Monday, February 27, 2006
Feeding Routine: Waking a sleeping baby-Rebecca's story
At the hospital -
You may have heard the expressions, “Don’t wake a sleeping baby,” or perhaps, “Babies know when they’re hungry,” and if so, you’re one up on the nurses on my ward while I was in the hospital. Let me just begin by saying that my son was a sleeper. Period. And it took small…no wait…large miracles to wake him up when he didn’t want to be woken up. And every three hours, that’s what the nurses demanded…large miracles. During our short hospital stay, he was required to nurse every three hours, for reasons that, theoretically, I do understand. However, for my son, he was simply uninterested every three hours. So, in the midst of learning how to nurse and becoming familiar with this tiny person that had just erupted from my body, I had to also try and make him mad –very mad – by waking him up. These attempts consisted of taking his clothes off, tickling him, putting wet cloths on him, you name it, we tried it (within reason, of course). My husband would sit beside me while I was trying to get him to wake up long enough to latch on, and take Kellen’s socks off in an attempt to help with the process, many times to no avail.
After five or so minutes the nurse would come in to check our progress, at which point we would implore her to tell us what to try next.
Keep at it, keep trying, or something similar in nature would typically be the response, so we would keep going, sometimes getting a ten minute nursing session, sometimes shorter and then, on occasion, sometimes hitting the jackpot and getting a full nursing session of eight to ten minutes on both sides. Kellen seemed satisfied; however, and checked out of the hospital only losing a few ounces lighter than when he came into the world.
At home –
I had decided to try the BabyWise method and philosophy, in which the baby and parent join together to schedule the day in an eat-play-sleep schedule. As part of this, I kept meticulous records of when Kellen eat, which breast he started with and how long he nursed on each side. As we’ve previously mentioned, I’m a strong type-A personality, and I just had to find some way to quantify his feeding, and this was the only way I could think of to do so. Since I couldn’t actually figure out how much he was taking in at each feeding, the least I could do was count how many minutes he was nursing on each side. Crazy how my brain works sometimes, but hopefully some of you reading this can understand my psychosis.
Anyway, one of the things that I allowed Kellen to do was sleep a little longer, according to the schedule that he and I felt comfortable with, especially at night. As such, he was sleeping through most of the night at around seven weeks old. I know, I know…don’t hate me! By most of the night I mean the last nursing being around midnight and then him sleeping until about six o’clock in the morning. I’m sorry! I know…he was such a good sleeper and/or maybe I trained him that way or maybe it’s a combination of both. I don’t know! (Don’t worry, I have a sinking suspicion I’ll make up for it in our next child, or two).
During the day I would gradually add fifteen minutes or so, unless it interfered with the nighttime sleeping, then we would take back that time so as to not interfere with his nighttime stretches of sleep. It was really just trial and error for a while, a gradual stretching of his many naps throughout the day, because he most assuredly would let me know when he was ready to get up and eat! But, all things being equal, except for right there in the beginning, I typically did NOT wake a sleeping baby.
Exceptions –
There were and are, of course, a few exceptions to this waking a sleeping baby to eat guideline. You will know your baby best, their habits, temperament, etc., but you’ll also have a life, so if you have a schedule to keep (parties to attend, weddings to go to, etc.) and it would be better to feed beforehand, do what is best for that particular day and the baby will adjust to it. Despite the fact that at the time we may want it to, the world doesn’t stop spinning just because we’ve given birth. Remember to continue to live your life, a life outside of your house that includes people outside of your new child and husband. Trust me, your kiddo can adapt to changing environments if you’ll give them the chance! It’s amazing how resilient these little creatures are! Remarkable actually!
You may have heard the expressions, “Don’t wake a sleeping baby,” or perhaps, “Babies know when they’re hungry,” and if so, you’re one up on the nurses on my ward while I was in the hospital. Let me just begin by saying that my son was a sleeper. Period. And it took small…no wait…large miracles to wake him up when he didn’t want to be woken up. And every three hours, that’s what the nurses demanded…large miracles. During our short hospital stay, he was required to nurse every three hours, for reasons that, theoretically, I do understand. However, for my son, he was simply uninterested every three hours. So, in the midst of learning how to nurse and becoming familiar with this tiny person that had just erupted from my body, I had to also try and make him mad –very mad – by waking him up. These attempts consisted of taking his clothes off, tickling him, putting wet cloths on him, you name it, we tried it (within reason, of course). My husband would sit beside me while I was trying to get him to wake up long enough to latch on, and take Kellen’s socks off in an attempt to help with the process, many times to no avail.
After five or so minutes the nurse would come in to check our progress, at which point we would implore her to tell us what to try next.
Keep at it, keep trying, or something similar in nature would typically be the response, so we would keep going, sometimes getting a ten minute nursing session, sometimes shorter and then, on occasion, sometimes hitting the jackpot and getting a full nursing session of eight to ten minutes on both sides. Kellen seemed satisfied; however, and checked out of the hospital only losing a few ounces lighter than when he came into the world.
