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3rd Trimester
J+MS
member
Wife and other BF'ing champs.
J+MS
member
Please let me pick your brain.
I'm tired of all the BF'ing confusion. Do you or do you not pump the first couple weeks? Do you or do you not let them feed whenever or keep them on a schedule? Are pacifiers a no-no till a good latch is established??
I need help. Teach me.
"Seriously, mommy forum people are some crazy ass bitches." New Year New You
This discussion has been closed.
Re: Wife and other BF'ing champs.
I am not a champ...more like a failure. O never latched. I tried for weeks with LaLeche and a lactation counsultat. I exclusively pumped and I hated it.
Some blame nipple confusion (bottles, pacifiers) on improper latch, lack of breast feeding desire, etc. On the other hand, I have several friends who offered a pacifier and pumped within the first month without any problems.
You always feed newborns when they are hungry, no matter if you are breast feeding or formula feeding.
Dr. Sears breastfeeding book is a fabulous resource!
This is my experience: I pumped starting in the hospital for about 2 weeks and became super engorged. I am back and forth on whether or not I will do it again. I DO believe that pumping helped get my supply up to where it needed to be with LO. I only really felt pain for a day. I fed up until LO was 1 on demand. I don't eat on a schedule so I don't expect LO to. The only "schedeuled" feedings we did were right after waking up and right before going to bed. We offered a paci at about 2w and she has never taken one. I have heard horror stories of people offering earlier and not getting a good latch. GL
Oh, I also rented our pump from the hospital. I didn't use it much after the first few weeks of pumping. I felt like a cow and am a SAHM so I am always available for LO.
See, I did not know this. I will definitely check out that book. Are you going to try again with LO # 2??
See, I did not know this. I will definitely check out that book. Are you going to try again with LO # 2??
I definitely will! I'm already stressing out about it because I want it to work so bad! I have a decent pain tolerance but I'm afraid that the pain (cracked nipples, trouble latching, etc) along with all the other stresses of a new baby will make me wimp out. (I'm not a very patient person) I think I want to put off pumping for the first week or two...but I guess it all depends on how it goes.
Thanks for getting this all cleared up. Sounds like much of what I've heard about LOs in general... much of this will depend on their preferences regardless of how much we try to prepare! LOL
From what OPs have said, it sounds like a good idea to have a pump early on in case you need to increase supply or have latch issues (although someone mentioned it creating too much of a supply- yikes!). I think I'm going to buy one beforehand but not open it until ready.
Pumping at first can make you overproduce but I just had to pump some out bc LO couldn't even latch they were so full. So it's kind of a soft line there.
We have always fed on demand. DS got in a schedule on his own and this one is on a 2-3 hour schedule so far as well.
Pacis were always a no with us
Did you pump early due to engorgement, or do you think the engorgement was caused by pumping early on?
I totally agree with this - I didn't have one and had to have my mom pick up a hand pump. My issue was that my breasts were too full and my DS was getting sprayed in the face when he tried to eat. My LC suggested pumping a little off to relieve some of it so that he'd have an easier time. This definitely worked for me. I do wish, however, that I'd had an electric pump - I later invested in a Medela Pump in Style Advanced (when DS was a few months old and just before I went back to work). There was a definite difference!
Other items that I'd recommend having on hand immediately after birth are some lanolin (I liked Lansinoh - the nurses gave me some in the hospital, and it made a real difference.) Also have your breast pads and sleeping bras on hand. I didn't when I first came on and had a real mess on my hands!
The only thing for sure is that you should feed LO on demand. Other than that, it is trial and error. We didn't give DS a paci until several weeks out, and he never took one...that has pluses and minuses. We started a bottle at 2wks because he wasn't gaining weight and I had supply issues. Because of past supply issues, I plan to pump from the get-go this time around. There is no way to know that, though, without having been through it with your body before. Just like with everything else, every LO is different and every mom is different. It would be easier if everything was all cookie-cutter and could completely prepare beforehand!
It is hard in the beginning, but very worth it! Like PP said, don't be afraid to reach out and ask for help/advice.
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This is my experience: I pumped starting in the hospital for about 2 weeks and became super engorged. I am back and forth on whether or not I will do it again. I DO believe that pumping helped get my supply up to where it needed to be with LO. I only really felt pain for a day. I fed up until LO was 1 on demand. I don't eat on a schedule so I don't expect LO to. The only "schedeuled" feedings we did were right after waking up and right before going to bed. We offered a paci at about 2w and she has never taken one. I have heard horror stories of people offering earlier and not getting a good latch. GL
Oh, I also rented our pump from the hospital. I didn't use it much after the first few weeks of pumping. I felt like a cow and am a SAHM so I am always available for LO.
i was told not to pump till ds was 2 weeks old. but i started pumping when i got home from the hospital. i was so engorged, i needed a little relief. but i also continued to pump from then on as well as nursing. i had a massive over supply, so i had a freezer full of milk.
