Breastfeeding and Us

Hey there lil' guy!

Before I was pregnant, I never really thought much about what kind of parent I'd be. In fact, I did not feel like someone who had the patience or capacity to be good with children. I guess I was wrong (which is a good thing since I now AM a mother).

During pregnancy, I decided to do some reading and soul searching to figure this stuff out, somewhat of a crash course in being 'a mom'. Of course, I started reading articles on the internet, found some mummy blogs and joined some local Singaporean mummy forums online to get relevant practical information like where the best bargains for baby supplies were and the all-important baby product exhibition and department store sales.

Early on, I made a decision to breastfeed baby E. It would save us a bunch of money as I would be taking care of baby E full-time while the hubby slaved away to bring home the bacon. I read everything I could on breastfeeding, the potential pitfalls and how to deal with them etc. I also read horror stories of mothers with cracked and bleeding nipples due to a poor latch while feeding their baby or mothers who were dealing with mastitis / blocked ducts / thrush and other scary stuff. I knew that newborns normally lost up to 10% of their body weight in the first 7-10 days and that a newborn baby's stomach was teeny tiny and couldn't really hold much, so the colostrum that I produced in the first few days was more than enough until mature milk came in.

I thought I was prepared.

Then we brought baby E home and he cried. And cried. And CRIED. For a teeny tiny baby he sure could cry really loudly. I carried him, the hubby carried him, we swaddled him, unswaddled him, tuned the TV to a local news channel hoping that the talking in the background would help him sleep, kept the lights dim in the room. We tried everything.

I fed him every couple of hours and he'd calm down and sleep. Then wake up screaming and yelling half an hour later. It was especially difficult at night and the hubby slept while cradling baby E the first night as it was the only way we could get more than an hour of sleep without baby E waking up screaming. I was tired, and sore and postpartum hormones were screwing with my emotions and I was convinced that we were doing everything wrong!

We were worried about baby E's voice turning hoarse so I called his pediatrician's emergency number on Sunday (we were due for a check-up the next day) and was told not to worry, baby E is just being a normal baby and we didn't need to rush him to a hospital for his crying. At this point, being sleep deprived and highly emotional, I was convinced that the pediatrician was a quack for saying that my crying, screaming baby was perfectly fine. I called Thomson Medical Centre's helpline for new mothers and was advised to pump after every feed to encourage my milk supply. At my lowest point, I asked the hubby to get a tin of formula and we tried cup feeding baby E but he refused to drink it. We also tried glucose water like the nurses in the hospital advised which baby E grudgingly took but it did not help the crying.

Then my milk came in early Monday morning, baby E nursed and slept. For almost 5 HOURS. He woke when I was prepping him for his checkup at the pediatrician's, nursed and fell right back to sleep. He slept through the drive downtown and the checkup with his pediatrician where we found out about his jaundice and need for phototherapy. Other than jaundice, baby E was perfectly healthy and we were so RELIEVED. Still incredibly tired, but very, VERY relieved.

Since then, baby E has been exclusively breastfed until he grew up and started grabbing food out of my hands during meals. The plan is to breastfeed until he self-weans. Until then, every quiet moment we spend together while he is nursing is precious to me.