How could I complain?

It looks like this breastfeeding thing is going to work out. So with all the difficulties I had feeding my baby in the first few weeks, it would be pretty silly of me to complain. But here it is:

The child won’t stop eating!

My baby is almost a month old. Most nights we spend sleepless because all she wants to do is eat. Our nurse suggested popping a bottle in her mouth. She suggested using a soother. These are two things I couldn’t have imagined doing before the baby was born, but I have quickly learned how things change once you experience something for yourself. Sometimes I just need to sleep. I am very serious about breastfeeding, but my sanity is also very important.

So, we tried giving her a bottle of my expressed milk–three times. But since she started drinking from my breast again, it’s like she completely forgot about her week as a bottlefed baby. She wants nothing to do with her bottle. She just kind of rolls the nipple around in her mouth and cries. The pacifier is much the same.

Someone pointed me to the website kellymom.com and it’s been an amazing resource. It’s made my baby’s frequent nursing seem very normal. Things like this are easier to deal with when you don’t feel like you’re the only mama in the world going through it.

The one thing that has saved me in the last couple nights is lying down while nursing. The first few nights (2am, 3am, 4am…) I dragged myself out of bed to the rocking chair in the living room to nurse at all hours. This was making me very cranky. But for the last two nights since we decided to try nursing in bed, things have gone much more smoothly. We all get more rest like this!

And so it goes…