My friend is having an awful time with her first baby, which is sadly similar to the awful time I had with my first baby. Basically, baby doesn’t feed, so you’re told to top up with formula and pump to try to increase supply and put baby to the breast as much as possible. You end up spending hours with a screaming baby who won’t feed, hours pumping, hours bottle feeding, hours cleaning and sterilising… You get advice thrown at you from every direction and it’s all about how to get the baby off bottles and onto the breast – or to just throw in the towel and give up on breastfeeding altogether.
I had rough starts with each of my babies but then went on to breastfeed successfully until the age of ten months ish, when I was just really over it. I’m not a medical professional, and please note particularly that this advice is aimed at babies who are out of the “danger zone” (who are alert, gaining weight, not jaundiced, etc) but where mum wants to get off bottles and onto exclusive breastfeeding while ALSO not being driven insane by the triple-feed schedule.
This is the advice I gave my friend.
- Stop pumping. Like, yesterday.
I’m just not sold on pumping to increase milk supply. This is controversial, I know. I’m not saying it literally doesn’t work. But pumping is just such a colossal pain in the arse for the alleged benefit. I honestly think that time can be used so much more productively by having the baby at the breast and you getting some sleep. Yes, even if the baby is screaming and not latching – at least for this first phase. Otherwise you spend so much time pumping and dealing with all that stuff that you don’t have any energy left to deal with the actual breastfeeding. Yes, extracting milk encourages your breasts to make more milk. But being absolutely knackered doesn’t exactly help your milk supply either, and pumps don’t stimulate your nipples in the same way a baby does. Looking at the whole picture, including the fact that you have needs and wants too, I don’t think pumping is a good use of time.
- Stop measuring input. Take a break from weighing her. Just measure output.
My goodness, it is so easy to get tunnel vision here. To be obsessed with how long baby spends at the breast and how many ml of formula they’ve had and how many grams they’ve gained today. You can just stop. It’s fine.
Keep track of wet and dirty nappies instead. In babies, input = output. If output decreases, there is a problem. If she’s weeing and pooing, stuff’s getting in somehow.
She’ll be weighed at 6-8 weeks as standard. Just when you were planning to re-evaluate anyway.
- Take a night off and just go to sleep.
My absolute saving angel when Awdry was tiny was the first night shift nurse when we went back to the hospital. She took the baby, sent me to bed, and didn’t wake me up until the morning. I woke up in the middle of the night FREAKING OUT to find her feeding him a bottle and shushing him gently back to sleep in her arms. She told me to have one good night’s sleep to get myself ready to tackle the feeding problem again in the morning.
Get earplugs, noise cancelling headphones, white noise. Heck, go to a hotel! Give the baby to your husband and tell him to just cope for one night. Yes, it will be crap for him. It’s one night. Go to bed. Sleep. Your boobs won’t switch off. She’s already taking a bottle. Just sleep. Eight hours AT LEAST. Then get up in the morning ready to have another go.
- Baby’s already taking a bottle. Take five hours off each day. You’re on the other nineteen. That’s enough.
The magic number for me and every other person I’ve talked to seems to be four hours in a row. She’s already taking a bottle. Get your husband to be in charge for five hours out of 24. (Five because you need a bit of time to drift off.)
But, don’t choose the evening. Sorry. See #13 below. Try either the morning or the afternoon and have a long nap. We had my husband getting a full night’s sleep every night so he was able to be functional during the day.
- Stop waking her at night.
I don’t know if you are on a forced waking regime, but stop waking her at night. Stop waking yourself at night. Let her sleep. Let yourself sleep. If output changes, you can rethink. But just try it for one night. Then two. Then three.
- Plan to spend the entire day with her clamped to your boobs at every opportunity. Ideally in bed. Naked.
But do wake her during the day if she sleeps longer than two hours. In theory this will be OK because you will be getting a four hour sleep at some point and not waking on purpose during the night.
