Breastfeeding

My baby is 8 weeks old today. I still can't believe he's already here, time is flying by with him. 

I could be sticking my foot in my mouth, but I feel like we've made it past the "survival" mode part of parenthood.

We're establishing routines and sleep training. We're working on a glorious 2.5-3 hour day cycle of eat-play-sleep. It's helping so much. We have a half hour of eating/changing/hygiene, we play (or have awake time) for 30-50 minutes, and then he naps for 1.5-2 hours and we start it again. This cycle should keep up through 12 weeks before it's okay for him to stay awake for longer spurts. It's helped me plan my day so much better too. I roughly know when he'll be napping so I'm getting to where I can plan out cleaning and cooking and working out, etc. 

I've seen so much progress using these strategies. It's so easy during the day to just let him be awake and be asleep when he wants to, but since we've started structuring it I know he's getting in all of his sleep and waking hours necessary for proper development, growth spurts, and maximizing happy baby time. I just started really enforcing these though, so we're still working on getting the full naps in. 

We've been unfortunate to have a baby with severe acid reflux issues. Which makes him very unhappy a lot of the time. It's so sad to see him be so uncomfortable and not be able to make it better. As a parent, you're suppose to be able to make it better. It's terrible to not be able to do that for him.

Breastfeeding is important to me. I studied Child Development in college, of course I think it's important. I knew it'd be hard and challenging and I always told myself I'd push through it all. I'd said the only thing that could make me unsuccessful was if something happened to my milk supply. 

Those first few weeks were the worst. We had latch issues, I had sore boobs, I got that breast infection, I had to start using a stupid breast shield because of the latch issues. It was all overwhelming. It felt impossible, but I still never had moments of wanting to quit. I thought about how uncomfortable it was at times, but I knew it was better for my baby and I always told myself that I could keep pushing through these discomforts for something that is better for my baby.

When Nolan was 5 weeks old, I started trying to wean off of the breast shield which presented a whole new set of trials. He'd already demonstrated to me that he was capable of latching without it, so I was determined to retrain his sucking reflex to do so without the aid of the shield. It is sometimes a necessary hassle, but it is so inconvenient that I really wanted to not use it if at all possible. 

There were lots of hysterical, tear-filled moments that week too. But, he worked it out and before I knew it a week had gone by shield-free and then two weeks. We haven't had to go back. He still has moments of not being able to latch and we both get frustrated and upset, but we take a minute to calm down and try again. I think most of those times are when I've maybe let him get too hungry and he's a little too frantic and his rooting reflex gets out of hand and thus the latching issue.

However, the biggest challenge yet, and the only one that has ever made me doubt breastfeeding is the reflux/tummy problems. I'm okay with working through my own discomforts with it and I have. But, my milk is suppose to be perfect for his body and it doesn't seem that way with all the stomach problems. 

I've tried a lot of things too. I've changed my diet a few times, I did a whole trial week of absolutely no dairy, I eliminated most vegetables for a time, we did medicine from the doc, we tried some gripe waters, I've tried smaller more frequent feedings, we have him upright for a half hour after feedings... and nothing seems to help. I cannot even describe how frustrating it is to have this issue. Made more annoying by the fact that it might be something in my diet/milk. It's hard to think about me contributing to this in some way. 

Even so, I still know it's better for him to have the breast milk than the formulas. So, we're going to keep pushing through. We're praying and hoping the stomach flap will start staying closed soon and not allow the acid back up. I hope we make it through this. I know we're only a few months in, but I feel like we've already conquered so many breastfeeding challenges. Must. Keep. Going.