I have been successful, but by no means was it great in the begining.
When Evan was born he had tachypnia and a double pnueomothorax (in laymans terms he had trouble breathing and he busted a hole in each lung. Some first breath!) Anywho, he had to spend a day in the NICU.
I was robbed of those precious first moments where they put they baby on your chest and you get to snuggle and try feeding in the first hour. They gave him a pacifier in the NICU and I heard horror stories about pacifiers and breastfeeding. But I don't know what I'd do without one. It seems like no one has those ideal first moments.
When I finally did get to try to feed Evan the lactation consultants came. The first thing the woman told me was "When he opens wide, shove your breast in his mouth like a sandwich!" Wait what? I would freak out if I opened my mouth and someone shoved a sandwich in it. The sandwich technique was not working at all. Neither was lining up the nipple to the nose and putting it at his bottom lip (or however you are supposed to do it properly). I tried holds. Cross cradle, football, but not cradle because I wasn't an expert yet. The consultant got frustrated with me, because I didn't know how to do it right. Well no book or class can prepare you to effectively feed your baby.
She then blamed my nipples. She made me use a nipple shield. I would not recommend them to anyone. They are awful and hurt. They are clumsy and flimsy. Terrible terrible things. Everything that was going wrong, and she was blaming me and my lack of experience. Hello! no new moms are experienced.
I tried and tried and cried. When he came to my room finally, he was hungry and we still were not good at breastfeeding. I tried feeding him the entire day. Consultants brought a pump to my room. I didn't want to pump. I wanted to feed him straight from the source. By that night he was hungry and crabby and had only a few drops. After he cried for 2 hours I called a nurse. All she did was hold my frustrated baby to my breast and all he did was scream. She kept shoving his face at me. It was frustrating for both of us. She took him away for some tests and had me pump. That thing was EVIL. She turned it on full blast! In the end I got 20 mL and I fed it to him from the bottle and my baby was content.
The next day, my mom, an experienced breastfeeder took some time to try to help. The nurses obviously weren't. We captured some precious moments but no milk in baby's tummy. I got him to latch a few times but it wasn't magical.
Fast forward to today. Evan is almost a year. He still breastfeeds. We are good at it. I don't use any fancy holds or stupid nipple shields. He loves his milk and crawls up to me at night and usually nurses until he falls asleep. Its great. I don't have bottles to make and its really convenient, because baby boy still needs milk all night.
Recently some of my friends have had babies and really wanted to breastfeed. Lactation consultants told them that their babies couldn't breastfeed! One was told that her baby's mouth was too small and the other was told that her baby's bottom lip was not cooperating. I can only imagine the thing they were put through by lactation consultants and nipple shields and bleeding. Now they both pump which in my opinion is really hard work. I just wish for every mom that was told by a lactation consultant to give up and pump, that they could have found a nurse like mine.
We were made to breastfeed, no one said it would be easy. Its great to be able to give a baby a bottle but my heart goes out to the mommies that have been discouraged.
