Nursing Story

[ste_noni]

So, I’m signing up to be a mentor mom at adopt_a_mom and I need to write up a nursing story.  I think my experiences nursing are peppered throughout my LJ, but I guess this is a good time to put it all down in one place.

 

I planned on nursing from the beginning.  I knew it had lots of health benefits for mom and baby and I was looking forward to the special bonding opportunity.  I was lucky – I had a great birth experience and I was able to put Ellie to the breast just minutes after she was born.  She was able to latch on and nurse on the left breast with no trouble.  We were less successful with the right, but I just decided to focus on what was working her first night.  While in the hospital, I got lots of advice on how to get her to latch on on the right side.  I tried a nipple shield, which worked well. 

 

Once we were sent home, I nursed Ellie every few hours.  On the third day, my milk came in.  That day, we also had her first doctor’s appointment and they asked if I wanted to see an LC.  Since she was already there, I figured, why not?  Well, she totally freaked me out.  She told me I was doing all sorts of stuff wrong (at least that’s what I heard) and that Ellie was in danger of losing too much weight. Basically, I had become engorged while waiting to be seen by the pediatrician and this worried the LC.  After working with me for over two hours, she finally let us go.  I was close to tears and feeling really down because she made it seem like Ellie was not doing well.  I went home and talked to my mom and my doula, both of whom encouraged me to pump when needed and focus on diaper output.  I worked on keeping Ellie awake long enough to get full and pumped on the right side (she still wasn’t latching on).  By the end of the first week, I felt like we had the hang of it.

 

I kept on nursing on the left and pumping on the right.  I was studying for the bar exam and Joe was redeploying to Iraq.  All that, plus a three week old baby was plenty of stress and I just couldn’t handle more stress about nursing.  Thankfully, Ellie got all the milk she needed form the left side and after about three months, I gave up pumping.  I was able to stay home with Ellie which meant that I didn’t need to pump at work and when my mom left, there was no other adult around to give her a bottle so we sort of fell out of that habit.

 

I’ve had a couple of nursing issues along the way – mastitis at about 6 weeks and 18 months and thrush around 13 months.  Not much to say about those except that it was the pediatrician who diagnosed the thrush (it hadn’t been bothering Ellie or me).  Also, the first round of mastitis was classic – fever, aches, chills, and a hard, red patch on my breast.  The second time just had the redness.  Each time, we were able to nurse/pump our way through it.

Because of the bar exam, Joe's deployment, and orders to move when Ellie was about 12 months old, I stayed home with her until she was 17 months old.  It wasn't my plan or anything like that, but it just worked out that way.  By then, she was only nursing 4 times a day or so and she didn't seem to have much toruble adjusting to no nursing during the day.  We continued nursing at bedtime/naptime, in the night, when waking up, and usually when getting home from work/school until just recently.

Ellie is now 29 months old.  We just night weaned last week.  She actually went to stay with my parents for a week (weaning wasn’t the purpose, but I thought it might be a side effect).  My nipples really appreciated the break because they have been very sore since I got pregnant back in May.  Anyway, Ellie seems to be successfully weaned at night – she has no complaints with Daddy putting her to bed.  She is still co-sleeping, but is happy to just cuddle up next to me at night.

 

I thought we might be altogether weaned after the visit with my parents, but yesterday she asked to nurse.  We are sort of in a “don’t offer but don’t refuse” phase.  I’ve decided I wouldn’t mind tandem nursing, but I think it will make it harder for Ellie to accept her little brother.  She likes seeing other babies nurse on TV/the computer, but it seems to upset her to see real babies nurse.  I’ve been working on helping her understand that she’s not the only nursling in the world – that other babies nurse, especially when they are very little.  We will see how it goes.

 

I’m looking forward to nursing a newborn again.  Well, maybe not the frequency that a newborn requires, but it’s just such a different experience than nursing a toddler.  I’m hoping to succeed in nursing on my right side this time around.  There’s a lot less stress in my life and I understand nipple shields and how they work a bit better this time