Breastfeeding, my story
Stories of breastfeeding…shortened 🤷🏻♀️
In this week of breastfeeding, I share my experience with you! With my first two babies, I was not so attracted to breastfeeding. I wanted to give them colostrum, that's for sure! But if it worked well for the rest, so much the better, if not, too bad! I've always been of the school of thought that what's best for babies is a healthy mom, whether bottle-fed or breast-fed.
Latching on was not easy for both of them, especially since the second was already starting to reflux at 24 hours of life, so we switched to the bottle fairly quickly. We had quite an epic for her, because she happened to be intolerant to beef/soy protein too. But that's another subject 😅
On my 3rd, the last, my little boy after 2 girls, ahhh there I felt ready for breastfeeding. I hadn't had too many expectations, I didn't want to blame myself either if it didn't work out. Since he had a 1 in 5 chance of being intolerant too, I avoided dairy products, coffee, beef to give us a chance.
Breastfeeding was going well all the same with a little reflux, nothing unmanageable and above all nothing compared to her big sister 😂 I took a liking to our bonded moments… But coco was not regaining her birth weight, even after 2 weeks at home. We looked at the position at the breast, tried lots of things, pumped my milk between feedings, supplements, etc. He was only taking 10g/day, even though he was suckling well according to the nurse. We must have been 35.
So, we were asked to try 1 full day of preparation to see. 45 g/day he took... After only 2 days, mucus and blood in the stool appeared: Coco was intolerant too (something that was masked a little more with breastfeeding since I was already careful and my milk was easier to digest). Second observation: I did not produce enough milk to fill it.
I had a bad cold after giving birth, which I dragged on for 3 weeks. With the fatigue and the 2 big sisters (including the 2nd who was BABI), I no longer felt enough strength to do an intense elimination diet. Especially since I should have filled with the hypoallergenic preparation so that Coco took her weight well, in addition to expressing my milk between feedings to try to boost my production.
Yet I still kept hoping I could do it. I got caught up in the game and felt bad for quitting, like I hadn't tried everything for him. Until one day I was trying to pump my milk to bottle feed, only harvested barely 1 oz in 20 mins, and started crying. So much effort for 1 oz! The truth is that it was not the first time that I cried in discouragement, in silence.
My boyfriend told me what I would normally say to a friend: "you won't make yourself sick to breastfeed her there"! Even my nurse agreed! Looking back on it, I'm so thankful that I didn't feel any judgment from them. ❤️.
So I stopped and pulled Dr.Brown out of the closet (our big sister time saviors who weren't too far away). I had to accept it and grieve, even though I hadn't set myself any expectations at the start. Coco regained her weight well afterwards, even quite intense and that's what was important ❤️.
I had 3 heavy bottle drinkers (like 40oz/day we reached it at 2 months!). I always wonder what would have happened if my last one hadn't been intolerant, if one day I would have reached enough production to fill it... ❤️
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