I am one of those people who was bent on exclusive breastfeeding for my baby before he was born. I read up a lot, spoke to many breastfeeding mums and psychoed myself into being a milk machine. When Marc was born, I breastfed him in the labour ward, even though a second dose of the anasthetic was given to me through my epidural and I felt like throwing up, along with getting the shivers cos the silly nurse overdosed me. Marc is a good sucker - to put it crudely - he latched on pretty quickly and had no problems sucking.
I told the nurses in the hospital that I wanted to breastfeed, so during my 2 night stay in the hospital, baby Marc was wheeled into the room in his plastic tub every 3 hours for a feed. I read that at that stage, I don't actually have any milk, but the body produces colostrum, which is high in antibodies and nutrients needed by the baby. These regular feeds are necessary to stimulate milk production, but it also meant that I got zero sleep, coupled with the flood of visitors during the daytime.
By the time I arrived home, I was already running on adrenaline - the sheer exhaustion is indescribable. The closest thing to it was when I didn't sleep in a 48 hour period during my Year 12 Maths Method project. Even that is peanuts compared to the early days of breastfeeding.
When we arrived home, Marc just wouldn't settle - I would let him suck till my nipples started blistering, then bleeding. All my pro-breastfeeding friends told me this was normal and to just bear with the pain till my nipples toughened up. The Husband was getting worried as he remembered pictures from our antenatal class where an overzealous mum let her baby suck for so long that she got such sore nipples that were infected and she could no longer breastfeed. Still I persisted.
On the first night back Marc's lips started to peel and he just wouldn't sleep at all. We were getting worried and he wouldn't stop crying - a good friend who's a second time Mum and successful breastfeeder told me to just supplement him with a little formula milk. The key is to get him to suck so that milk production is stimulated, but to stop after 15 minutes on each breast and just top up with a little formula. That did the trick and he finally slept.
Still I persisted and told the confinement nanny to bring him to me at nights whenever he cries. She told me outright that I would be totally exhausted by the second week but I insisted and said that I need to do this in order for my milk supply to come in.
And it came in all of a sudden on the Saturday after I came home from hospital in the form of breast engorgement. The pain is terrible - feels like giving birth through your nipples cos the pain is like muscle cramps all over your chest. My entire chest was rock hard and I couldn't even sleep properly! This didn't help things because baby Marc couldn't get any milk out due to the engorgement. I tried massage, cold compress, warm compress, but they helped minimally. This was until my Malay massage lady arrived on Monday morning for my slimming massage and wrap. She massaged my breasts and it was excruciating - but she managed to clear all the lumps and milk started to flow! What a relief! I also learn the proper massage technique which really helped.
Still baby Marc would suck for AGES - sometimes up to an hour and still end up screaming afterwards from hunger, so we would supplement. The first 2 weeks was an emotional roller coaster. I was so bent on breastfeeding, I felt so awful everytime I had to supplement him to stop his screaming. The Husband kept telling me that if I don't get any rest, I won't have enough milk anyway. Supportive friends told me to the same thing, relax, don't worry about the supply and make sure I get enough rest. Others said to stop giving him formula totally otherwise my supply will never catch up.
Herein lies the irony - if I don't supplement, he will scream his head off, which ends ups stressing everyone out, which means getting him to latch on again after 1 hour of sucking, which means he will be sucking continously, which means I won't get any rest, which means my supply will decrease. But if I supplement, he will sleep more and suck less, which means my breasts will not receive sufficient stimulation, which means my supply will also not be enough.
I ended up pumping extra to stimulate milk production so that I would have more milk for him. I took herbal remedies like fenugreek to get more milk, ate fish every meal every day, drank green papaya and fish bone soup and became totally obsessed with my milk supply.
Then I found out that baby Marc was no ordinary baby - at 2 weeks, he was drinking enough milk for a 1 month old! I was actually producing enough milk, for a normal baby his age, but not enough for this little monster! And the strange thing is that he's not a big baby by any standards. I kept thinking that I should still be able to produce enough milk for him so I kept pumping more milk at 2 hour intervals to stimulate production, which also meant less sleep at night. I'm now paying the price of my greediness - I have a miniature version of me!! When he wants his food, he makes it very clear and screams his head off and will give everyone hell until he's satisfied. And he takes his food VERY seriously, when he drinks, he zeroes in on the nipple, gobbles it up like a crocodile and covers his face with both his tiny little hands whilst he sucks voraciously. He even gulps his milk down loudly. Its like a war - he growls and grimaces as he tries to swallow every precious drop and sighs in between when he's tired from sucking. He makes such a racket when he's feeding that everyone can hear this tiny infant at my breast!
He recently went through a growth spurt in Week 3 and everything went haywire again. We weighed him today at the doctor's and he's put on 1kg in less than 3 weeks. We realised he was fussy and upset a lot because he wasn't drinking enough milk, so we topped up with more milk and he's gone back to his 3 hourly cycle again.
The Husband has been very supportive and put up with my obsessive compulsive streak with breastfeeding - he keeps telling me that 1) milk cometh not from the east or from the west but from the Lord and 2) breast milk is better, not best. In fact if I were to stop breastfeeding he would have no qualms after seeing how much I have tried and suffered sleepless nights.
Right now I'm at the stage where I've accepted the fact that I may never have enough milk for Marc and I may have to supplement as he grows, but I've stopped feeling guilty about it. I still get up at 3-4hourly intervals at night to pump but I've also learn to let go, rest as much as I can and not stress about the supply. After trying just about everything, I'm resigned to the fact that if God wants to multiply my milk supply, He will and He can, no matter what I do using my human efforts!
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