i fed ds on demand. it worked out the best for the both of us. he would he when he was hungry.
ds was fine with a pacifier all along.
this.
as soon as i had my pump (when ds was about 4 days old) i started pumping, just to relieve myself. i had planned at the time to return to work (tho i didn't) and pumped daily to build up a supply in the freezer. the extra milk really came in handy. we didn't give paci or bottle until 4 weeks, or when we were nursing pros (which was recommended in most of the research i did back then) and it worked out very well. the extra milk was nice when we started giving him bottles, i could get a little down time will dh or someone else fed him occasionally (every 2 hours can be hard). we didn't schedule, and never have. we've free fed for over a year and it's worked great for us, though we do have a loose schedule now just from habit.
gl
Pumping--I was lazy and put off buying a pump until about a week 1/2 before I had to go back to work, so about 9 weeks after Betsy was born (I went back to work at 10.5 weeks). I kind of wish I had started pumping sooner to build up my freezer stash, though. I intended to start pumping and introducing bottles at about 5 weeks, but I kept putting it off. I did get engorged the first few days my milk came in and I used cabbage leaves for that.
Schedule--During my maternity leave I nursed Betsy on demand--we had no set feeding schedule. She would nurse every 2 hours or so and then cluster feed in the evenings, which I think helped her STTN so early. Now that she is in daycare her daytime schedule is more regular but I still cluster feed in evenings.
Paci--It really just depends on the baby. My kid is a sucking machine, she never had any trouble with latch or nipple confusion. She has had her paci since she was 3 days old and can still go between paci, bottle, and boob with absolutely no problem.
Do you or do you not pump the first couple weeks? Well for us the LCs at my hospital had me pumping 5 minutes before trying to BF to try to bring out the nipples and to hopefully help get milk to come in sooner. They did this through b/c DS came out 9lbs 12oz and they really wanted me to be successful at BF. After day 4 when my milk came in I stopped doing this until week 3 when I started pumping twice a day. I did this to get a freezer stash for going back to work and this is when we started doing a bottle once a day. DH did the 10-11pm bottle so that I could sleep from 930 until 2-3am. This was the best thing we ever did.
Do you or do you not let them feed whenever or keep them on a schedule? This one everyone debates so do what you feel is right for yall. For us, I fed DS every 3 hours during the day then let him go at night. It worked great for us.
Are pacifiers a no-no till a good latch is established?? This one also depends on the baby. DS never had nipple confusion. He went between bottle and breast from 3 weeks on. He never really took to the paci through especially after he had swine flu at 8wks and the hospital kept putting sugar water on the paci to try to comfort him while they did an IV. After that little episode he screamed anytime he saw a paci.
1) I started pumping about 1 week pp. It helped with the engorgement, which was pretty painful in the beginning.
2) I let her feed on demand which was about every 2 hours around the clock.
3) I gave her a pacifier while in the hospital because she was trying to use me as one. Let me tell you, when it's 4am and the baby wants nothing more than to be attached to you, you get desperate. Your nipples are so sore in the beginning. The nurse said there are some babies that are naturally "sucky" and giving them a pacifier might help a baby in the long run. I gave her a pacifier and we had no issues with nipple confusion. Kaitlyn's almost 11 months and she still breastfeeds. Every baby is different though, so use your best judgment. There's a lot of women on here who are either for or against pacifiers.
For me personally I did the following:
Pumped within the first two weeks (I returned to work at 6 weeks and needed to start a freezer stash)
I let DD feed whenever she wanted to until I went back to work and when I had a set working schedule she had to eat whenever we were together and we ended up having a set routine.
We used pacis from the start and had no issues at all with latching.
Honestly it all depends on the mother and baby. Some babies were "born to breast feed" (that's what my LC told me about DD) and some just don't quite get it. (my sister's son had the hardest time with latching).
First let me say that bfeeding was hard in the begining. If not for DH, I'm not sure I could have made it - the first week was painful! But, then, almost overnight, everything was easy-peasy.
I started pumping the day after my milk came in. I had an oversupply, I guess, and I could not fee her in the mornings without pumping a little. My boobs were waking me up before she did. I would pump a little before I fed her, feed her in the morning an dsometimes pump again if I was still engorged. I know this encouraged an oversupply but it also gave me a great stash for when I went back to work. Much less stressful too if I had to be away - there was always milk for her.
We were never on a schedule. She slept for 4 - 5 hours after her first feeding in the morning and then she'd nurse closer and closer together for the rest of the day. We usually ended up cluster feeding at night which I think helped her sleep through the night almost from the begining.
She never took a paci - though we did try. I started offering a bottle at just 2 weeks, I think. Everything was going well and she was a champion nurser and I was terrified that she wouldn't take a bottle if I waited too long. She got a bottle in the evenings every day and I always pumped while DH fed her the bottle so I didn't 'miss' a feeding.