My breastfeeding experience – the first 6 weeks

In hospital Athena latched on (albeit painfully!) right away, and started getting the colostrum that about 4 different Midwives called 'liquid gold' (as if trying to persuade me it was a good thing, I'd already made it clear I wanted to breast feed!) and throughout the first night she either slept on my chest or fed from it! At this stage each time she latched on was pretty painful, and I distinctly remember looking away from her when I winced in case she could sense I was in pain (as if she could even focus her eyes, but I think I was delirious from lack of sleep!)

The next morning she wouldn't feed from the right boob, until Sam remembered the 'rugby ball' hold and we tried that (kind of under the arm, so she comes at the nipple from another direction) and it worked a treat! Once we came home the first midwife who visited showed us 'planting' which is basically getting her in position, nipple lined up with nose and then waiting for her to open up wide and literally shoving her onto the nipple swiftly! I was shocked at the speed at which she did it with but Athena started sucking away with hardly any pain! She also said to make sure that the babies belly is facing yours, not upwards, as it will help them swallow more easily. The aim is for your nipple to be pointing towards the roof of their mouth...

Once my milk came through properly on day four, the previously slightly cracked nipples started to heal and harden up and since then I've not had to use the nipple cream every day. Other positions we've used are lying down, for in bed night time feeds, her lying on my chest (i let her root around and find the nipple herself, and this 'tummy time' helps her strengthen her neck muscles. When you put her on Sam's chest she will work her way all the way up to his chin, which is impressive but very natural as its a babies instinct to seek food!

For the first two weeks I was looking for her feeding to fall into a pattern or routine, but then quickly realised that she wants food when she wants it, no routine to be had at all!! Once I embraced that, and stopped stressing inputting feed times into an app on my phone things got a lot easier! The other thing that makes it easier is having the full support of Sam, he'll get me a glass of water or cuppa if I've run out (or finished one and she's still feeding!) and if we're up having a feed in the night when he gets home from work he'll sit and massage my neck and shoulders for me, as well as telling me I'm amazing every so often, and doing a whole load of housework and cleaning!

After 3 weeks I tried expressing (using a manual pump) during Athena's longer afternoon nap, and to my surprise it wasn't that tricky, though the first 2 or 3 pumps are a bit painful each time! I got about 3oz the first time, then the next morning woke up with engorged boobs as she’d slept 6 hours which meant I filled right up, so I fed her from one and got 5oz from the other! I’m now pumping during her morning nap if I'm at home and at any other time later in the day if I'm not, especially if my boobs start leaking! The main reason for starting to express was so that Sam could share feeding, and to get her used to a bottle so that I can be away from her for more than 3 hours max at a time! We plan to get her used to taking a bottle from anyone, so babysitting will be easier for people!

I’ve now fed her at the beach, on a bench outside the shopping centre, on a train and in a few restaurants and pubs. I just always make sure that I've got a muslin or scarf to cover things up, but so far I’ve not had anyone mention it or even look interested, yet alone offended. The worst thing is finding easy boob-access dresses, as the top-pulling-up method only works if I wear a skirt, and as I only have one that fits is a rare occurrence, and I don't wear trousers so rarely wear tops!

During the night she normally wakes up around 6am, so we feed in bed for this one with us both laying on our sides facing each other (this one works for lazy TV watching on the sofa too!) and sometimes I'll sit her upright on my lap facing me and supporting her with one arm, which works well when you need to use the other arm for something! The baby carrier I have doesn't allow access to le boob, so I've not tried feeding from a sling whilst out and about yet but perhaps in the future!

Child-friendly kitchen!

On my main blog, I talk a lot about my house, but I've never actually shown you the room D and I spend the most time in- my kitchen! We rent the house from a baker, so it's massive and has the biggest oven I've ever seen outside Masterchef.

Yes, those are my feet you can see!

I spend a lot of time in the kitchen- my sewing machine is in there, I bake, make lots of cups of tea and now D is eating proper food, I'm often making things for him. One of the challenges we've had since he's become more aware of his surroundings is how to make the kitchen more child-friendly and interesting.

One way I've done this is by decorating the cupboards with the postcards I've received as part of the Postcrossing project. By doing this, I've made a brightly coloured, fun and ever-changing mini-art gallery that seems to be perfect for capturing a five-month old's attention. I like to spend time chatting to D and pointing out pictures. Although he can't yet understand what I'm saying, I like to think I'm helping him learn something interesting.

When D is in the kitchen with me, he tends to be in his high chair. He loves his food and he also loves being able to see what's going on, so it gives him the best of both worlds! It's also good for him to sit with me and his dad at dinnertime, watching us eat and learning about mealtimes. It also means he's constantly eyeing up our food...

