A Big Let Down

This is a post about breastfeeding.


You've been warned.


Breastfeeding has been a struggle from the beginning.

First we had problems with latch, and as soon as we figured latch out my milk came in and it was not messin' around, which made it impossible for Lydia to latch no matter how hard she tried and no matter how hard I tried to make her. I tried hot compresses, a hot bath, anything to ease the pressure and get some milk out. Nothing worked. And the more time that passed without nursing, the worse it got. A friend of mine had given me a pump, guaranteeing that it would come in handy. At the time, I really doubted her. Why would I need that?

And then I pumped 11 ounces in 15 minutes. That's a lot in boob world. It's like a can of pop, people.

Thinking I had solved the problem (and feeling much better) I tried nursing again, only it was as though Lydia had forgotten how to latch. I called the lactation line at the hospital and the Godmother of Breastfeeding answered. She told me to pump for 15 minutes every 3 hours and give the baby bottles of expressed milk until we could come in and have her looked at. Again, that pump thing...

So there I was, setting my alarm for every three hours, pumping, warming bottles, giving bottles, washing bottles, pumping again. It was a nightmare, but Lydia was eating.

When we went into the lactation clinic the nurse got Lydia to breastfeed like she'd been doing it for years, but gave me a nipple shield to help with latch anyway. It was a huge relief, and worked pretty well.

Things went okay with those shields for about two weeks and then I realized that Lydia didn't really need them anymore. She could latch just fine without them.

Thinking I was scot-free I happily went about my mothering thing.

But I was wrong.

Lydia started to swallow a lot of air while she was nursing, something I had heard shouldn't happen with breastfed babies. She would also choke and cough and get so upset she would be screaming and I couldn't get her calmed down enough to continue. This was happening at every feeding and I was pretty frazzled.

I dreaded feeding her.

I didn't want to be alone with her.

I felt like every time I held her, she cried.

I felt like every time I fed her, I cried.

I kind of wanted to put her in her crib and run away from home a couple of times.

Yesterday, in tears and with a red-as-the-devil, screaming-bloody-murder baby in my arms, I called the lactation nurse again and told her what was going on. She said, "Oh, I know what the problem is. You have a forceful let down and the baby is too little to handle it right now. Nurse her lying flat on your back."

Forceful let down, huh? I knew this must have been part of the problem, those things are like Super Soaker 500's. But still, I was dubious. The solution to all my problems was as simple as lying down with my baby?

I tried it.

It worked.

And last night Lydia only woke up once to eat. And today she's all smiles and kicks and bubbles and has hardly cried at all.

She even had the biggest blowout of all time in her bouncy chair and I was so happy about it I almost took a picture.

And I hope that's the end of my breastfeeding story unless there's a prologue that goes something like this:

Lydia got bigger and was finally able to handle her mom's crazy boobs. Although Lydia occasionally wakes up with nightmares that a giant breast is suffocating and drowning her at the same time, she had this to say about the experience: "Blurb ee goo aaa dibberplll."