

The next challenge came in the form of getting him to latch on. I couldn't understand what happened. It was as if he suddenly forgot what to do. He would be crying, pushing away from me, and shaking his head back and forth as I tried over and over to get him to latch. I realized that he kept his tongue on the roof of his mouth and couldn't figure out how to move it around so he could suck. I would have to take a deep breath and patiently wait until he moved his tongue so he could latch on.

Another challenge was keeping Quinn awake during his feeding. That boy can sleep through a bomb. It really was difficult to wake him up. We would have to bounce him around, change his diaper (which he hates), strip him down so he wasn't warm and cozy, and sometimes even put a wet washcloth on him. Feedings could take over an hour to complete and then in another hour we were back at it.

After all that, Quinn was still losing weight. He went from 7lb 10oz at birth to 7lb 4oz when we left the hospital to 6lb 15oz at his first doctor's appointment. For me, that was heartbreaking. I definitely felt like I wasn't doing enough, like I was failing as a provider for my sweet boy. The pediatrician had us add an ounce of formula to every feeding. She gave us syringes to use so he wouldn't get used to a bottle nipple and then refuse to nurse. Enter challenge number...how many do we have now? I believe he spit out as much formula as he took in.

After a week and a half of formula, Quinn was finally past his birth weight weighing in at 7lb 12oz. The pediatrician gave me the green light to go back to strictly breastfeeding, hooray! I brought him back to the office three days later to make sure he was still gaining weight and he was up to 7lb 15oz.

I absent mindedly became too comfortable and let my diet slip. Just as quickly the gas came back. While I wasn't eating any of the obvious gassy foods (beans, broccoli, dried fruit), I found tomatoes were upsetting him. No more lasagna, spaghetti, or pizza for me.

The past two days have been good days. On Monday my mother came over and helped. She kept Quinn awake during the day so that he would sleep during the night. I'm now working to make sure he stays on that schedule. I don't want to jinx anything so just pray that we have a third good night.

If you made it all the way through this post, bless you. I know it was a lot of rambling.