 

What I'm really looking forward to, though, is when D is big enough to get involved in more activities- I'm dying to buy him an apron so we can get into the really fun (and messy!) stuff like painting and baking, which will drive Benn mad, but it'll be lovely to have a partner in crime for that sort of thing. After all, no-one tuts when a toddler has cookie dough in their hair.

Now, though, the challenge is to make the kitchen a fun yet safe place. I've no doubt that D will be crawling soon and, as he's my son, he's very nosy. This could be interesting/dangerous (delete as appropriate) to say the least. So far, my strategy involves moving a playmat and his favourite robot toy into a spot as far away from harm as possible and buying up the world's supply of child locks. What could possibly go wrong?

Any advice on childproofing welcome!

*This is a sponsored post*

Wednesday Weaning- weekly update #3

Image: Vital Baby

It's been a bit of a hectic week, as you can probably tell with the lack of posting! Weaning wise, it's been OK. We had a couple of milestones and new tastes.

Firstly, D had his first meal out- we had lunch in a local cafe for my birthday. I took a Plum sachet and a fromage frais, both of which D took really enthusiastically. I was a bit worried at first, as normally the sachet would be mixed with baby rice. After a few grimaces, D happily took all of the food- leading to a peaceful lunch for the grown ups!

We also took D to his grandparents' for tea on Sunday. I was recently sent a Vital Baby weaning set (£3.99), which I was looking forward to trying. I put some baby food from a jar (a new experience for us!) into the bowl. The food was secure and I really like the spoon holder! I was able to microwave the food briefly and it was really handy for keeping everything tidy. This is something that I can see becoming part of our regular kit when out and about.

Taste-wise, we've been trying D with new flavours- I've been using jars mostly this week, as I've wanted to try more flavours. D has tried the dubiously named 'Grandpa's Sunday Lunch' and a parsnip and potato puree, which has been VERY popular. He seems to be a fan of sweeter vegetables- spinach is not a popular flavour and sweet tastes such as fruit are a bit hit and miss.

My next step is to try making my own food. I've bought a couple of books about baby food and so it's a matter of building confidence in both myself and D. I'll let you know how we get on!

Wednesday Weaning- weekly update #2

We've had a hellish week, what with sleep regression and a stinking cold, so weaning has been a bit hit and miss. Some days, D has eaten everything in front of him and some days, he's just wanted milk, so it's been a balancing act between letting him have the fluids he's needed as well as the nutrition.

I've been experimenting with flavours and textures- I found that Natures Healthbox has a half price offer on at the moment, so I decided to snap up a load of Plum baby food (the offer is on until the end of March and I like Plum as it has a good range of flavours and a long shelf life...) I like to either mix these in with baby rice, particularly the savoury flavours, or offer them straight from the pouch as a snack.

D has progressed to three meals fairly easily; he has porridge in a morning, mixed with either fruit puree or a little fromage frais (I put the rest in a little tub for later) and a bottle about 45 minutes to an hour later, by which point he's ready for his morning nap.

I've not been brave enough to give him solids past a bit of mashed banana, which went down like a lead balloon. He doesn't quite 'get' the process of chewing yet, so I'm not going to push it for now. I may give him a small piece of toast to gum on, but I'll wait until he seems ready.

The hardest part of this process is working out the milk to food ratio. The health visitor has said he should be on about 20ml a day of his formula, but this has gone out the window when he's been demanding feeds in the night. I'm hoping that this drops off, as he's not been this demanding since he was tiny. Fingers crossed!

Tomorrow it's my birthday, so we're going out for lunch for the first time since D started eating solids. I'm not quite sure how I'm going to adapt to this, but I'm sure I'll think of something! I also want to start looking into making my own baby food... the problem with this is most of the 'cook books' are aimed at 6 months+ and I don't know how these babies compare to those at 4.5 months. Any suggestions are more than welcome!

Wednesday weaning- week 1

I've started to wean D. It's a bit weird, really, as he is still pretty young (we started at 17 weeks, which is the younger end of the scale.) The thing is, he's huge. When he was last weighed, at 15 weeks, he weighed 16lbs 3. The health visitor jovially remarked that the average one-year-old weighs around 20lbs. D is on the 91st percentile for weight and the 95th for length. He's big. He's also hungry.

At first, we just upped his milk to the recommended levels, figuring it was a growth spurt. But his high chair brought him into a whole new world of staring at food. He would stare at our meals. He would watch strangers in cafes eat their soup. He would even look at the cat as she was eating. This was a boy who was interested in food.

Oh hi. I'd really like to eat your food right now. Kthnxbai.

I started researching. The thing is, although you can feed from 17 weeks if it's recommended by a health professional- and in our case, it is- all the advice is geared up for babies from six months old. So it's a bit of a minefield, really. Thankfully, I have a health visitor who doesn't seem to mind if I ring her to ask what I'm sure are daft questions.

