have had these expectations of pregnancy and raising my kids. Well, as most of you know my idea of having a completely natural
labor went out the window very early. Now I feel like breast-feeding is going to be taken away too. I have finally got to the point
that I can tandem (at the same time) feed the girls and everything has seemed like it was going pretty good. Ansley does really well
but I am still having a lot of pain from Kinley's latch. I also was feeling like their weight gain had slowed down. I decided to make
my 2nd appointment with the lactation consultant to see if my intuition was right. Sure enough it was! On May 15th Kinley weighed
6 lbs 11 ounces and Ansley 7 lbs 6 ounces. The VERY minimum they should have gained from then was 9 ounces. Well Kinley was
only 7 lbs 1 ounces (she gained 6 ounces) and Ansley was 7 lbs 15 ounces (so she gained 9 ounces). They were gain more than an
ounce a day. I knew it would slow down because I stopped giving them formula but this was unexpected. The girls have also been
crying A LOT! I have been going crazy thinking that they were just hard babies. Well... come to find out I'm starving them! I feel
awful. Of course they cry all the time. They are always hungry. Needless to say, I left the Lactation consultant and cried the rest
of the day. I have never felt so much guilt.
Now for the decisions. The LC is having me put the girls to the breast every time they cry and wants me to try and feed them
one at a time in hopes that me giving more attention will help them eat better (Oh because we weighed them before and after
they ate and they only got 1 ounce and 2 ounces). Then I go back tomorrow to do a weight check and again on Tuesday. I want
this to work but if I'm feeding 2 babies every time they cry I might as well set up shop on the couch and get ready to listen to
crying all day because all I will be doing is breast-feeding. The whole reason I started feeding them together was because it
takes a whole lot less time and I was sick of having the baby that wasn't eating screaming at me the whole time her sister ate.
So, what do I do? Keep trying and be stressed, completely switch to formula and be stressed, or let one baby breast-feed and
bottle feed the other and then switch the next time. The last option sounds good but I think it will put them on completely
different schedules because formula holds them over so much longer. *Sigh*
Ok vent over. I keep trying to post videos of the girls but it won't work! I have a Macbook and the videos are uploaded to IMovie.
Any advice on getting it to work. Thanks!
4 comments:
I am so sorry you having such a hard time with feeding. I know it is hard but just do what works and try not to feel guilty about it.
Export your movie to quicktime. Then it should upload.
Katie, I have been blog-stocking you for a while but feel it is time to let you know I am reading. I know breastfeeding is such an emotional issue and your hormones don't help with that either. Brayden and I really struggled for a while. His latch was not right so he got tired and would stop, he would then cry all day because he was hungry! I could go on but this is getting to long for a "comment" :) Take a breath and be confident in what you decide!
I'm sorry things are tough right now. Try not to feel guilty! You are a great mom!!!
I wanted to breast feed my son, and I did...a little bit. My milk never really came in. I tried!! I would feed him then pump also...but I barely made any milk. What I ended up doing was breast feed him for 10 minutes then I'd give him a bottle. That was my solution :)
Hang in there! You are the mommy and mommies know best! You will make the right decision :)
Oh everything is getting ready to turn to the up side for you! And by the way, your words are cutting off the screen making it unreadable. have a great weekend!
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