March 12, 2007

Nursing Woes

Whew. After nursing 3 babies successfully for about a year each, I wasn't prepared for any problems with nursing Kenna...other than expecting the initial soreness, I mean. She nursed great the first 4 days of her life. Friday evening, March 2, Ted and I were quite taken aback when she began screaming and couldn't seem to latch on. No problem, we thought, I'd just pump a bit to make things easier. After all, my milk was definitely in, and I was considerably engorged (though not nearly so badly as I was with Charis, as I recall). It didn't help. We tried for about an hour, and after then, she was so frantic that we decided in desperation to just give her a bottle of the milk I had pumped. She took it all right, but then we went through the same scenario at the 11 p.m. feeding. I was dreading the middle-of-the-night feedings, but she actually did very well, so I thought the worst was behind us.

Boy, was I wrong! We continued to have problems, so much so that I sent Ted to Babies R Us to purchase nipple shields, which I had never used before. My mom had recommended trying those. Of course, as Ted was walking out the door to go get them, Kenna latched on great and had a wonderful feeding. Still, I asked Ted to go ahead as planned, and I'm glad I did, because she had problems during the night as well. She refused to latch onto the shields during the night, but I did manage to get her fed (with minor help from a bottle once or twice).

Sunday morning she nursed with the shield on, and I was relieved, thinking that now, finally, she'd get the milk she needed from me and life could go on. Wrong again! All last week, each feeding was a complete drama, with anywhere from 10-40 minutes passing before she would finally latch on. There seemed to be no rhyme or reason to what was happening...I began making notes so I could try to see trends, but there were none! After she would finally latch onto the first side, she would nurse just fine and then switch sides as if nothing were the matter. It was the initial latch that was the problem.

During some of the more difficult feedings we occasionally tried offering her a bottle again, and she began refusing the bottle as well. That was probably a good thing, because it forced me to keep trying.

I am pleased to report that as of Saturday, March 10, at the 5:30 p.m. feeding, she latched on like she had been doing it all her life (!) with no problems, and we have had no problems since. Every now and then I've had to start her with the shield, but she'll suck on that for a minute or two, then seems to decide that she'd rather have the real thing, full strength. :-)

All I can think is that perhaps she was having so many problems because she was early and still so little. It's just strange that she eventually WOULD latch on and continue the feeding on the other side with no problems. At any rate, I am SO thankful and am still praising the Lord for getting us through the past week. It looks like we'll have no more latching problems from here on out, as it is now Monday evening and she has consistently been nursing well. Thank God!! I'm so glad that we stuck it out!

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

Tabitha had problems latching on the first couple of weeks. Her jaw had been knocked slightly out of aliagnment durning labor. It was out of place just enough to make latching on difficult. We took her to a chiropracter who adjusted her and we had no problems after that. Was Kenna having trouble with both sides or only one side? Did you try different positions, ie the football hold? If you have problems again I can ask the breast feeding support group facilitator. She has been a lactation specialist for over 30 years. HOpe things continue to go well!

Beverly said...

Yes, we tried ALL kinds of positions, trust me! And it didn't seem to matter which side, though she did seem to favor the right side a bit. Thankfully things are still going well. She even nursed in the pediatrician's waiting room today! Things have continued to go smoothly since Saturday evening's feeding, and now it's Tuesday night as I write this. Whew!

Anonymous said...

My first two months of nursing Evan were rough! If he would have taken a bottle, I might have given up!

Bob and Claire said...

Wow, you've had quite a time of it! I'm glad you stuck with it, even though I know it was so hard and frustrating. It just goes to show there's always SOMETHING, even for experienced moms! : )