Anyway, I decided to start D last Wednesday. We'd been told that baby rice was a bit depressing on its own, so to consider adding something to it to make it more palatable. In Boots the other day, they were randomly giving out sachets of Plum purees. So D's first meal was a rather grim looking mixture:

You're jealous, right? It's a mix of baby rice (about a teaspoon), a squirt of sweet potato and squash puree (YUM) and some of his formula. And as gross as it seemed- he loved it. He gobbled it up and, at one point when I wasn't apparently feeding him quickly enough, used his limited motor skills to grab the spoon and shove it in his mouth. He's four months old. I'd say this is a kid who's going to enjoy food.

The health visitor has said because of his size, we're probably going to want to give him regular meals pretty quickly. I've tried with porridge, but on its own, it's a bit of a no-no. I don't blame D, it looks like glue. So I'm going to try a bit of puree to entice him. 

So, for now, I guess we're going to experiment with mixtures. I'm being encouraged to give him what we're eating (as long as it doesn't have salt/sugar in it.) 

Any tips/advice on weaning? I'll be posting an update next week- maybe someone else who is weaning early will find it useful!

Why it shouldn't matter to others how you feed your baby

I spent all of my pregnancy fending off questions about how I was planning to feed my baby. My answer was always the same: "I'd like to breastfeed, if I can." I'd been producing milk since 16 weeks and I dutifully bought nursing bras and pumps. I also asked my mother-in-law if she would buy us a sterilising unit, just in case. I read Zoe Williams' columns on parenting and breastfeeding. I would be OK, whatever the outcome, I thought.

Cue D being born; a 45 hour labour where my waters had broken 26 hours before my actual contractions started. This meant that my baby ended up with an infection AND jaundice. There I was, a first-time mum with an ill baby.. who couldn't seem to feed her son. Add to this I was being watched like a hawk by the nurses as I was a major postnatal depression risk and you had a very stressed out mother.

I tried to feed D. I used a syringe to collect what I could. I tried to latch him on and he just didn't have the werewithal to do so. We were helped by nurses and lactation consultants (most were very kind, a couple were.. brusque.) Still, nothing. I cried, and at night, behind their curtains, I heard the other two mums in my room crying too, frustrated at 2am in the morning with screaming, hungry newborns. Both of those mums went on to breastfeed successfully.

I, on the other hand, continued to struggle. I was producing about 0.8ml of colostrum, which I was giving to D when I had it. I was keeping obsessive lists of how much and when D was having so that I could show the nurses and the doctors. And then, in the early hours of his second day, a nurse finally persuaded me to let them give him a formula 'top-up'. He took 45ml of formula and was instantly soothed. I cried, because I hadn't been able to give him that. Still, I persisted. I tried expressing. My lists continued.

In the end, I became exhausted and agitated. I spoke to the nursery nurses. I spoke to my husband. I saw later on in my notes that the nurses had written everything I had said- and I had sounded utterly desperate. I had a sick baby who needed to eat. In the end, I decided that I would put him on formula, until I was able to express milk. He guzzled the milk down. I was torn; happy that he was eating and that the fluids would help him recover, but gutted that I hadn't been able to help him. My lists became more detailed, showing how much expressed milk (usually less than 5ml a time- I admit that, in the end, I just couldn't face it anymore and gave up) and how much formula he had in a feed.

After three days of being on formula, we were allowed home (we had been in hospital for five days.) D was finally well enough and the nurses had been brilliant once the decision had been made to put him onto bottles. It took me weeks to reconcile myself to this fact, though.

Now that D is ten weeks old, I can see the benefits. He is a very big, healthy and happy baby, apart from the  odd bout of colic. His dad and I split the feeds. When I've needed to go to the doctors (which has been a lot!), I've been able to leave D with his dad or my aunt and know he's OK. Do I wish that I could breastfeed? Yes- even knowing all the rubbish side effects that can happen. But I'm just glad that I have a baby who is content. I know that, ultimately, I made the right decision and that I don't need to justify it. But by writing about it, maybe someone else in the same boat as I was can see that it's OK to seek alternatives if it's not working. Babies want happy mums.

This is why I think it's rubbish that the media pits breastfeeding and formula feeding mothers against each other. We shouldn't be at war with each other because of our choices- we all do the best we can in the circumstances and we never really know what someone has gone through to get to their decision. I've seen a lot of 'formula' bashing on newspaper comment sections, Twitter and forums. For my sanity and blood-pressure, I try and avoid those. I'm not going to go into the whole 'breastfeeding is better because...' debate. Of course it's better, if you can, to breastfeed. But it's not always possible. I was bottlefed and I've been fine. I have no reason to doubt that my son will be, too.

This is D, by the way- who looks a lot better than he did in those first few days in hospital: