A bit of history...
- DS1 born at 36+1, uncomplicated birth
- jaundiced from the start
- fully breastfeed for a week, some struggles with latching etc.
- after a week readmitted to hospital for blue light treatment as jaundice - - not improving, on night in SCABU as blue lights on ward not enough
- at this point, strict regime of three hourly feeds was introduced (book first, then bottle plus expressing for next feed; still struggles with latching - each cycle could take as much as two hours - as this regime nearly broke me I decided, after two and a half weeks, to only offer the boob twice a day and otherwise formula feed only
- That strategy maintained my sanity and I made my peace with it. Unfortunately, I was only able to maintain any boob supply for ten weeks, by which time I had to stop altogether.
Never mind, mixed feeding suited me and I made my peace with it to an extent that, this time round I actually wanted to go for mixed feeding, although maybe not quite that early.
So, let's move to DS2, who is now 9 days old
- born at 39+0, uncomplicated birth
- diagnosed as tongue tied on day 1 and jaundiced on day 2 - couldn't believe how parallel things went!
- nevertheless, fed much better from boob from the start, no struggles latching although a bit of boob pain
- introduced a bit of formula before my milk even came in because of our previous history and had the odd formula feed after my milk was in
- tongue tie cut on day 5, feeding seemed to go well (baby often coming away from boob with mil running out of mouth), no struggles latching
- unfortunately, now on day 9, still hardly any weight gain, so advised to go on three hourly feeds with formula top up afterwards. Midwife suggested that, given my history, it just seems as if I am one of those who just doesn't produce enough for baby. Fair enough!
- will follow that advice, as I certainly don't want us to be readmitted this time round! Baby will be weighed again in two days to check whether this regime works
- been told not to express unless I feel really relaxed and up for it... I have tried last night and only got 5ml out
So my question is - has anyone every implemented a successful mixed feeding regime that had to start so early on, and, crucially, managed to maintain it for longer? As I said, I really don't mind mixed feeding as such, but would quite like to maintain it a bit longer than the first time round.
So, after that shock a bit piece of for me!