Wednesday, April 1, 2009

Lessons in breastfeeding - part 2

I figured I would warn any of you not interested in reading about breastfeeding with the title of the post. Considerate of me, no?

Yesterday Cameron and I went to the pediatricians' office to meet with a lactation consultant. One of the things I really like about the practice we now go to is that they have a dedicated lactation consultant and I can see her as often as I want for just a co-pay.

The best part about the visit was that the consultant (Jan Ellen) weighed Cameron before, during and after the feedings so I could see how much intake she was actually getting. It turns out she is getting just under 2 ounces which is great. Jan Ellen also helped me to tweak the positioning of Cameron to make it more comfortable for both of us. And she was very non-judgemental and supportive of my use of a nipple shield. I do plan on weaning off of that soon but it's really helping with a quick latch.

As a result of the session I have been exclusively breastfeeding during the day and supplementing with some pumped milk at night. The extra milk at night has helped keep Cameron sleeping longer which is great for me and DH! Last night she slept from 8 PM to 9 AM with only 3 wake ups for feeding. That means DH and I got about 7 hours of sleep. How great is that? Not that I expect it to be that way every night but it was very, very nice. I'm pumping every other feeding to keep my supply up and am still managing to save and store some.

Now I need to get the trick of breastfeeding without hanging out everywhere :-) My brother, Andrew, is coming to visit today for a couple of nights and I doubt he wants to see his sister's boobs every couple of hours. Perhaps I'm better off just feeding Cameron in her nursery although if I run out of trashy magazines, that could get boring fast.

I promise more cute Cameron pictures tomorrow and perhaps a family photo now that we will have someone here to take pictures for us.

2 comments:

Danielle said...

Yay for you for keeping up with it. It will get easier, I promise.

Oh and buy a Bebe Au Lait or Hooter Hider. Mine was one of the best purchases I made. It works really, really well until the baby is old enough to pull it aside and give everyone a show. That way you can sit and talk to your brother and feed the baby and not worry. I sat in the room with my father-in-law and fed B and didn't have a problem.

April said...

Stacey - I was going to suggest the Bebe Au Lait as well. Blankets always fell off of me and the hooter hider is designed to allow you to look down at the baby while feeding, so they are not completely hidden by a blanket. I used it all of the time when friends and family were around too. Also, I know a lot of people use boppies, but My Breast Friend Pillow was so much easier for me to use for nursing and really helped me with my positioning. I was stuck in a football hold for the first few weeks and just couldn't get the other positions figured out. The pillow helped a lot.