So Klaus is now four weeks old! It's going so fast and sadly, do to our feeding struggles, it has kind of been a blur to me. We are enjoying our boy though every chance we get, and we both got big smiles of recognition from him over the Halloween weekend! Talk about making your heart melt.
So here is an update on the feeding/health issues. We were struggling with the breast feeding, but finally got it going pretty well...or so we thought. A week after I thought things were going smoothly (though I was still waiting for him to get over the eating every hour phase) I took him to the weekly breastfeeding group at the hospital and weighed him to discover things were going pretty bad. He was barely over 7 lbs at 3 weeks old and he was not looking great. He was having some signs of severe hunger and just looking pretty puny and being fussy. I knew something was wrong, but couldn't figure out what, especially since I had been feeding him essentially every hour to hour and a half except at night. Luckily, there was a different and more knowledgeable lactation nurse there that day that saw the signs I was missing and helped us. He just wasn't eating good at the breast and the nurse said I was probably having volume issues producing milk, though we weren't positive why yet. We started that day supplementing 2 oz of formula with every feeding (after of course I balled like a baby and got a little bit of a grip on my horrible mother guilt for starving my boy unintentionally). Then Friday the head of the lactation department at the hospital called me in for a one on one consultation after hearing about our situation on Wednesday. We went over many things with her, but the long and short of it is that it looks like after my breast reduction surgery 5 years ago I can only now produce about 1 oz to and 1.5 oz of breast milk at a feeding. What I was producing was enough to sustain him at 2 weeks old but not enough to sustain him up through 3 weeks.
So though it got a little scary and emotional there, we are doing much better now. We've been nursing and supplementing for the last four days. Our hourly eating schedule is still wearing Mommy down a lot, but we go to the doctor this Wednesday for Klaus's 4 week check up and should get a weight check and some more help and info. He is already putting on weight though I can tell just by looking at him. His newborn size clothes are finally getting snug, his coloring is better, and he is getting chubbier cheeks and a little belly. I'll post an update after we visit the doctor and have more info. At least he is still giving us two 4-5 hour stretches of sleep at night or else mommy might become a complete basket-case.
Shea has been wonderful help during all this when he's home, and Grandma Cher has been here a ton this week helping out since I was getting really worn down. I even got an opportunity to exercise today for the first time since he was born with Grandma Cher here to help out. Not sure when exercising will happen again.
So though it has been an emotional and rough 4 weeks, the smiles, snuggles, and watching him grow and develop a little more each day makes it all worth it. He just makes our whole world wonderful! I'll post again with a brief doctor update soon. Take care everyone...I'm off to nurse Klaus again before he gets fussy.
No comments:
Post a Comment