Wesley's breastfeeding struggles

I was lucky enough to be able to breastfeed Tanner for 20 months.  He self weaned when I was in my 2nd trimester of pregnancy.  I figured since we had such an amazing breastfeeding journey (we fought through many issues but it always made us stronger) nursing my second baby was going to be a piece of cake.  Especially since we just stopped nursing 6 months ago.  Boy was I wrong. 

Wesley had some latching problems when he was first born.  Meaning, he just wouldn't latch, period.  Even if I attempted to use a nipple shield. So I was pumping around the clock at the hospital and attempting to get him to nurse as often as I could. He started losing weight (like normal), and the nurses were not happy with it. (For being a pro-breastfeeding facility they were pretty old school, unfortunately). The nurses were trying so hard to get me to supplement with formula, but my milk came in at 36 hours, and I knew I didn't need to do that. We attempted to use an SNS (supplemental nursing system), with pumped breast milk, in the hospital and at home, but it was incredibly frustrating and never really worked.  

At Wesley's first doctor visit he lost 14% of his birth weight.  The  pediatrician started freaking out and almost had us readmitted to the hospital.   Instead we had weight checks every couple of days.  I ended up having to try to nurse him, then pump, and then bottle feed him.  I was so worried about how I was going to be able to do this every 3 hours (when it took an hour and a half each time) and take care of my 2 year old at the same time.  This was the only time I felt like I had baby blues or the beginnings of depression.  I was crying all the time.  

We made an appointment with a lactation consultant and found out Wesley has a high arched palate, and that is the reason he wasn't latching.  She told us he would grow into it with time.  I was so relieved.  Because after doing a weighed feeding with the nipple shield, he was barely getting half an ounce of milk from me. 

(Reminder, we had this same problem with Tanner.  He wouldn't gain any weight until we weaned from the nipple shield).  I was determined to get Wesley to latch.  I didn't get my vbac. My incision had opened up again. I needed one thing to go my way. 

God heard my prayers. The day before Nick had to go back to work I decided to try to get Wesley to latch without the shield one more time. He did it!!! And he has never had any issues since! I don't even have any pain, he's got a perfect latch. It was like a light switch flipped, and he just figured it out! He was one day shy of two weeks old.  From that moment on I cut out the pumping.  I was so happy to have that extra time back.  I can actually spend time with Tanner during the day. 

Wesley is still a slow gainer though. But Tanner was, too, so I'm not worried.  Today Wesley weighed 7lbs 11oz. One ounce above his birth weight. He is nursing great now. And I'm happy with that.  I'm sure Wesley will be a little tank, just like Tanner is now.  

Sweet moments like this.

Im typing this on my phone while I'm in bed because I need to write this down before I forget. 

Tanner turned 19 months old yesterday. And yesterday marked 19 months that we've shared that special bond nursing. In the past month Tanner has one from nursing 3 times a day, to only once in the morning. So this morning I cherished it a little longer. I talked to him, and he talked back. (I know he was just picking up on words I was saying but it was so sweet)

I told him that I knew our special bonding time was going to stop soon, and that I will miss it. I told him other ways we could share special time together. And he replied, "Yeah! Yeah!" 

Then I told him how well we did, in relation to breastfeeding. How we overcame a lot of difficulties. We passed our goal of 12 months and were able to enjoy it. And Tanner said, "wooooow!"

 I told him "you know not everyone is able to do this, and that's ok". In which he replied, "no, I know."  

After that cute little conversation I had with him I couldn't help but imagine what he would look like in another year. Or what he will do when he's an adult. I know this time I have with him where I can swoop him up in my arms and kiss his little lips is short lived. He won't want his momma doing that soon. So I am taking every single day one at a time and enjoying the heck out of it. I can't believe God blessed me with such an amazing life with the most wonderful family. 

Breastfast Club Featured

My breastfeeding story was featured on Nurse Loves Farmer's blog today! Go check it out! 

Holey Nipples!

(This is the post I wrote for the Breastfast Club series over at Nurse Loves Farmer.  So it might sound a little funny.)

