Breastfeeding (postnatal thoughts)

Following on from my Breastfeeding (antenatal thoughts), what, how, and why did I do following my baby being born?

I breastfed. Yep, that's right. I could and I did. So far, successfully. 

In the hospital I was told to wake her and feed her every hour. She would only feed for five minutes, then sleep again. The staff were concerned she wasn't feeding long enough or not latched on correctly, they checked, she was. When I was discharged (20 hours after her birth), there was a gap on approx. 3 hours between feeds, which she slept through. After waking her, she fed about 20 minutes before falling back asleep.

I continued to wake her every hour, but was exhausted myself, often falling asleep whilst feeding her. Not good! We incrased the gaps between feeds, although still had to wake her! 

As we've gone on she will let me know when she's ready. She is skilled at emptying a breast quickly! It can be painfully full, but within 5 minutes of starting a feeding, it's dry and baby is contently full and asleep. 

I have fed her wherever we are when she needs feeding and have never received any negative comments. There are a lot of places that have feeding rooms now, although I have never used one. 

During our trip to London for the Olympics, I fed her in the Olympic Staduim. I felt quite self conscious at first, but your dignity soon goes after the first leak! When she was about 6 weeks, we were feeding in a cafe, she let go, and the milk kept coming, straight over the table! I was so embarassed, I wanted to hide, but I couldn't, so on we went, with mumbled apologies.

As I was still having therapy, I restarted my appointments four weeks after her birth. At that point I couldn't express, she just wasn't leaving enough behind. To be honest, she's now 13 weeks and I still cannot express a lot unless she misses a feed so it defeats the object. 

Anyway, so no boob and no expressed milk. I did the unthinkable, I left a bottle of formula for her! Oh no! Terrible mummy. She wont take a bottle. She'll get nipple confusion. She wont go back to breast...

Utter crap! She took the formula and the bottle no problem, and went back to breast with no issues. She now has formula one or two feeds a week and she is fine switching between both.