My dd2 is 15 days old. Dd1 was bottle fed after colostrum as i had retained placenta and my milk never came in.
Dd2 was born large - 9.8 lbs at 38 weeks by csection. We came home 24 hours later, and i thought were doing reasonably well at bf - although she cluster fed all night.
At her day 5 checkup we found she had lost 15% weight and were readmitted to postnatal ward. We fid a regime if 3-hour feeds with bottle topups, both ebm and formula. After 48 hrs her weight loss had gone down to 10.8% and they discharged us. I continued to do similar feeds at home, i thought.
Two days later the community midwife visited us and found dd was back down to 11% so put us on 2-hourly feeds, but the next day she’d gone down again to 12.5%. I was also worried about a cold she had picked up whilst we were in jospital, so MW sent us to a&e where dd was diagnosed with bronchiolitis and admitted to childrens ward. We have been here 6 days and going gone tonight as dd’s bronch seems better and is v.slowly gaining weight again (9.9%).
My problem is - i am mainly expressing, and it is obvious from the Dr’s reaction that this is not as good as bf. He looked at my chart of feeds and asked if i was bf-ing before each ebm bottle, and i misunderstood and said yes - in fact i am not, just giving ebm (usually 50-60ml) or formula (70ml bottles) every 3 hours. Based on my saying i was also bf he was happy to discharge us, and i only realised what he meant later. I’m now scared that he wouldn’t have discharged us if i’d confirmed that’s all she’s having?
Is that not enough? Is this a pro-breastfeeding thing or a not-enough-for-your baby thing? I am expressing because bf was SO painful i literally sobbed through each one. Do i have to do that because it’s the only way to keep dd healthy?
Please be nice - i have a streaming cold and have not left this ward for 6 days and an terrified of being sent back for xmas.