Hello all - please help!
DS2 is 4 days old. Weighed 9lb 14 at birth (4.4kg). Had to stay in hospital a few days for various reasons where they tested his blood sugars for 24hrs - all fine. They then interfered with him in other ways - put him under uv for jaundice (although his bilirubin levels were not that high - they did it "just in case" and would not let me take him out for long enough to feed him which was terrible as it was day 2 and he wanted to feed all the time (you know how it is). It totally stressed him out and he then wouldn't feed properly on that day or first half of day3. He is ebf and is my 3rd; I bf the other two till 14 months and 12 months respectively and never had to resort to ff so I do know how to do it!! I demanded to leave hospital yesterday; battled with them; won and since we've been home he has calmed down a lot and is feeding fine. Anyway, they weighed him today and he has lost 14% of birth weight so they want me to give him formula. I refused. Then they said I had to only bf up to 40 mins at a time (so as not to tire him out), plus express after every feed and force feed him the bottle (her literal words) and top up with formula if expressed milk is not enough.
I don't want to stop after 40 mins because he is typical bf baby and basically wants to be latched on and feeding/sleeping the entire time - this is fine by me but some kind of artificial 40 min cut off seems a bad idea.
I do have a breast pump - used it with my first baby but not with the second - but can't find the bottle attachment so I can't use it. Don't have any bottles.
Am not strongly opposed to expressing but don't really want to go out to Boots now to buy a pump etc at vast expense. Also I would not normally want to give a bottle at this stage due to poss nipple confusion.
Am tired, emotional and stressed. I think he's feeding fine now we're home and I want to ignore them.
Would it be ok if I did??
Sorry for long post and prob typos - on my phone and one handed (feeding DS2!!)