Charlie and Daisy's Relactation Story.
OK here's my breastfeeding journey, which I hope will be an inspiration to some of you.
Daisy was born at home in a pool with no complications at all, the midwife wrote down that i had a 5.5 hour labour ie: from 3 cm's onwards, but in reality i'd say it was a 10 hour labour as that's how long i was having painful contractions for.
I hadn't really given breastfeeding much thought, i'd worried myself silly over the labour and i just thought that as long as i can get through that, then the next 18 years will be a doddle, oh how silly was I !!!
I didn't' try and latch Daisy on straight away because i was in the pool and i was worried about drowning her, i was also knackered and just wanted to get out of the pool and deliver the placenta then i could look at her properly.
So it was probably an hour after the birth that i tried to breastfeed and it went ok, but she was very sleepy by then so we didn't' get very far.
I continued to try to breastfeed for the next two weeks, first of all it took a while for the milk to come in and the midwives said she was jaundice so we had to formula feed her (i think this was a big mistake) I kept putting her to my breast but she was not good at latching on, her mouth seemed to small and i couldn't quite get my boob in whilst her mouth was at it's widest, it was all so awkward, she was so tiny and i was so tired. Then my nipples started hurting a lot, it was horrendous, they were very weepy (not bleeding) and they seemed rather swollen, so i used nipple shieds, which as i have discovered since is really not a solution seeing as it teaches the baby to latch onto them and it reduces your milk supply.
Then i started to feel flu-type symptoms, i woke up in the night shivering trying to feed Daisy but i'd be dripping sweat all over her, it was a dreadful experience, one minute i was boiling hot, the next minute i was freezing cold, then i noticed a big red patch on my right boob and it was only a couple of days later that a friend of mine told me it was mastitis, so I had to get antibiotics from the doctor.
I soon realised that i really wasn't enjoying breastfeeding, it was awful, i felt awful, Daisy didn't seem to be happy, she would get frustrated on my boob (still using the shields) and she would cry. Straight after a nightmare feed i would start to dread the next one, and in Sainsbury's i would start to longingly look at SMA Gold tins and all the bottle paraphernalia etc... Imagining how much easier it would be with bottles etc....
So after two weeks i quit breastfeeding and starting formula feeding. At first this seemed brilliant, my boobs went back to normal, i felt human again and it was easy to feed Daisy, she wanted feeding every 3.5/4 hours and i could go out and about and begin to enjoy being a mum.
Eight weeks later when Daisy was nearly 10 weeks old, after going through several weeks of feeling guilty and that i really should have tried harder, i decided to give breastfeeding a go again. Several people on the iVillage breastfeeding support board told me to latch Daisy on as often as possible and to try taking Domperidone (Motilium over the counter), a breastfeeding councillor also recommended the same drug which can kick start your milk again, so i phoned my doctor just to ask her advice. She'd never heard of the drug being used to re-lactate but she read out the details of Domperidone to me over the phone and it did say that a side effect of the drug was to bring about lactation in some circumstances so i went and bought a packet from the chemist.
This time I didn't use the nipple shields, I was determined to try it with naked skin. Thankfully Daisy instantly latched on (i don't think i'd have managed it if that part had been a struggle) and it didn't hurt half as much as it did before, i started to take 3 Motilium tablets every day, i also took Fenugreek tablets, Milk Thistle & Nettle drops.
I started latching her on before every bottle, at first she would only suck for 20 secs each boob and often she would look at me like i was mad for even offering my boob, but if i didn't look at her she sucked for longer every time.
At first i also pumped straight after giving her, her bottle and i couldn't get anything out at all but i persevered.
I took my concoction of legal drugs three times a day for 10 days, i started to get a tiny bit of milk with my pump which was probably about 5ml, then i cut down to two tablets a day for 10 days, this was when i noticed that Daisy would latch on for a lot longer now and she was drinking less of her bottle, hooray, i had been told that a baby is far more efficient than a pump so i just had to keep remembering this so that i didn't give up. By this time i was only pumping once a day at about 10pm when Daisy was in bed, i just couldn't bare to sit there and pump for so long only to get hardly anything, then suddenly I noticed that if I pumped in a hot bath, that I could get 1oz, then it shot up to 2oz, i was amazed that it was finally working.
I cut down to only one concoction of lotions and potions a day for a further 10 days and i noticed that straight after her morning breastfeed 6/7am, she started to not want hardly any of her bottle so i cut that bottle out straight away, then a couple of days later i was able to cut out the next bottle 9/10am so she was purely breastfed in the morning.
Now we only take fenugreek twice a day and Daisy only has one small bottle of formula around lunchtime as my boobs seem to run out around this time, she takes between 2/3/4 oz, and occasionally she goes without completely, then at bedtime after her bath she has a bottle of expressed milk from the night before. How much i can get the night before depends on what time it is and what i've done that day but usually i can get 4oz, sometimes only 3.5, occasionally 5oz, i'm hoping to increase it more and more so that i can give Daisy expressed at lunchtime as well, but at the end of the day I'm ecstatic that I have managed to breastfeed Daisy again, one bottle of formula a day is better than five/six.
She is now over 15 weeks old, and we've been breastfeeding for over 5 weeks and I can't believe how normal it feels, I'm beginning to forget the 8 weeks of sterilization hell I went through and I love that fact that I can just give my boob to Daisy and she's happy scoffing away.
Charlie n Daisy