Breastfeeding Challenges and other things.....

Just a small update....and word of caution if any males are reading this.  It's all about the boob and not in a way that you are going to want to read about it!

I am still pumping every 3 hours and I find that I am getting into a routine with it.  I am having a bit of a hard time with the mid-night feedings because I simply do not want to sit around for a half hour at 4am to pump.  I have learned my lesson with that one when I woke up this morning and was engorged because I decided that I wanted to see if I could get away with not pumping in the middle of the night :s

Tonight I started back with the skin to skin contact.  I took Ethan up to our room, and I stripped him down to his diaper and me down to my underwear and I put him on my chest.  He did his frog dance down and right on my breast.  He nursed for half an hour on both.  When I topped him up with the bottle, he took about 20 millilitres.  He usually drinks 80.  So I would say there was some success in that feeding.  He is now currently passed out on dad.

I am undecided on where I want to go with bottle feeding and breast feeding.  Ideally I would like to exclusively breast feed, but I have this hindering thought that he is not drinking anything when he nurses.  I think I just have to be diligent in doing the skin to skin contact and getting him and myself comfortable with breast feeding.  It is clear that he does not have nipple confusion because he latched onto me right away and it was a good latch.  There was no pain, his lips were flanged out and he was swallowing.  I think my plan is to do that each morning and each night and see how he does with clothes on in the afternoon.

To go with that, I find that I am waaaaaaay less emotional now and am actually doing things around the house and finding time to do it.  Ethan is still a very content baby and sleeps for most of the day.  When he is awake, he is very alert and basically just chills either in my arms or on the Nursing pillow.  And he is very content in that way.

I found that he is a bit gassy, so I switched bottles to the Playtex Ventaire system and he doesn't seem to spit up as much or have stomach bubbles.  If I can prevent "colic" in any way possible then I will do what it takes!  These bottles apparently reduce the risk of ear infections as well.

We think Ethan has a blocked tear duct.  He has a lot of sleep in his eye when he wakes up and it crusts around his eye where he can't open it.  We have been doing duct massages and warm compresses and putting a bit of expressed breast milk on his eye and it seems to be getting better.  If it doesn't clear up by early next week, then we are going to have to have another doctor's visit.  From what I read, these home remedies should do the trick (if in fact it is a clogged tear duct).

I guess this was a bit of a longer update than expected.  So much changes in just a few days, it's amazing.  Pretty soon Ethan is going to be driving a car and going on his first date!!

Oh and today was supposed to be my due date ;)