The wonderful world of breastfeeding*

*Just a warning to my friends without kids - this may just be a little too much information! I mean, it REALLY is a whole post about breastfeeding. 

Ah, the wonderful world of breastfeeding. I really had no idea how difficult it was going to be - I saw other mothers doing it and it just looked so easy. I was in for a rude awakening. We had problems with the latching on, we had positioning issues, and lastly, lets just call them "time management" issues. Eventually we found what worked for us. We used a nipple shield and My Breast Friend and neither of these items ever missed a feeding.

So, we are almost six months in and we have really found our groove. From the beginning everyone told me that breastfeeding was such a great bonding experience with your child and I honestly didn't really feel what they were talking about. I mean I loved little Ryan but I just felt like all I did was feed him and I couldn't get anything else done. At first I just wanted to make it to six months, then I changed that to four months because it was so difficult. Now, as we are approaching six months I really don't want to stop at all. I LOVE waking up to my smiling little man and getting to hold him and cuddle with him for 45 minutes as he nurses. He is in the best mood in the morning and I just love waking up and spending our mornings together. Then throughout the rest of the day I know we can play and run errands but I also know that every few hours I get to hold my little man in peace and quiet and enjoy our time together. I am so not ready to stop nursing yet and really hope we don't have to any time soon!

Now, I am no nursing expert. I still am learning things as I go and I have recently made some changes that have affected us and I am kinda freaking out a little bit.  This past Sunday I tried nursing him without using a nipple shield because I heard that babies can get more milk that way - well holy moly - that little man sucked out all my milk! On one hand I was super excited because he has gotten so efficient but on the other hand I am worried because I have no milk left over to pump for bottles! After he nurses in the morning I had been getting an additional 5 ounces. Now that he is nursing without the nipple shield I am hardly getting anything!!! I got two ounces the last two days and only half and ounce TOTAL today! I pumped for 25 minutes and thats all I got!   So it may not seem like a big deal but the issue is that daddy has been giving him a bottle before bed since he was basically a month old and that is his routine and I don't want to mess with that because he sleeps SO well!

So I am trying not to stress about it because I know that won't help. It is just making it so much more difficult because I usually bring a bottle to playgroup, and to his physical therapy and any doctor appointments in case he gets fussy and now I don't have that flexibility. I have to save every drop that I get for the night. I have some bottles in the fridge and some milk in the freezer but the supply is running low. I am going to keep pumping and hope that my supply catches up so wish me luck.

Update: Tonight when Kevin was giving R his bottle he forgot to screw the top on and we lost an ounce! Yikes! I am sure you can imagine how I felt about that. Anyhoo, we decided to just try and give him formula to see if he would take it AND he did. He downed 5 ounces of breast milk then sucked down two ounces of formula without even noticing. I don't really want to switch him to formula yet, but at least we know he will take it if he has to! Whew!