Breastfeeding woes

***Hello members of the Lil' Trif fan club... This message should have been posted on Thursday, but for some reason, blogger wouldn't work on my computer. I saved it and now its finally pasted here for you to read. Our apologies for a lack of recent updates, and we promise to keep you all better informed in the future.

I underestimated this whole breastfeeding thing. Whoa. Its really hard! We were off to a rough start... We ended up taking Robert to the pediatritian for the first time on Tuesday. I became very concerned with the pinky color his urine was leaving in his diapers. According to all the books, this is normal in newborns - it is uric acid crystals and it occurs in babies until the mother's milk comes in. It is not normal after the milk is available. Well, my milk was in by Saturday and he was still having these crystals in his pee. I called the doctor and they wanted to see him. He obviously wasn't getting enough to eat (or drink). The doctor suggested supplementing with formula. Blah. I didn't like that idea. But I suppose if it best for the baby, I can't deny him the proper nutrients. I also am against offering him a bottle too soon. We do plan to start the bottle in a few weeks, but right now I want him to become acclimated with the breast, and apparently that wasn't working well.

Bobby and I started to really pay attention to ever detail of my breast feeding sessions (which occur every hour and a half - from start to start - so I am feeding him 12-15 times each day, round the clock! I wanted to really give breast feeding everything I had before supplementing. At each feeding, we paid attention to Robert's positioning, my positioning, how he latches on and how he gulped and swallowed. It seems the latching was the biggest problem.

Long story short, we think we nipped it in the bud... he is finally catching on. He is pooping and peeing like a champ, and he seems much more content. As you probably know, this kid likes to take his time with most things. He's probably a perfectionist. :)

Last night, we had to wake him up to eat. He slept from 11:30 until 4am. We were impressed.