I had a wonderful complication-free natural childbirth at a
hospital. It was a baby-friendly
hospital and I had read all of the books on breastfeeding. I was pretty confident I could figure it out.
However, those first moments after he
was born, I couldn't get him to latch.
He was rooting and hungry, but not latching. It was 10:45 pm and the lactation consultant
wouldn't be in until the morning. That
night was hard. I realized I had no idea
what I was doing. The night nurses were
nice, but not helpful. Finally, Karen
came in the next morning. She was
amazing. I sing the praises of IBCLCs to
anyone that will listen. She made the
difference. I met with her several times
before we left the hospital and each time things got better. By the time we left, my son was nursing like
a champ.
About four days after he was born, my milk came in. And boy, it came in fast and furious. We had family and visitors at the house. I was trying to figure out nursing with a
cover. I was in pain and engorged. It was a hard day. In the following days, it didn't get much
better. I had a fever. I had chills.
I felt lethargic. I assumed it
was all normal postpartum hormonal changes.
It wasn't. In hindsight I'm
positive it was mastitis.
We got through it, though.
My baby nursed constantly. Every 45 minutes during the day, every hour
and a half at night. This continued
until he started solids. Oh, and he
never took a bottle. We tried a few
times. I left him with family for
several hours and I came back to a cranky, hungry baby, and bottles still full
of milk. So I was with my baby, day and
night, never leaving him for more than an hour or so, for the majority of the
first year of his life.
When he was around 8 months old, I was sleep deprived and
slowly going insane. He was still waking
up every two hours at night, and I just couldn't handle it anymore. We slowly, gently, started night weaning with
the help of my wonderful husband. During
that time I came down with mastitis again.
(Don't sleep on your belly when your boobs are engorged!) But by 12 months old he was sleeping through
the night. Yay! Shortly thereafter, I also started cutting
back on him nursing in public. I could
offer him food and water instead of sitting down on the nasty grocery store
tile to nurse him in the middle of a shopping trip, which was awesome.
He's now 21 months old and we're nearing the end of our
journey. In the last couple of weeks
I've started cutting back on the times of day I'll let him nurse. He's handling it really well. He'll ask to nurse; I'll say no and redirect
him, and he's happy as a clam. Right now
he's nursing twice a day, once before nap and once before bed. We're going to finish the weaning process around
his second birthday. Part of me is sad
to see it come to an end, but I'm glad we made it this far. If you had asked me when I was newly pregnant
how long I would nurse, I would have told you that nursing a one year old that
could walk and talk was just weird.
"He's too old once he can ask for it!" I was one of those
people. Well, my son learned the sign
for milk at 9 months old, and we definitely weren't ready to stop then.
It's been a wonderful bonding time for my son and me. I'll always cherish these precious moments
snuggling, nursing, and connecting together.
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