In a series of unrelated events over the past few days, my breastfeeding attempts have taken a whole new turn.
1. THERE IS MILK!
With Kirsten in the hospital for phototherapy treatment for 3 days, I’ve been faithfully drinking the nasty papaya fish soup which smells like a shoal of rotten fish that’s left to decay for a month. At first, everyone thought it was an exaggeration, until I offered $5 to the husband to try it. Suffice to say, the puke-inducing look totally made my day.
I’ve slso been expressing milk every 3 hours (even at night, which is a huge sacrifice). Yesterday, the milk finally decided to come in and even though I’ve only got 5 ml after 30 mins, it was enough reason for me to do a victory dance.
2. Kirsten has become a milk drinking machine.
I don’t know what it is about my kids and food, but they can sure eat a lot. I’ve come to terms with the fact that Tru is insatiable, but I wasn’t prepared that my baby girl would be one cute little eating machine that would beat him hands down.
During the 3 days she was in the hospital, she’s been consuming 100 ml every 3 hours. When Tru was her age, he could barely finish 40 ml. Scary, I know.
3. The first successful latch on
After many tries and a lot of crying, I finally managed to get Kirsten to latch on. I lasted about 15 minutes per side before she got really agitated. Couldn’t really blame her since I’m producing less than 10% of her feeding requirements.
So right now the plan is to feed her directly from the breast for as long as I can and then supplement with formula. At this point, she still needs another 80 ml of formula to fill her little tummy. Hopefully at some point, I’ll be able to completely eliminate the bottle.
One step at a time.
