Congratulations to Pink and Tigger! Wook ewwww at the animals... I'll try to erase that knowledge from my mind right this minute.
This talk about formula has made me remember something I really wanted to say too -
Whether you're planning to breast or bottlefeed, pack a bottle or two in your hospitalbag anyway. I didn't think I'd need one as I wanted to breastfeed. As Lukas was so early, they kept monitoring his bloodsugarlevels, and after a couple of dips (in my opinion, due to the ridiculous regime they had us on, I'll go into that below...) they decided I had to top up with formula.
For some reason (day 3?) I got really upset at having to use strange hospital bottles even though I'd got some Tommee Tippee Closer to Nature ones for times when I'd want to express... (They're easier to use if you combine breast and bottle feeding as less likely to confuse baby apparently.)
Also, another "trust yourself" story...
They made me feed Lukas with a syringe (expressed milk) before breastfeeding. They said this was the only way they'd know that he was getting enough milk. Being fed with a syringe wasn't nice for Lukas (who had latched on perfectly right away) and did not make for a nice bonding experience for either one of us. Having to feed him with a syring first, and then breastfeed, meant that the feeding took over an hour. After he'd had a couple of dips in BS and I had to add formula to the regime it meant setting my alarm every 3 hours (they didn't think he'd wake up for feeding...), waking Lukas up, feeding him with a syringe, breastfeeding him, trying to force formula down him, changing his nappy and putting him to bed before sterilising the equipment and then sitting down with the breastpump for half an hour... All this was taking me just over 2 hours, which meant that the only sleep I got was about 45 minutes every 3 hours. (Most of the time this sleep got interrupted by someone coming in to do checks or offer food or drugs )
I had real trouble getting Lukas to take the formula and had to call for help a couple of times - two different MWs pretty much poured it down his throat like forcefeeding a duck... one even told me off and said "you need to be a bit forceful, you're being too gentle with him!" and all this ended with Lukas vomiting the formula (and all the breastmilk with it) and having low BS levels again... I've never known anyone who bottlefed, so had no idea about quantity, but thought what he was having to have was huge amounts... I was also told to strip him off for feeding so that the cold would wake him. His weight just kept dropping and dropping.
I was distraught... it all seemse so wrong, especially when BFing had gone so well. I called my auntie who's a MW in Scandinavia and she said that over there, babies are weighed before and after a feed to find out if they're getting enough milk - no need for syringes or expressing. The worst thing?
An older MW came in on day 4 and asked me what all the formula was for. When I explained, she took one look at the notes and calculations and told me they'd messed up: not only had they got Lukas' age wrong, they'd also calculated the amounts based on him not getting ANY other food... he was basically having THREE times the amount of formula he should've... No wonder he was refusing it and then being sick! She told me to stop expressing, chuck the formula and just breastfeed. Also, a lovely, lovely MW told me to stop stripping him and instead put more clothes on him, as at the time, with all the stripping, he was using his energy to keep warm, not to put on weight (and so his weight kept dropping). Put him to bed in a vest, babygro, a cardigan and under a fleeceblanket.
Wouldn't you know it - we turned a corner.
As the sweet MW said
"Never underestimate mother nature and a mother's instinct."
Right, he's crying... off I go.