Breastfeeding trauma
Ellis is incredible but I can’t believe how tired I am. I’m struggling with the breastfeeding. He seems to want to be drinking all the time. I’ve got a book that works on the Easy system. Eat, Activity, Sleep, You. This appears to be rubbish because he just wants to eat all the time. He cries all the time and I have no idea if what I am doing is right.
It all started off badly when he didn’t want to latch on in hospital. I couldn’t feed him straight away because he wasn’t interested immediately he was born and then I was whisked up for some needlework so I was out of the picture for a couple of hours. I thought we would be home that night but because I lost a lot of blood they wouldn’t let me go. The first night was a nightmare – poor little thing was bawling his eyes out and I got seriously manhandled by a couple of midwives trying to get the latch right. I was so tired I could have cried, so the fact that she was squishing my boob into his mouth seemed perfectly acceptable and normal. I was stuck in a ward for three days with three other mums and babies and they were all awake in rotation so there was no sleep to be had. In the end one of the midwives suggested a bottle and it seemed cruel not to feed him. I fear that was my first mistake. He never really got back into it and now he’s just desperate to be fed with a bottle and I’m just desperate to feed him myself.
It is truly overwhelming sometimes and it’s difficult to put into words how confusing, frustrating and uncontrollable this all is. There is conflicting advice. Not much help available for when you don’t know what to do and a lack of support from everyone who just thinks the baby should be on the bottle and done with it.
go to kellymom … lots to help you there. also look at growth spurts. it takes 6 wks to establish BF