Yesterday (Monday 12th March) was a bit of a terrible day in a sense, which was mainly my fault… Had a visit from the health visitor around lunch time, which in itself was good and fine. The health visitor completed the hearing test, which had to be abandoned last week, for Jessica’s left ear and confirmed that her hearing was fine on this ear too. Also, Jessica was weighed again, and is now 4.26 kilos, so she is growing at a very good rate. Jessica’s breastfeeding skills have been a bit all over the place lately, this is partly thanks to top ups in the shape of some formula but increasingly expressed breastmilk.
I asked the health visitor for advice regarding the breastfeeding situation and she said that, really, I should feed from the bottle as little as possible to not discourage Jessica from feeding from the breast – the latter is more difficult, takes longer to feed and requires more effort from the baby, so Jessica might decide to reject breastfeeding and prefer the bottle if given the choice. The good piece of advice was to not despair as a lot of babies take up to a month to acquire good breastfeeding skills, and that it could’ve been the jaundice that put a spanner in the works by making Jessica extra sleepy and less inclined to make the necessary effort. The piece of advice that turned out not to be so helpful was that I should persist in trying to breastfeed Jessica and only bottle feed ‘if necessary’.
As a muddle-headed new mum, I made Jessica spend the whole afternoon trying to get full by breastfeeding alone. This left us both exhausted, me unable to do anything else that afternoon (unless I wanted a crying baby as soon as I put Jessica to the side – getting myself something to eat and drink was just about all else I managed), and Jessica unable to satisfy her hunger as the pace at which she was able to feed was not keeping up with the pace at which she was getting hungry again…
The heartbreak of seeing her so hungry finally made me come to my senses and I warmed up some expressed milk I had stored in the fridge from that morning and fed her from the bottle. She gulped it all down and was finally calm and happy… With advice from Ian and my sister, Jessica and I will have a go at the breastfeeding first every time she is asking for food, but I won’t let it go any longer than half an hour to an hour before I feed her from a bottle, if she’s not able to get enough in that time herself. Should it turn out that I have to express milk to feed her from the bottle for the next 6 months, so be it – I’d rather do that than have Jessica go hungry…!
A few more piccies of Jessica. (As a very biased mum: isn’t she lovely…?)
Gabriella