Feeding Fun -- Birth to 5 Months.

Breastfeeding started off well, with Eli feeding right away after he was born. He got the hang of it pretty quickly and even with a cracked nipple (ouchy -- it sounds as painful as it was) we were doing really well. Eli hit a growth spurt around 3 weeks old and wanted to eat ALL the time, which almost drive me to insanity. Fortunately, at the end of that week my parents came to help and Elijah slept almost all night on a special pillow-top mattress – my dad. :) I got to sleep, yippee! Of course I leaked all over the place, but that was a small price to pay for precious hours of sleep.

For the next few weeks the breastfeeding was going well, but after about 6 weeks (right around when the hormones triggered by birth start to drop and your body, through supply-and-demand action, has to begin to produce enough hormone to stimulate milk production adequately) Elijah started getting less and less content after eating. We thought he was just having a hard time falling asleep or was just colicky, but looking back I think part of it was hunger (not all, but part at least).

Around 8 weeks I was getting more and more concerned though. I couldn’t pump hardly anything to store-up for when I went back to work, Elijah was wanting to eat all the time, did not stay content very long after finishing eating, and I was getting almost no sleep, since he was still waking up 2 or 3 times a night to eat. At his two month appointment he had dropped to the 10th percentile for weight, and while still healthy, was certainly growing at a slow rate. They weighed him and then had me feed him and reweighed him and all he had eaten (after 15 minutes) was half an ounce! I went on herbs all kinds of junk to try and boost my milk production, but it is just not practical to nurse a baby every 2 hours and just “throw” in 2 more pumping sessions during the day. Uhm, when exactly am I supposed to do that?! All of this turned me into a walking stress-ball and a very unhappy mom -- looking back I realize how close to the edge of losing it I really was.

Anyway, that was a long way of saying that we ended up supplementing with formula, beginning right around 11 weeks old, which made Elijah MUCH happier immediately! He guzzled down six ounces, then looked up at me and smiled. Turns out he’s a happy little baby! Pretty soon after starting on formula, even with nursing before supplementing and everything, he decided that he liked the bottle better than mommy, and he started not wanting to nurse. So we ended up feeding him pumped milk in a bottle and then formula.

Turns out I’m not cut out to be a dairy cow though (even with meds and herbs to help) and after a few weeks I was pumping about 5-6 times a day (taking about 3 hours or more a day to do this!) and only getting 4-6 ounces for the ENTIRE day. This really seemed ridiculous to us, since it was taking so many hours throughout the day. If I had been getting a lot it would have been a different story (but then, if I had been making enough milk then Eli wouldn’t have been getting formula anyway!). So, at around the 4 month mark the pumping stopped and Elijah had his last drop of breast milk. I still wish I could have breastfed him longer, but I also appreciate Jon being able to take the morning feedings easily when I’m off to work, and being able to leave him overnight with Grandma and have some nights off! One not so great thing about formula though – it’s expensive (eBay is wonderful, let me tell you) and the poopies stink on formula A LOT more than on breast milk. Oh well! I still get upset sometimes about not being able to continue, but it really was the best decision for our family. The most important thing is a happy, healthy baby, with a happy mommy, not a walking stress-ball mommy.

We're getting ready to start solid foods soon, so we'll keep you updated on how that goes, it should be fun!