Despite the many more interesting posts I could write, I write this now partly simply to have a record for myself. And to recognise what fills my days and nights at the moment. Feeding.
The feeding could be said to be going well in that he is 4.6 kilos as of this morning, or about 10lb2oz. And well in that he has been solely on breastmilk since last Wednesday, and today I had to freeze what I pumped overnight as we've a serious stockpile in the fridge (nothing to those of you with abundant supply, but freezing 100mls is a big deal for me).
However, I can't keep him on the breast past about 5 minutes (on the right breast) as he gets frustrated with the flow once it slows down and starts crying and pulling off and on the breast. Once I add in the supplement via the syringe he's fine. I've managed to reduce the supplement to about 40mls a feed for most of the day, although bizarrely the breakfast-time feed, where I can pump 100mls afterwards in one go, is the one where he demands the most supplement, up to 70mls or so. I think aligned with my overall supply issues is a flow issue, and while I can overcome the supply problem with Domperidone and pumping, I apparently can't (yet) fix the flow issue. The solution often offered by the breastfeeding experts is to keep swapping breasts so he gets the fast flow more regularly, but since my left breast is a serious under performer which only has about a minute of happy sucking, this doesn't really work for me.
He's also much harder to settle after a feed than Pob was. I think he has real issues with gas as when he wakes up from a nap he'll spend a good 5 minutes doing serious farts, and it's incredibly hard to burp him. I tried Infacol but that just resulted in him vomiting a lot after every feed, as opposed to now where we usually just get a small vomit - 5mls or so. Can't tell you how frustrating it is to have the baby vomit up the milk you just spent 15 minutes pumping to get.
So it's ok. Better than perhaps I had expected, but not sure whether there is a lot of improvement still available. We'll see how the next few days go. I'm giving myself til 6 weeks and reevaluating then - so 9 days to go.
Pob is doing well, although she's had a couple of very screamy days where nothing is ok and it's impossible to console her. We're about to swap nannies and I'm really nervous about the wrench that this will be for her as she's very attached to our current nanny (who chose to resign when Junior was 4 days old. And who refused to stay until we found a new nanny. But tells us how much she will miss Pob and cries regularly about leaving. Don't get me started). We'll have a week without any help, my MIL is signed up to come and spend a few days that week. Then the new nanny starts and obviously I'll need to spend more time with Pob than I'm doing now as she doesn't know this new nanny at all.
Not sure quite how to do that but think one solution will be to feed and pump downstairs in the play room rather than in our bedroom. I retreated up to the bedroom when feeding was so hard initially but have got in the habit of continuing to retreat there so I don't have to move the pump around all day and so I don't have to continually police where Pob is and what she's likely to grab next. She joins me in bed for the breakfast feed and that works ok, although it does require constant vigilance. Junior got quite a dramatic kick in the head yesterday which was totally unintentional on her part (she was "tumbling!" and ended up somewhere neither she nor I expected), but freaked me out. I hate saying 'no' to her so have been trying to just avoid the situation. Perhaps no longer.
We're doing ok. I'm really pleased with where we've got to with feeding while not being sure whether it will get any better. Pob is being adorable with the baby while having the normal 2-year-old dramas. H is being a hero doing Pob's bedtime on his own and making dinner each night. I am tired but not exhausted and have lost most of this pregnancy's weight (althugh yet to make a dent in last pregnancy's). And on Saturday Junior gave me a big cheesy grin. An upward trend, I think.
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