In the 2 Months Since Then

Having 4 kids is not for the faint of heart! And I think about how my mom had 6, and Daniel's mom had 10!! I can't fathom. It seems all my time (what little of it there seemed to be) suddenly got sucked up and disappeared once we had Sawyer. I forgot how time consuming newborn babies are; and on top of that are 3 other little people who need me.

I've been spending a lot of time in the rocking chair in a corner of my bedroom. Between pumping, feeding the baby, and putting him to sleep, I feel like I've been living in that chair. Every time Daniel takes a break from work and comes looking for me, I feel like he always finds me in that chair. Life with a newborn. 

The nursing was what it always was -- basically, our baby didn't nurse. When we tried in the hospital, he would latch, but then do absolutely nothing on the breast. It's pretty typical for my babies, and we knew what we wanted to do about it: pump exclusively and bottle feed for a month or so and then try to get him to the breast. I didn't think I'd be able to maintain the routine we did for the other kids because now we have 4 kids, and not as much help. So, for the 1st month, we breastfed maybe a handful of times, but mostly I was pumping constantly (or so it felt) and bottle feeding. Then, a couple of nights after he was 1 month old, I had the feeling that we needed to start practicing nursing. So, thereafter, we nursed consistently, only taking a day or 2 off when I wasn't feeling good or when I was particularly sore.

And we've been successful! It was a slow improvement, over the past month. And I'm still pumping a few times a day, to keep my milk supply up while he gets better. But for the most part, I think he's fine breastfeeding without supplemental feedings! What a different experience it was this time around! There was very little stress (whenever I felt stress about breastfeeding, I would just force myself to let it go. The whole point of doing a different plan was to let go of the stress and emotion of it), there were no tears over nursing, there was still quite a bit of physical pain (though more bearable because it was spread out over more time), and I was really, truly able to enjoy Sawyer's babyhood more than I could with other kids. With the other kids, my enjoyment of them as babies was less than it could've been because I was so stressed and upset over the nursing. So many tears were shed over nursing those babies. Coming into this nursing experience, I knew that either he would nurse or he wouldn't, and I wasn't going to be upset and stressed by it. And what a wonderful experience it's been this time around!