We did attend a breastfeeding class and they gave us some handouts that I actually used in the hospital and the days after bringing baby home. The most useful information for anxious new parents was that baby's stomach grows slowly and it's not super important to produce a large volume of milk right away. I was able to make colostrum (a thick honey-like substance) in the hospital, it was fairly easy to learn how to express it by hand and transfer it to baby. He was a champion at nursing from the start, at least he tried.
Baby is more alert on breastmilk. Baby gets hungry sooner after breastmilk. We thought formula allowed us more time between feedings for the same volume. For the first 2 weeks home from the hospital, we were doing every other feeding with formula. Then around 3 weeks, we were doing formula for the first night interval (5 hours) and pumped breastmilk for other feedings. But the last two nights we've skipped formula and baby is still sleeping for a long interval, so I guess we can let go of formula entirely now.
I have pain when pumping but even more pain when breastfeeding. But I don't have pain the whole time, it seems most intense at first then it decreases after letdown. I don't know if pain is everyone's experience, but I also get a strange euphoria which makes me understand why BDSM people get into nipple clamps. The first time I pumped, I seriously got high from it.
The hospital LCs recommended "triple feeding" with putting baby at the breast at the start of each feed. That got me very depressed because my baby wouldn't latch until he was 2 weeks, 3 days postpartum. And he didn't really get a full feed at the breast until he was 3 weeks old. He is good now, for a couple of weeks he could only breastfeed if he was hungry and I was not too full. The past two mornings, he has nursed on rock hard boobs with no issues. He's 7 weeks now.
Part of our motivation for eliminating formula was to use cloth diapers, which we started doing at 3 weeks. We use cloth all-in-ones until those are all dirty. Then we use flour sack towels folded in a newborn kite fold, fastened with a snappi, with PUL covers over the top. We have plenty of those so then we do a load of diapers every other day. People say that the poops from formula are more staining than the poops from breastmilk. The good news is that those stains are easily removed by hanging the cloth out in the sun, I can confirm. I wish I had a before-and-after photo, but I don't, so you'll have to take my word for it. And here's another 90s throwback for you:
via GIPHY
Here are all the tags I wanted to use for this post: breastfeeding, career, education, equity, family, fear, goals, gratitude, green, hormones, learning, interdisciplinary, maternity leave, meditation, money, motivation, nutrition, pain, positive, postpartum, simplicity, spring, sustainability, teamwork, technology, travel, vintage, walking. Since the post was getting too long, I had to split it in half.
Wish I had seen this two months earlier
I like this story. Anna Momigliano of the Washington Post writes about how people encourage breastfeeding by talking about how it is the "free" option. However, in her (and my) experience, there are costs associated with breastfeeding also. In the time of coronavirus, I was not able to attend support groups at my hospital and birth centers like Bini Birth or La Leche League meetings. Luckily, there are some instagram accounts to follow that are encouraging and motivating.
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