Feeding and Feeding and More Feeding

Magnus had a hard time finding his latch.

The nurse informed me that his first few days of breast feeding would mostly be about practice. Babes don’t need much nourishment in the first couple of days until the milk comes in (which takes 3 or 4 days – until then, babes survive on ‘pre-milk’ called colostrum which is rich in antibodies).  But they need to work on latching and their nutritional requirements do increase a little bit each day.

The first night we were in the hospital he slept most of the night through as is typical. The next day we spent a lot of time practicing nursing. Every 3 hours on the dot we would get him up and throw him on my chest. But he wasn’t latching. He’d fight and fuss the whole time. Late in the day, our nurse was as concerned as we were (I was pretty stressed that he wasn’t getting anything). So the nurse recommended we start pumping and finger feeding the little guy. So we adopted our 3 hour schedule to the following:

·         We would attempt breast feeding to encourage the practice. But after a short while we ended up feeding Magnus the colostrum I had pumped in the previous 3 hours. Matt would hold him all swaddled up (Matt’s pretty great at swaddling) while I took the very precious little bit of colostrum I had managed to pump, dipped my finger in it and stuck my finger in his mouth. He had a strong suck which was encouraging.

·         Matt and Magnus would then go to sleep while I stayed up for another 40 minutes or so pumping so that we had something to feed him in the next 3 hour session.

·         I would then get to sleep for an hour or so.

We did this for the rest of the day and throughout the night. As the night progressed, I was getting even more stressed because the little bit of colostrum I managed to pump ranged from 0.5ml to 2ml which is practically nothing! The way it works is that the more you nurse, the more milk (or colostrum) your body will make. It’s a demand driven supply system – as long as there is demand there will be ample supply. My maximum pump had been 2ml, and the nurse could see I was pretty upset. She suggested that in the morning a lactation consultant would come to our room to help us out.

At 8am I was incredibly relieved when the lactation consultant walked into our room. I couldn’t hold back the tears as I told her the tale of what we had been doing over the last 48hrs to try to feed Magnus. She was incredibly reassuring and was confident he would latch with ease soon. She watched my attempt to nurse him and got her hands right in there to reposition him over and over again. She cheated a bit by taking some of my colostrum in a syringe and pouring it into his little mouth as he was latching, the point of which was to associate my nipple with where the good stuff came from. And it worked pretty well. But she wasn’t happy with his suck. She said he was flicking his tongue as opposed to strongly sucking. And to make things worse, she declared he had a bit of a temper, wanting the satisfaction of the milk without having to work for it.

So after working with her for more than an hour, her advice was to continue doing what we were doing but to no longer finger feed him as the suck he was using for finger feeding was not the type of suck we wanted him to have on a nipple. Instead, she taught us how to spoon feed Magnus. And to ensure Magnus got his minimal nutritional requirements each day, we topped him up with formula. I was disappointed to have to use formula, but the plan was to use it only for a few days until my milk came in. So I continued to pump gaining more and more colostrum with each pump. At each feeding, after attempting to breast feed (which was getting better with each session) and after spoon feeding him the pumped colostrum, we would also spoon feed him some formula. On the third day of life the lactation consultant said he minimally needed 15ml at each feeding. So if I pumped 8ml of colostrum, we would finish his feeding with 7ml of formula. And I have to admit that I was beyond relieved when it worked. I just felt so much better that he was getting something into his little belly, and that with more practice he would latch well.

So it ended up that we stayed one extra night in the hospital because neither the staff nor I were comfortable with Magus’s latch. But when we left everyone was happy he and I had synched up. We continued with the spoon feeding for another day or so until my milk came in, and since then Magnus hasn’t had a problem nursing at all. J