I didn’t know I could breastfeed and formula feed successfully!

Rory was born 5 weeks early and for a number of important reasons we had to supplement. She didn’t have a suckle and took her meals both formula and pumped milk by syringe. Finally she took a bottle and after what felt like forever she finally learned to nurse! While I pumped around the clock my supply never fully came in. With a baby who did not gain her birth weight back in 2 weeks as needed we just kept increasing her bottled meals as the doctors instructed. I honestly had some moments where I wasn’t sure breastfeeding was going to work out and there was a sorrow hanging over me. None of my other babies ever did well after bottles and formula were introduced as far as breastfeeding went. My husband was supportive though and we keep pushing through.

Thriving at 40 days old!

Baby is now 40 days old and 10.5 lbs. As she was born at 7.5 lbs, 99% because of my diabetes, the fact that she is in the 96% for growth is fantastic. She is taking the bottle and breast with no nipple confusion. My supply isn’t great but it is there and I have hope I can grow it or at least keep it. As with my other babies, I will try everything possible to keep a supply and help baby continue to thrive. We now have our own baby scale and I hope this will help us supplement less and feel more confident nursing more not knowing how much she is actually getting. She went from our sleepy little baby who we had to struggle to wake to eat to a little one that is more than happy to let us know she is hungry. She doesn’t sleep through the night but my husband is awesome enough to understand that it isn’t a goal of ours. We want her to wake to eat. The bonus of her waking is that she isn’t sleeping too deep. Deep sleeping can be a SIDS risk so by all means we are good with her waking up at night. We are dealing as best we can together and so far so good though we do need to work on getting to bed earlier at night.

Breastfeeding Hope

As none of my babies did so well both breastfeeding and bottle feeding I didn’t really think this was possible. All the breastfeeding support sites basically make formula out to be a death sentience for the nursing relationship. It hasn’t been though. In addition the new studies coming out have shown that great gut health isn’t impacted as much by other foods in a babies diet as once thought but by the time breastfeeding ends, so the longer baby gets any breast milk the better. I have hope! I hope we will not need formula at all soon but for now I am content that she is gaining and things are going in the right direction.