Caleb Week 3

It's been a long week. Mom and Dad left Sunday and I have missed them. If absolutely nothing else the sanitation level in my house has gone down now that I don't have Mom to clean. The clutter stresses me out. I'm trying very hard to ignore it and just focus on the two things I really have to take care of - Caleb and myself, but clutter just makes me twitchy. Thankfully I had Adam to help me this weekend so the clutter in the main part of the house has gotten dialed back a few notches so I can at least breathe now. The thing still sticking in my craw at this point is the fridge. Things growl at me when I open it and I just haven't taken the cattle prod to it yet to beat it into submission.

Caleb is doing beautifully well in some ways. He's getting chubbier which makes me VERY happy. I love his little round cheeks and the way his thighs and arms are filling out. I love that its no longer a straight line from his arm pits to his diapers - he's working on a little fat round belly. He's staying awake for up to two hours at a time and sleeping for up to five hours at a stretch - for which I am eternally grateful. When he's awake he can be absolutely charming the way he makes the cutest faces and just stares into your eyes and cuddles and wiggles with all he's got. He could not be cuter or more beautiful. For the most part when he nurses he latches on beautifully and doesn't hardly do anything to hurt my poor nipples. And the thrush in his mouth is ALMOST gone. He still has a couple patches on the insides of his cheeks and the very back of his tongue, but he's 80% better. He's even started smiling in his sleep. It's ADORABLE! According to the parenting book I'm reading (and its by the American Academy of Pediatrics so I vote they have a clue), they smile in their sleep for a while before they start smiling at you. So I am waiting with baited breath for the day he smiles at me with his eyes open.

But that child is a BOOGER to feed. LOL. Oh man. My mom says I deserve a medal for sticking with breast feeding this long given how big of a brat he is. I am still having amazing levels of pain from the thrush. Or rather in the last 24 hours or so since I finally talked the doc into giving me some REAL drugs to kill this thing I'm now starting to have a reduction in pain, but for the last week and a half feeding him has really, really hurt. And what hurts the worst is when he latches on and since he's a lazy little sucker who likes to fall asleep and fart around so he pops on and pops off and pops on and pops off, he's latching on at least a dozen times in a single feeding, and we're doing 8+ feedings a day. Thats a lot of pain. It would just be annoying with out the thrush. With the thrush its.... special.

I do however have a serious stubborn streak and I've always wanted to breast feed b/c its by far what's healthiest for him and to be blunt I can't afford formula anyways. And now that I've gone thru 3 weeks of hell I don't want to throw all that hard work away and just go with formula. In another month I might change my mind but right now that's where I'm at. I've got yet another brilliant plan (I average 2-3 brilliant plans a week) on what I'm going to try next to get him to cooperate with eating and establish a nutritive milk supply in spite of his best efforts.

The pressure here for all you non-lactation experts is this: you get 4-6 weeks to establish your milk supply. If you don't have the kid eating nothing but breast milk by the time your window of opportunity is up for some reason that we don't know the milk supply will peak at 6 weeks and then start to dry up. That's the big problem with supplementing with formula early on, you don't get adequate stimulation so you don't establish a nutritive supply. To establish a supply you need one of two things- a good little sucker (which Caleb can be but only if he's in the mood) or a medical grade breast pump.

So the gist of my problem goes like this - I'm not producing enough breast milk to keep him happy. So I need to nurse/pump more. So I feed him for 20 mins on each side and then I need to pump for another 20 minutes for the stimulation. So after I've spent 40 mins feeding the kid, he's only sometimes full, the rest of the time he SCREAMS until I give him a bottle of either previously pumped breast milk or formula. We need to have it be nothing but breast milk b/c that means I'm making enough. So far we haven't made it more that 24 hours with out at least 1 formula bottle.

But look at the time we're talking about here- he wants to eat roughly every 3 hours. The 3 hour count down to the next feeding starts when the first feeding BEGINS - not ends. And the boobs need to be emptied and THEN they refill. If they don't get emptied the body thinks that "oh I made too much, make less next time" which is the OPPOSITE of what we're going for. So after nursing for 40 mins, I then spend 15+ mins feeding the kid a bottle and THEN I get to pump for another 20 mins. Usually this whole process takes roughly an hour and a half. Then I get to feed myself, sleep, do whatever Caleb needs now for just over an hour before he starts screaming again. And this goes on 24-7. And just to make things a SMIDGEN more complicated: not sleeping enough, failing to eat frequently throughout the day, or getting too stressed all cause your milk supply to decrease. :)

And the more bottles he has the less he wants to breast feed. Bottle feeding is easy. It doesn't require half the work breast feeding does. And the kid ain't stupid, he like every other human on the planet is inherently LAZY. So now he's started nursing and then popping off to scream b/c he wants the bottle, but he's hungry and not getting it so he'll latch again for a minute and then pop off to scream again to let me know that he still wants the bottle. His diaper is clean, he's not too hot or cold, he's not sick, hurting or needing to burp. And if I give him the bottle he will settle down perfectly happy and suck away and not make a single peep. He's just ticked I'm making him work. And every time he pops off it hurts. And its just a tad stressful to get screamed at.

So my brilliant plan is that he gets 20 mins per side, unless he's being a good little sucker and then he can have it for up to 30 mins per side. I will then pump aggressively so that I can build my supply so that I can meet my goal of going three days with out having to give him a single formula bottle. When we get to that point I will know that I am producing enough milk and then we get to go through hell for a couple days. Because then I will cut off the bottles totally, and he is NOT going to be happy about it. But if I manage this feat in the next 2 weeks I just might be able to establish a nutritive supply and then we won't starve to death buying formula for the baby.

I'm a little ray of over sharing sunshine aren't I?

In other news I made significant headway towards reclaiming my humanity this week by managing to shave my legs and do my eye brows for the first time since my son was born. It's sad how much better the eyebrows in particular make me feel. lol.

I promise I'll post pictures sometime soon... If the stuff in the fridge doesn't eat me first. I posted some to facebook- iPhoto '09 will send picture emails and publish directly to facebook for me. I just need it to post directly to blogger for me now and I'll be set.