Boob Talk

I've finally been hit by a stroke of brilliance. Or, perhaps more likely, it's common sense that's been eluding me (which I blame hormones for)...

How Not to Get Any Sleep No Matter How Tired You Are or How Much Time You Have:

Every three hours:
1. Pump breast milk which makes you so sleepy (also the fault of hormones) that you're not sure you have the energy to actually go feed the baby. (20-30 minutes)
2. Feed the baby because you're not going to not feed the baby no matter how sleepy you are. (30 minutes)
3. While feeding, yawn a couple times. (time begins to lose meaning)
4. Cuddle the baby to sleep which has the opposite effect on you. You are now wide awake and can't tear yourself from staring at the sleeping baby. (time, what's time?)
5. Go back to room with an hour and half in which to get to sleep. Stare at wall and wonder why you can't sleep.

The stroke of brilliance? Pump AFTER feeding the baby.

Speaking of all this breast milk business, Luca started breastfeeding today. It was so awesome, I cried. A lot.

The feeding prior, the nurse tried a new nipple on the bottle of breast milk and Luca sucked it all down vigorously in no time. Then, when I fed him three hours later, I decided to do it skin-to-skin (him naked on my bare chest), and I used the same nipple and he did it again, and in record time. That alone was fantastic! But then, as I was holding him afterward, he kept showing signs of wanting to breastfeed: sucking on his fist, his fingers, rooting with his mouth wide open, smacking his lips, and putting his hand on my breast. But we'd been struggling to get him to eat his "prescribed" amount of milk as it was, so it seemed unlikely he would be hungry right after sucking down a whole bottle. Nevertheless, the signs were there. So I asked the nurse and she also thought it unlikely. I put my finger in his mouth, though, and he went to town, sucking on it like he was starving. So, I thought, well, why not give it a shot? He latched like he'd done it a million times and really started eating. This is when I started crying. The nurse peeked around the drape and I was so broken up I couldn't even tell her. Not that she needed telling. It was pretty obvious.

Luca has really turned a corner on the eating front. He's not yet ready to exclusively breastfeed, but he's well on his way. For now, we still need to be sure he's getting a certain amount of milk, and that is "fortified" so it's higher calorie. The fortifier is a powder that I mix into the pumped breast milk. I do feel good that I can feed him breast milk, though this whole experience has made me much more flexible in so many ways.