Even with the enforced minimal-productivity rule, I'm getting pretty tired the last couple of days. Eric caught up with my milk production, so I've been pumping a lot--and today I have started shooting for every 90 minutes, hoping to manage 10-11 sessions in 24 hours in order to keep my supply up. The lactation consultant came this morning, and she said that maintenance of supply is one of the struggles finger-feeding moms face. I had a terrible time at one this morning, when my let-down reflex went AWOL and I got nothing from either breast. I was convinced I was drying up, but probably I was just tired, worried, and stressed. It's been better since then, and when the consultant was here, Eric actually latched on and nursed, and, with the help of the finger-feeder as a supplementer (we just popped the tube into his mouth along with my nipple) he ate his first meal at the breast. A big breakthrough--and with the consultant here, akin to when you take your car in to the mechanics and it runs just fine for them. She warned us against expecting him to just start magically nursing now, but you have to figure that if he can do it once, he can do it again, so hopefully we'll continue to see progress.
She gave me a chart of the steps that babies with latch-on problems take as they're learning to nurse. Eric has followed the steps to the letter, as if he had read the chart, and it makes me wish I'd had the chart two weeks ago--I could have seen how each bit of progress we made fit into an established pattern that is recognized for babies like him, and how he follows the pattern of having a breakthrough to the next level and then spending a few days moving back and forth between the two until the new skill is established.
Posted by Su Penn at June 12, 2003 12:13 PM | TrackBack