At home –
I had decided to try the BabyWise method and philosophy, in which the baby and parent join together to schedule the day in an eat-play-sleep schedule. As part of this, I kept meticulous records of when Kellen eat, which breast he started with and how long he nursed on each side. As we’ve previously mentioned, I’m a strong type-A personality, and I just had to find some way to quantify his feeding, and this was the only way I could think of to do so. Since I couldn’t actually figure out how much he was taking in at each feeding, the least I could do was count how many minutes he was nursing on each side. Crazy how my brain works sometimes, but hopefully some of you reading this can understand my psychosis.
Anyway, one of the things that I allowed Kellen to do was sleep a little longer, according to the schedule that he and I felt comfortable with, especially at night. As such, he was sleeping through most of the night at around seven weeks old. I know, I know…don’t hate me! By most of the night I mean the last nursing being around midnight and then him sleeping until about six o’clock in the morning. I’m sorry! I know…he was such a good sleeper and/or maybe I trained him that way or maybe it’s a combination of both. I don’t know! (Don’t worry, I have a sinking suspicion I’ll make up for it in our next child, or two).
During the day I would gradually add fifteen minutes or so, unless it interfered with the nighttime sleeping, then we would take back that time so as to not interfere with his nighttime stretches of sleep. It was really just trial and error for a while, a gradual stretching of his many naps throughout the day, because he most assuredly would let me know when he was ready to get up and eat! But, all things being equal, except for right there in the beginning, I typically did NOT wake a sleeping baby.
Exceptions –
There were and are, of course, a few exceptions to this waking a sleeping baby to eat guideline. You will know your baby best, their habits, temperament, etc., but you’ll also have a life, so if you have a schedule to keep (parties to attend, weddings to go to, etc.) and it would be better to feed beforehand, do what is best for that particular day and the baby will adjust to it. Despite the fact that at the time we may want it to, the world doesn’t stop spinning just because we’ve given birth. Remember to continue to live your life, a life outside of your house that includes people outside of your new child and husband. Trust me, your kiddo can adapt to changing environments if you’ll give them the chance! It’s amazing how resilient these little creatures are! Remarkable actually!
Sunday, February 19, 2006
Engorgement - Rebecca's story
Ok, let me just say that my concern about whether or not I was able to breast feed quickly subsided. There were some minor issues with Kellen’s delivery, but he took his first feeding of colostrum just fine. I’ll fast forwarded until I got home and my milk came in..and let me just say, “Whoa buddy!” I was in some serious pain here. Kellen was eating what I can only assume were full meals, nursing for 10-15 minutes on each side and coming away satisfied, but I had so much milk that his feedings didn’t seem to make a dent in the milk that was filling up my cartoon-sized breasts. These things were ridiculously huge – I can’t believe that people pay money to get them to be that large…on purpose!
Up until this time, we had still put off the decision about purchasing or renting the breast pump equipment. We were doing some number crunching, remember what I said about me being frugal, right, well it comes into play here, of course. We were calculating the cost of renting a pump for a full 12 months, which was the estimated time that I was expecting to nurse my new bundle of joy. Then we took that cost and multiplied it by three and then four, the number of children that we were and are thinking we may have. Next we compared that to the cost of a top-of-the line breast pump, similar in quality to the ones that we would be renting and what my OB/GYN’s office had been recommending. Well, there really wasn’t a comparison; it was much cheaper in the long run to purchase the breast pump. After seeing me in so much pain, my father, bless his heart, decided that he would purchase whatever breast pump that I wanted, from where ever I wanted, and get it to my house as quickly as I wanted it to alleviate my engorgement issues and help to get me going with this breastfeeding in a less painful manner.
So, now that the purchasing decision had been made, we embarked to find the breast pump…and fast, even on day number two of the engorgement I was seriously close to having my beloved husband take up the baby side of nursing as a hobby. Warm showers and hand expressing just weren’t cutting it. The local shops did not carry the specific pump that I declared as my “perfect pump” – the one to last me through all of my children – so online I went. I found the pump, added rush shipping, and the pump was delivered the very next day, a total of four days after I delivered my son.
When I got the pump in the mail, (double breast, electric with a hand-held thrown in) I couldn’t find the instructions. Filled with hormones and pain from the terribly enlarged breasts, I collapsed in tears…then composed myself long enough to call the company and beg them to tell me how to use this contraption that I had just gotten. The person on the phone was very apologetic, but indicated that they would have to resend the instructions, which would take 2-5 days…I almost lost it again…to have the answer to my sore breasts and be unable to use it was just too cruel. Then I found the instructions in the back pocket of the backpack (my pump is in a backpack format for ease of carrying). Whew! However, I then discovered I was too scared to use the electric pump. I’m not sure why I was scared of it, but I sat on my bed and hand-pumped 18 ounces immediately after feeding my son. That was the first relief I had felt in those breasts since my milk had come in earlier that week. I just kept filling those little milk bottles up and switching them out, first one breast and then the other…because of course with a hand-held you can only do one breast at a time. Oh the sweet relief! The next time I fed Kellen, I did use the electric pump, and realized how foolish I had been by not using it in the first place! It was wonderful! Easy! Simple! Fairly quick, except for my milk-cow self, with the switching of the bottles, but I quickly got my system for that. Engorgement no longer…but a stockpile is starting in my freezer!
