The Breastfeeding Update

(yawn as I'm pumping)

So. The breastfeeding update. Since little man had his tongue clipped, we've had tons of progress, which is pretty amazing. I can't believe it was only a week ago that he had his tongue clipped. 

I watched him after that day when I would try to nurse, and realized the lactation consultant was right: he was probably not going to learn to nurse unless the milk came really fast for him, i.e I was going to have to try the SNS again. I sat with that for a day or so, and summoned my courage to try it again. I emailed the lactation consultant for her best advice to make it less overwhelming/terrible, and followed her instructions, the most important of which was to only try a set amount of times, i.e. three, per day.

Saturday was our first try. Lauren came over that morning, so it was helpful to have her literally cheering from the sidelines and to help with positioning Mr. Man. He tried for about 5 minutes on the SNS, then became frustrated. I told myself it was a practice session and not to worry, to keep moving forward. The next time, he stayed on even longer. And he's been doing better and better each time since then. We try three times a day, sometimes he gets frustrated easily, but he keeps trying (and so do I), and we are learning how to do this together. 

Fast forward to last night and with the arrival of the new nursing pillow from Lauren (she is a GEM) to help me position him so I'm not killing my back every time: I put him on the pillow, put on the small nursing shield, and away he went, nursing like crazy for 20 minutes. TWENTY MINUTES. And the best part? He's learning how to pull down milk. While he has "nursed" off and on for 20 minutes before but wasn't pulling milk from me; now he's learning to suck properly and he's getting more milk. It's not perfect, and he required bottle feedings before and after this, but I'm taking it as a huge HYOOOOOOGE victory. 

Huge. (Pauses for applause)

Breastfeeding is something I've felt so strongly about doing; I didn't have any energy around other things related to Espen's birth, but breastfeeding is something I really want to get and do. It's so awesome to feel like the hard work he and I have both put into it may be finally coming to fruition. 

Also noteworthy: I discovered the lactation consultant was spot-on in her assessment of my at-home pump. My travel pump is the most expensive on the market, so I figured it was the best. It's what I used when I was endlessly losing my mind trying to pump milk for Lucia and what I planned on using when I go back to work in July (and I now know why my supply tanked). For everyday use I'm currently renting a hospital-grade pump and have been really happy with it. However, we went to Sacramento yesterday for my biannual haircut and I had to bring the travel pump. I pumped twice and realized it pulled way less milk from me than it should, like 40% less. Wow. I pumped twice yesterday while we were away and came home to the hospital grade pump to drain the rest. As she suggested, I'll be purchasing a used Pump In Style pump on Craigslist (I have the tubing and everything else) and selling the Freestyle in turn.