Update on the Feeding Challenges

For those of you that read my "Breastfeeding Challenges" post, here is an update. I went and saw a lactation consultant named Geneva on Monday after my blog post. She told me I have an oversupply of milk judging from the amount I had been pumping from each side every 3-4 hours when Hunter wanted to eat. That was usually around 3-4 oz a side. So she said Hunter was having a hard time sucking, swallowing, and breathing during a let down which was potentially causing some of the damage. Her advice was to pump about an ounce from the side I was going to feed on right before I put him on. She also showed me a different position to help with this which was to sit in a recliner all the way back and feed with him straight up and down on me. We successfully did this by ourselves one time yesterday. It is very hard because I have to hold him with both hands and plop him down on me often not knowing if it is going to be a good latch 1)because I don't have a free hand and 2)because I can't even see. I want to get better at this, but I don't want it to be the primary position he nurses in.

I saw Geneva again yesterday. She wipped me up a sling overnight. I thought that was super nice of her!! There is a whole learning curve alone on just the sling lol. Those things are hard to figure out, at least for me! Anyway, she helped me to get him on again and said he was doing much better. I should mention at this point we were only putting him on the right side because that was the least damaged of the two. No re-damaging occurred. I was thankful for that. Geneva did tell me that my little one was eating too much and that I needed to feed him 2 oz every 2 hours instead of 4-6 in a feeding every 3-4 hours. I wasn't sure about that part of her advice...

I also took advantage of the lactation consultants at the hospital. I saw them this morning. We got him latched on the left side which didn't hurt until the end of the food when there was a little bit of re-damage, but I thought it was a very good try. They taught me how to massage his jaw because it is a little tight. This massage is supposed to loosen it so that he can latch better over time. I will be doing that before each feed and randomly during play time throughout the day. They also said it was completely fine for him to eat that much. I found out he is almost 12.5 pounds, and he is only 6 weeks. So he is definitely getting plenty of nourishment. I was shocked because he isn't a chunky baby. He is just long. 5 pounds in 6 weeks...WOW! LOL.

So all in all, I am much more encouraged about this process. My goal is to get him on both sides several times a day with only a couple of feedings being expressed breast milk in the bottle. I don't want to cause any more issues, and I want this to get resolved sooner rather than later. It is going to hurt, but the more practice, the better we will both get...sooner. I just have to take the pain (not from bad latch going forward, but from nursing on damaged goods). That is the hard part, when to tell if it is a bad latch from the pain or just pain from the damage. But hopefully I will figure it out. I WANT TO...no I HAVE TO get throught this for my baby! I hope I at least see some kind of improvement in the next week. In the end, I know this will be so much easier than pumping!