When I was pregnant with my son, I did what all other moms-to-be do, read.  I spent numerous hours with my nose in books (or in my laptop) reading information on being a mom.  I never really had to think about breastfeeding, though.  I always knew I would do it. From learning about all the wonderful “powers” breast milk has in nursing school, to calculating the cost of formula each month, it was a no-brainer.  I knew it wouldn’t be easy, but the closer I got to my due date, the more determined I became to make it work.

Tanner was born, and months flew by. Nursing seemed to come naturally to us (after getting past the brand new baby/sore nips stage, that is). After being pregnant for 9 months and having my son to myself for that whole time, breastfeeding was that special thing only I could do after he was born.  I grew to love it more and more, and so did he. 

Yes, I am nursing him here. I'm a little busty, haha!

And then when my Tanner was 10.5 months old, everything changed.  It started out as what felt like an uncomfortable latch.  Then it turned into raw spots on my nipples.  And then, holes.  Yes, holes.  It was almost like my son decided he wanted to use his teeth to latch on after 10 months of nursing perfectly.  The holes grew as did the pain.  I searched and searched for answers to why this was happening.  All I could find was, “what to do when your baby bites”, or “how to get over sore nipples with a newborn”.  Nothing applied to my situation.  I kept thinking, I couldn’t be the only person out there with this problem!  All I could do was try to change positions.  And each time I would do that I would get new holes.  At the peak of this terrible issue I had 7-10 deep, ½ inch long holes in each of my nipples. No amount of position changes, latch fixes, or creams helped. I couldn’t even get them to heal.

I had 6 weeks to make it to my breastfeeding goal of a year when this all began.  And I remember thinking to myself, “only 2 more days…”, while I screamed out loud from the pain as my sweet boy nursed before bedtime. 

I wasn’t ready to stop nursing.  But it had gotten so bad I didn’t know what else to do.  So I slowly introduced WCM to my son and decided I would stop cold turkey.  I spent all day and night crying my eyes out.  I seriously felt like a part of me was dying. 

I took this picture thinking it was my last time nursing him. I wanted to remember it forever.  I was also bawling my eyes out.

I didn’t nurse him for a full 36 hours. But during the afternoon after the 36 hour mark my Tanner crawled into my lap, signed “milk”, and pulled on my t-shirt.  I began crying again and I unhooked my nursing bra.  I gave in, and he nursed.  And there was no pain.

No pain.

I can only assume it was the time I was able to give myself to heal, and the prayers sent from not only me, but my loving family and friends.  I knew the problem wasn’t fixed though.  Something caused this latching problem and I needed to figure it out, fast, before the pain returned. 

What changed at the 10.5 month mark?  Why did my son stop nursing like he use to, when he would nurse perfectly fine 8-10 times a day for so long? And then, DING DING DING!!!! I figured it out.  Right around the time we began having this problem, I introduced a sippy cup.  And not any normal sippy, but a straw sippy cup. The kind that the straw has to be bitten to open the valve to get the water out.  He learned to bite the straw to drink, and he began doing the same thing to me when he nursed.  Right then and there the straw sippys were thrown out.  After a week or two with new sippy cups his latch was fixed! 

It took a lot of time, and patience, but I wasn’t ready to wean him.  And he wasn’t ready either.  I am so thankful for finally getting past those 8 weeks.  It was the most excruciating pain I have felt, probably because my heart was breaking as well. But I am happy to say my Tanner is now 15 months old and nursing is still going strong! Almost like we never had any bump in the road at all!

2 Years!

If you're uncomfortable reading about feminine things, don't read on any further. Since I am not going to cater to whomever reads my blog, I don't care what I write about anymore.  

I'm pretty excited.  Today marks two years since I last had a period.  I will thank Tanner breastfeeding for that.  I definitely had it lucky, as many of my friends with nursing babies had their period return much, much sooner.  

But it will be nice to have it come back at some point.  I'd like to maybe think about having another baby at some point.  :)

Speaking about nursing, it's been a very long time since I posted a nursing updated.  I wrote a post on a problem I had a couple of months ago and sent it to Sarah over at Nurse Loves Farmer.  She started a series called the Breastfast Club which is a bunch of different, unique stories on breastfeeding. They will be posted on Wednesdays. I will post my story I wrote for her on my blog tomorrow.