Since it's been 3 months since my last posting, I have some updating to do!
Baby Leyton is now almost 12 weeks old. He was born a full 3 days BEFORE my due date! Thank goodness!!! I really couldn't conceive how in the world I was going to wait if he were late and I had to watch another due date come and go. Luckily, I didn't have to. Labor and delivery went very quickly. He was born within 3 hours of hard labor starting--Another thing I'm thankful for!
The first 6 weeks were extremely stressful. He was colicky, fussy, sleepless, sensitive...You name it, we experienced it. We've never had a baby quite that bad before...I always thought Logan was fussy, maybe even borderline colicky, but I now know that he was probably just "normal". London was on the other end of the spectrum. She was so content and happy. We rarely heard this child cry, so she was probably considered "abnormal". Leyton was COLICKY!
The entire time I was pregnant with him, I had this vision of his personality, which probably didn't help the reality of the situation. I thought because he was our 3rd child, he'd be this laid back, happy-go-lucky, not even aware of his presence kind of little man. We couldn't have been more wrong. He demanded our attention at all times!
In his defense, though, we found out after an entire week of doctor appointments, doula postpartum visits, and chiropractic adjustments that he has a "suck" issue, which meant that all those times I thought he was successfully breast feeding, he was actually starving. Every time I looked down at him nursing and thought he had a good latch, thought I heard suck-suck-swallow, I was wrong. The poor kid was failing to thrive. By the time this discovery was made, he had dropped 10% of his birth weight. The only solution was to bottle feed until he became stronger to suckle correctly, which could be months. My only option was to formula-feed or give him expressed milk. If you read any earlier posts, you know how strongly I feel in regards to breast milk. It is the best food for your baby. It builds up their immune system, prevents disease now and later in life. This is one occurrence where science cannot duplicate nature. And after reading all the research, I just don't know how any mother wouldn't want to give their babies the absolute best. So, in my mind, my only option was to give Leyton expressed breast milk.
Little did I know then what kind of journey this would lead me on. When I had mentioned earlier that I intended on being the "Joan of Ark" when it came to breast feeding. I had no idea how true that statement would be! After reading everything I could get my hands on and talking to friends would had endured the same thing, I knew it wasn't going to be easy. I knew it was going to take all my commitment, time, and fortitude to move forward. I knew I was going to want to give up many, many times. One thing that has helped me stay true to my course is that fact that Leyton does NOT tolerate formula at all. He hates the taste of it, gets gassy, his reflux gets worse, etc. So, when I see these symptoms displayed in our sweet boy after a bottle of the 'fake' stuff, it does help to reaffirm my purpose and goals.
I have come to find out that there is a term for all of us who are solely giving our babies expressed milk in a bottle...It's called EPing. This stands for "exclusively pumping". Because a breast pump is not nearly as efficient as a human baby to drawing out the milk from the breast, most mothers do not get nearly as much milk this way as if their baby was an efficient nurser. So, in order to keep up your milk supply, there are rules that must be followed on a daily, sometimes hourly, basis. The general law of milk supply is like any demand/supply equation. The more taken, the more produced. This means it's very important to simulate your baby's feeding schedule so you are able to keep up with his demand. Yep, you guessed it--That means I have to pump every 2-3 hours around the clock. So, not only am I pumping for 20 minutes 10x per day, but I'm also feeding him the milk I expressed, changing him, washing bottles etc. As one blogger put it, it's the time commitment and mess and inconvenience of bottle feeding and the worst aspects of breast feeding combined into one day. It's awful. Not only do you feel like you may need a dairy license to operate such a machine, but it's also very degrading. For example, my husband has watched me give birth 3 times. I really don't have much modesty left when it comes to our relationship, but I still cringe when he walks in the room and sees me hooked up to this machine.
All kidding aside, it's a huge time commitment. On average, I pump 10 times per day for 20 minutes each time. That means I pump for 200 minutes every single day, 4 hours per day is spent connected to the wall. And because I'm connected to the wall, it makes taking care of a screaming or restless baby extremely difficult, so I have to time my pumps during his naptime or when someone else is home. So, I've felt like I have zero time to myself because it's spent EPing...And when I'm not pumping, I'm washing bottles and trying to fit in some much-needed cuddle time with a baby who is growing up too fast!
FUCKING EPing!
