Milk milk milk

My life pretty much revolves around milk right now. When I read all sorts of pregnancy and baby-care websites, I ended up reading numerous encouraging sites telling young mothers to breastfeed their children. Seems a bit odd for an Estonian - what other way is there?! I just didn't understand why people would voluntarily offer their kid a bottle. And as some statistics stated, over 90% of young mothers in Estonia breastfeed their child when they leave the hospital after giving birth. Still, even Estonian websites were full of articles, "Do not stress about producing enough milk!". I thought it was just odd and definitely did not apply to me. Why would I stress about milk? Women have been breastfeeding their children since the Dawn of Man. I'm a healthy young woman with a healthy diet so I have nothing to worry about.

I was quite looking forward to a successful breastfeeding experience and I was very much encouraged by my baby's healthy appetite. On the second day, she latched on and kept eating for 40 minutes to an hour. Two to three hours later she demanded for food again and had another long meal. She always looked satisfied after a meal and I was happy to turn a hungry impatient baby into a chill and sleepy little angel.

What I didn't expect was that a midwife would walk in on the third day, look at the baby and tell me, "your baby looks hungry! Are you producing enough milk? This is one starved baby!" I had just finished another 1-hour feeding session and then the baby was weighed. Then I fed her for 20 minutes and she was weighed again to see how much milk she got. During those 20 minutes, she LOST 2 grams. Another midwife explained that sucking requires a lot of energy - if the baby doesn't get enough milk then the breastfeeding session actually becomes counterproductive. The first midwife said, "I told you all along - your baby is STARVED!". Then I was taken to a mechanical pump to see how much milk I have left. After an hour and twenty minutes of feeding time and a pretty high-stress atmosphere thinking my baby is starved, I was only able to express a few miserable drops of yellow milk.

Oh I hated that one midwife. In an instance she had turned me into a worrying young mother. It's not nice to think I'm starving my baby. It took me about an hour of serious contemplation to realize that I am not doing anything bad to my baby. My body is pushed to its final limit recovering from labour. I'm pale and weak, barely able to stand. No wonder if my body needs a little extra time before milk comes in. Now I just have to get my body in shape for breastfeeding as quickly as possible.

Where there's a problem, there's also a solution. They told me I should start each meal with a 20-minute breastfeeding session and then feed her the "real" food - special milk for babies. The amount depends on her age and builds up very fast: 30 grams per meal on the third day, 40 grams on the fourth day, and so on. And her meals must be once every three hours because her digestive system needs time to rest and this is the book-knowledge proper time between a newborn's meals. So I sent Erkki to the pharmacy to buy bottles and milk powder. I also decided to manually pump out any extra milk to improve milk production. I was told that the problem MIGHT be solved in a couple of weeks if all goes well.

I never knew baby milk bottles were such a hassle. It's not enough to wash them before use. They actually have to be boiled for 5 minutes. And making the milk from powder involves boiling the water and letting it cool to 40 degrees. The first night at home was therefore pretty scary - when my baby started to cry from hunger and woke me up, I breastfed her, then hushed her and then went to the kitchen to warm her milk. After two feedings I stayed up to boil the bottles so I could feed her again at the next meal. Pretty frustrating. On the second night I was so exhausted I fell asleep after the 20-minute breastfeeding session and woke up just in time for her next meal three hours later. And then fell asleep again while she was eating. So no extra bottle for her! So much for the hospital recommendations.

So anyway, here's a weird fact - breastfeeding makes the mother SUPER SLEEPY!!!! It's not just because it consumes energy. The act of breastfeeding leads to the synthesis of prolactin which creates more milk and makes the mother sleepy. When I breastfed at night, it was never a problem to fall asleep right after. But when I was holding a bottle, it took over half an hour to fall asleep afterwards. Unfortunately breastfeeding makes me sleepy even during daytime, so my life has become pretty much a daze.

Ah, and back to my serious breast-feeding problem... A couple of days after leaving the hospital I was making so much milk that I no longer needed to use the powder milk. I just fed her the milk I had pumped out earlier. And then it seemed like my baby got really lazy and wouldn't eat for more than 10 minutes at a time because she knew she'll be getting extra milk anyway. And then she just WOULD NOT EAT the extra milk. She seemed perfectly satisfied with what she got within 10 minutes in the natural way. So I just decided to go with my gut feeling. I stopped forcing her the bottle. If she wants milk, she has to suck it out herself. I just never let her eat for more than 20-30 minutes (depending on how actively she's eating). She is wetting one diaper after another and looks absolutely stuffed after her meals. On day 6 she had almost reached her birth weight, while it's normal to be back in birth weight on day 10-14. I would say the problem was NEVER REALLY THERE to begin with. Or at least didn't require so much hassle and panic.

Now I'm still paranoid about my baby getting enough food so I just follow the advice I got from the Internet - I feed her whenever she asks! That's usually once every 1.5-3 hours. She also likes to snack. She acts super hungry, then eats for 6 minutes and an hour later she's hungry again. And if she wants food again, she gets it! I have completely ignored the 3-hour rule and it works perfectly well for me and my baby. I'm living from one feeding to another because in between meals the baby is happily asleep. Milk is no longer a problem - milk is a lifestyle!