Baby Steps

Nope, I am not referring to XP learning how to walk ... yet. Rather it's the first day that I have experienced some sustained success with breastfeeding!

Since the beginning, XP has no problem latching on to my right boobs as long as we manage to catch him before he is really hungry. The trick is to get him before his real hunger pangs strike him so that he would be contended with my sloooowwww flow.

However, no matter what we did or how we cajole him, he simply refuses to latch on to my left breast. Initially, we attributed it to the non-milk flow as my left boob produces significantly less milk than my right boob does. So we tried to lure him with from the right boob first then give him the left one.

But that didn't quite work.

Then we thought that it was because my left nipple is shorter than my right one (yes, yes, some of you here are reaching new levels with me in our friendship with all these intimate details but motherhood has an amazing way of getting rid of someone's modesty!) and thus it could not reach the back of his mouth for him to suckle well. So I try my damnest to lengthen my nipple by way of expressing and physically TUGGING at it, resorting even to squeezing milk out before he latches on to try to tempt him.

But that didn't work too.

Just as I was going to give up in resignation, our confinement lady wondered, perhaps he only liked lying on one side and not the other. That would explain why he always broke out in tears when I changed the direction and made him suckle on my left breast. So she thought to change my cross-cradle to a football hold so that our silly XP would be tricked into thinking that he was still sucking on the right breast as he was still lying on the same side.

Whether he was really fooled or he was genuinely more comfortable lying on one side of his body than the other, the most important thing was, he latches on now! :) I have managed to successfully breastfeed him thrice today (an ACHIEVEMENT!) and at the last feed, he apparently drank so much of my breast milk that he could not finish his usual formula feed!

So yes! Patience and perseverance indeed pay off and having an experienced confinement lady who is pro-breastfeeding definitely helps! :) She was just sharing with me that she had one mother who had ample breastmilk but for some reason or other, chose to give her baby formula milk instead! And here I am, trying my darnest to get my milk flow going!

So yes, I just want to share my success with everyone and perhaps one day, if some of you are going through the same experience as me, hopefully, this post will serve to encourage you and keep you going!

Keeping my fingers crossed that my milk shall flow faster now and he will continue to latch on tomorrow! :)

P.S. If all I seem to blog about is my baby and my milk, it is because for these few days, that is indeed all that matters. I shall attempt to blog about more intelligent stuff when I regain some of my brain cells, yeah? :)