Whack her on the boob at every opportunity. Every. If she blinks, stirs, cries, whatever. If she isn’t profoundly unconscious, whip em out. When Geronima was this age, my husband just sent me to bed for a day and I spent the whole day reading, napping and feeding the baby. It was great. Try to have her clamped on for as much of the day as possible. This is not forever! It is an attempt at breastfeeding boot camp for both of you for 3-7 days.
I don’t know how much faith to put in the whole skin to skin thing but why the heck not? Strip both of you off.
During boot camp, allow her to nap on the breast as much as possible. This was a game changer for me with Meecup. It means she goes to sleep sucking, sucks in her sleep, and then wakes up already sucking.
- Try the koala position and side lying.
I didn’t need a lot of fancy positions with Awdry or Meecup, but Geronima was a nightmare in the “normal” position. The koala position, where you kind of lean back and have them on their front upright on you, was great for letting her do a bit more work on getting herself comfortable.
- If she’s a drowsy baby, take all her clothes off and give her just a tiny bit of formula to pep her up. If she’s an angry baby, try to get in there when she’s juuust waking up. Give her just enough formula to calm her down, then try breastfeeding.
Either way, let her nap on the breast as much as is feasible during the day during boot camp.
- Ring triage and say you need more breastfeeding support. Don’t let them just “observe” and tell you the theory. You know the theory. If it were that easy, you’d be doing it. Let them gets their hands in there.
You may have to shop around to get someone helpful. I was greatly blessed with my first midwife visit with Meecup. Formula loomed but she stayed for two hours to get her to take a proper feed and that was the kick start we needed. See, my third baby and I still needed proper support to get started!
Community midwives can still visit you, there will probably be groups at children’s centres, and you can escalate to more specialist support with a referral from either. Keep saying, “It’s not working.”
- Eat/drink whatever junk food you fancy AFTER you have eaten/drunk something sensible. Think antipasti.
You need energy. Making milk takes fuel. And you need solace. Solace takes pizza and ice cream. My pro tip is to eat whatever junk food you want after having had a “sensible” meal/snack made of real food. Ideally containing fat and protein. Cooking is probably a bit much so think antipasti: ham, cheese, olives, bread.
- Trying for 5-6 weeks then re-evaluating sounds great.
Throw everything you’ve got at this for 5-6 weeks then deciding what to do sounds like a really sensible plan.
- Buy a good box set so you have something else to think about. Put the subtitles on if she’s screaming so much you can’t hear.
It can help to actually have something to think about that isn’t the baby and to pass the time. I recommend The Durrells if you haven’t watched it already. You may feel like you don’t have a single cell of brain space left, but baby angst often expands to fill the space available.
- The evening scream is a thing. Just wait it out.
Every one of our babies has had an evening scream. Others call it the witching hour. It’s not you. It’s them. It can also be prime feeding time, if the baby’s up for it. That’s why I’m afraid you should be “on” then. Sometimes they just scream and scream, but sometimes they want to feed and feed (and scream also). I usually had my husband hold the baby while I ate my dinner but other than that planned to be on the sofa with my boobs out.
- Perinatal mental health services move fast.
You’ll have a lot of people telling you, “Oh, it’s so normal to be anxious and stressed as a new mum.” Yeah, it is, in the sense that it doesn’t mean your a bad mum or that you’re failing your baby. But actually it’s not normal to be, for example, unable to sleep when the baby is asleep or googling whether monasteries still accept foundlings. I’ve had some kind of mental health support for each baby and they move FAST. Like, you could be talking to someone tomorrow and have an appointment set up for next week fast, if you’re lucky/crazy enough.
You matter too here. It’s easy to be so focused on the baby the baby the baby the baby. You’re important too. Hysterics are not something that you have to carry on having. This is unlikely to be in your top ten best periods of your life ever, but it doesn’t have to be hell. You have the right to be happy. Tired, but happy.
Homefaring 