Up until this time, we had still put off the decision about purchasing or renting the breast pump equipment. We were doing some number crunching, remember what I said about me being frugal, right, well it comes into play here, of course. We were calculating the cost of renting a pump for a full 12 months, which was the estimated time that I was expecting to nurse my new bundle of joy. Then we took that cost and multiplied it by three and then four, the number of children that we were and are thinking we may have. Next we compared that to the cost of a top-of-the line breast pump, similar in quality to the ones that we would be renting and what my OB/GYN’s office had been recommending. Well, there really wasn’t a comparison; it was much cheaper in the long run to purchase the breast pump. After seeing me in so much pain, my father, bless his heart, decided that he would purchase whatever breast pump that I wanted, from where ever I wanted, and get it to my house as quickly as I wanted it to alleviate my engorgement issues and help to get me going with this breastfeeding in a less painful manner.
So, now that the purchasing decision had been made, we embarked to find the breast pump…and fast, even on day number two of the engorgement I was seriously close to having my beloved husband take up the baby side of nursing as a hobby. Warm showers and hand expressing just weren’t cutting it. The local shops did not carry the specific pump that I declared as my “perfect pump” – the one to last me through all of my children – so online I went. I found the pump, added rush shipping, and the pump was delivered the very next day, a total of four days after I delivered my son.
When I got the pump in the mail, (double breast, electric with a hand-held thrown in) I couldn’t find the instructions. Filled with hormones and pain from the terribly enlarged breasts, I collapsed in tears…then composed myself long enough to call the company and beg them to tell me how to use this contraption that I had just gotten. The person on the phone was very apologetic, but indicated that they would have to resend the instructions, which would take 2-5 days…I almost lost it again…to have the answer to my sore breasts and be unable to use it was just too cruel. Then I found the instructions in the back pocket of the backpack (my pump is in a backpack format for ease of carrying). Whew! However, I then discovered I was too scared to use the electric pump. I’m not sure why I was scared of it, but I sat on my bed and hand-pumped 18 ounces immediately after feeding my son. That was the first relief I had felt in those breasts since my milk had come in earlier that week. I just kept filling those little milk bottles up and switching them out, first one breast and then the other…because of course with a hand-held you can only do one breast at a time. Oh the sweet relief! The next time I fed Kellen, I did use the electric pump, and realized how foolish I had been by not using it in the first place! It was wonderful! Easy! Simple! Fairly quick, except for my milk-cow self, with the switching of the bottles, but I quickly got my system for that. Engorgement no longer…but a stockpile is starting in my freezer!
Introduction - Our stories - Rebecca
Rebecca – I’m a very strong, Type-A personality, so when I set my mind to do something, I do it wholeheartedly. I was also raised to be very frugal with money, so when I decided to nurse, I did so long before I was ever even pregnant, and I decided it for a couple of reasons: 1) in my opinion, it’s the #1 function of the two breasts hanging on the front of my body – I think that’s what God intended those blobs of mammary glands and fatty tissue to do (my husband might disagree); 2) breastmilk will give my children the best start in life, and provide them with exactly what they need with respect to nutrients, vitamins, antioxidants, etc.; 3) formula is expensive! and breastmilk is free. I was; however, concerned about whether or not I was physically able to nurse, so although we discussed breast pump equipment, etc., with my OB/GYN during my pregnancy, we debated about buying vs renting a pump because of this concern prior to my son being born. Because of this concern, my husband and I decided against purchasing or renting a pump before the birth of our son. This physical concern is something that Jennifer and I will address in this book, as well as our recommendations for pump equipment based on our experiences and those of our nursing mom friends.
Why we're writing this book - Rebecca's version
You may wonder why we’re writing another book on breastfeeding, but perhaps this will help to explain why Jennifer and I choose to do this. We like to think of ourselves as thorough, as we were pregnant, nursing, and juggling new motherhood, jobs, and husbands we both searched at various points in time for information on making this juggling act (specifically breastfeeding while working) actually work…but we didn’t find much in written format about this, and what we did find was sketchy at best. We of course turned to people who parented previously, but neither of our mothers were able to offer many suggestions…mine nursed, and her suggestions on that aspect were wonderful, but she didn’t work outside of the home so she wasn’t able to offer many tried and true balancing suggestions, and as Jennifer will share, hers didn’t nurse at all. So, after much trial and error, tears, frustration, heartache, joy and delight, here we are. We hope that you’ll find this book informative, funny, and useful, but most of all we hope that you’ll find it REAL – the good, bad, and ugly about one of the most personal decisions that you’ll have to make as a mom, especially as a work-outside of the home mom. We wish you luck on your journey and remember – we’ve been there and you can make it!
