Oh, E. I love you, but you are a crazy, crazy little man. As I've said before, we had EVERY problem in the breastfeeding book. To be fair, the problems were pretty evenly split between me and E, so we both had to learn to deal with each other's issues. Foreshadowing for the rest of our lives together, perhaps :)? Here are some of the challenges my crazy, lovable baby presented me with:
- Sleepy
baby: Mr. E was quite the sleepy little fellow when he was first born. A combo
of coming 3 weeks early and being jaundiced really knocked him out. We did
EVERYTHING to keep him awake, including (but not limited to): feeding him in a
diaper only; applying a cold, wet washcloth to his body; tickling his feet;
stroking his cheek, head, belly, neck, etc; changing his diaper in the middle
of the feed. Eventually, the sleepy little monster woke up, and then we had…
- Super
hungry baby: As in ravenous, I will scream bloody murder if you remove the boob
from my mouth hungry. He continued to be like that until we introduced solids at 6 months, so here are the solutions I dreamed up.
Number one, I tried to realize that if he was growing appropriately and wasn't losing
weight or turning into the State Puff Marshmallow Baby, there was really no need
to try to follow any food consumption schedule but his own. Number two, if I’d given him adequate time on both sides (generally a combined max time of about 30
minutes once he had gotten the hang of it), I tried to take a little break
after feeding even if he was “complaining” about it. Sometimes babies just want
to suck for comfort even if they’re already full, which is fine. Some people
choose to let them keep sucking and others try the pacifier. Either works.
Don’t worry too much about overfeeding your breastfed baby because it’s not really
possible. Babies remedy that problem by puking all over you, your carpet and
your couch when overfilled.
- Psycho
clawing raptor baby: Ah, this was my favorite. Since E was a “super hungry
baby” but also had a bad latch, he’d work himself into a craze when the milk didn’t come fast
enough. He’d literally writhe around and scratch my chest with his little, supersharp
raptor claws. The only thing that helped was repeating, “I will be
patient. My baby is not trying to rip me to shreds,” to myself over and over again AND swaddling him to contain his arms and calm him down a bit. I’ve
heard other people sometimes pump a little to get everything flowing faster, or you could try massaging to increase the flow.
- Choking
milk-covered baby: Once E moved out of his psycho clawing raptor baby stage, he
decided my flow was too strong and became a choking milk-covered baby. This
really isn’t a big deal, although it can make you feel kind of bad for drowning
your baby in breastmilk. If the flow is too fast or if your letdown is too
strong, just take the baby off for a second, and as you’re patting his back and
he’s spitting milk all over you, press a cloth to the breast to slow the flow.
It slows significantly after a minute or so, and your baby will get better at
handling it as he gets older and better at eating.
Oh, E, I love you. What challenges will you dream up for me next?
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