My Nursing Experience

*** I've been on a nursing "high" lately and thought I would share my experience with breastfeeding. This post is not intended to shame you into nursing or to dis those who formula feed. I just wanted to share my struggles and triumphs with nursing and give advice to new moms who are trying to learn how to breastfeed. This post may be a little TMI if you don't like hearing about breastfeeding. ***

When I was pregnant with Ellie, one of the things I was most worried about was nursing. It wasn't the diaper changing or newborn schedule, I knew that I could handle all of those things. Maybe I should have worried more about the delivery, but too late now (haha). I had no idea what to expect from nursing since it was something that I wasn't really sure how it worked and I hadn't been around it very much in my lifetime. I had heard horror stories about bleeding, cracked or sore nipples, the pain, how hard it is to nurse in public, teething and biting, etc. I couldn't imagine sticking my breast in my baby's mouth, I mean, is that even sanitary? I consider myself a modest person, so I was nervous about showing skin and how uncomfortable I would be or how I might others feel awkward. Regardless of these worries, nursing was something I wanted to try. I made a goal to just make it 6 weeks... and then I'd re-evaluate how I was feeling and if I wanted to keep it up.

When Ellie was born, via emergency C-section, she had to go into the NICU for additional monitoring over the next few days. So, I didn't sleep in the same room as Ellie right after she was born. At first, I thought this was nice because I didn't have to wake up to feed her at night, the NICU would handle all of that. I got a little extra recovery time from my surgery - getting out of bed was the last thing on my mind. However, I had told the nurses that I wanted to nurse. I learned that it was going to be a lot of work for me at the beginning.

I was put on a pumping schedule - I was instructed to pump every 2-3 hours for 20 minutes. Similar to what a Ellie would demand if she was staying in our room, except this crucial bonding period was with me and my electric breast pump rather than me and my brand new-adorable-heart melting-firstborn-beautiful baby. The first few days didn't hurt, but I thought it was pointless because I wasn't getting anything. A few days later, I finally started getting some colostrum, but I only got a few drops that I figured weren't worth saving, so I just washed it down the drain. I remember being so excited when I could see the first drops coming out, yet I still just washed it away. I later learned that I am supposed to keep every drop that comes out to give to Ellie with her next feeding... oops!

Once I was feeling better and got back on my feet, we tried to be in the NICU for Ellie's feedings, at least the daytime ones, every 3 hours. We were able to work with a lot of different NICU nurses and Lactation Consultants in the hospital to get started nursing. This was good and bad because we got a lot of conflicting advice, which made nursing very confusing at first, but at the same time, I took all of the different opinions from the nurses as a lot of different things to try when working on her latch. Ellie was used to eating from bottles, so she took a little while to find a good latch. We continued to supplement with formula because most of the time we couldn't get her to latch. There were so many times that I just wanted to give up. I could tell it would have been easier for the NICU nurses to just feed her the bottle, on the hour, every 3 hours, rather than trying to get her to latch for 30+ mins while she was screaming for food. But I didn't want to give up. I wanted to give nursing a good try for 6 solid weeks, and I wasn't going to just let it go.

I can't say that I felt confident in nursing when we left the hospital. I was so worried that Ellie wasn't going to get anything from me and that I just needed to give up and formula feed her. But I kept with it. I was determined to nurse her. I read many many online forums for help. The best advice I got was to just keep going. Keep trying to nurse her at every feeding. Sometimes it didn't work and Weston would feed her a bottle while I went and pumped. I went through entire series of TV shows on Netflix and hulu (White Collar, Parenthood, and Hart of Dixie). Ellie would often fall asleep while nursing. I would fall asleep while nursing (still do). Ellie would cry, I would cry. We would nurse upstairs, downstairs, with the lights on and off. I tried the cradle position, cross cradle, football hold, lying down, standing up, we tried it all! Sometimes I didn't want to nurse because it seemed like a hassle so we just fed her a bottle while I pumped and regenerated for the next feeding. I would let Ellie nurse as long as she wanted on each side. For a while, she liked to go 25 minutes on each side (that took forever!) Sometimes I would nurse her and then go pump some more. We rented an expensive hospital grade pump for a month because of how much time I spent pumping. I would try to feed Ellie at her every whimper to practice latching and stimulate more milk. Learning to nurse was not an easy thing for me!!! -- I was so grateful we invested in a comfortable Lazyboy recliner because I would literally spend all day in that chair!

When Ellie was 6 weeks old, I still had no idea what I was doing. I seriously debated just switching completely over to formula, and that would have been fine. There is nothing wrong with formula. Both Weston and I were formula fed babies and we turned out fine (or so we think). But I was still determined to make nursing work. So I kept going, and that was the best thing for me.

I remember the first time I woke up in the morning and I felt really engorged. It wasn't super painful, but it was something I had never really felt before. Ellie was about 3 months old and I had let her sleep all the way through the night. That morning, it finally hit me. I was doing it. I was producing milk. My body had finally got the hang of it. After 3 months, it finally felt like Ellie enjoyed nursing, I enjoyed nursing, Weston enjoyed that we were nursing, and it just felt right.

I understand that a lot of moms cannot nurse. There are so many reasons why nursing just doesn't work for some people. You have to make the decision that is best for you and your baby. I respect that and I hold no judgement against people who choose to formula feed. In fact, we still feed Ellie 1 bottle of formula per day (I refuse to pump now, haha). It gives dad or someone else some bonding time, gives me a little break, keeps Ellie used to taking a bottle, when we aren't home it's way easier to feed her a bottle, and helps keep her weight gain up (which we were worried about for a little while).

But all in all, I am so grateful that I stuck with nursing. I actually love it now. I love the cuddle time. I love how Ellie will stop for a minute to look up and smile at me, even laugh sometimes. I love that I have to take a break from what I'm doing and just relax and hold/feed my baby for a few minutes. I love that Ellie prefers to nurse and how it comforts and relaxes her. I love that nursing doesn't cost money (only tears and time at the beginning). I love that I don't have to make a bottle every time she is hungry. I love that my body can produce milk for my baby (it's seriously amazing)! Is it weird to say that I love nursing?

So to all of you brand new moms who are still trying to figure this nursing thing out, the best advice you will get is to stick with it. If it's something you want to do, the longer you keep pushing through the easier it will become for you and the baby and your body will get the signals it needs to keep producing more milk. However, there is no shame in stopping if you need to. Everyone hits a stopping point, and that is okay. Feeding your baby is the right thing to do, how you do that is your choice.

Nursing for Ellie and me was a battle at the beginning. But I am so glad that I stuck with it.

On a related note, I just noticed Ellie's bottom 2 teeth breaking through yesterday. We will see if I still love nursing so much once those teeth are all the way in...