A Failing in Advice

I had set in my mind that I wanted to breastfeed my child when I was pregnant. I had heard my mother tell me that she had breastfed me as a baby so I wanted to do the same. I wasn't under any illusions that it would be peaches and roses when it came to learning to breastfeed, I had heard stories from friends of babies that wouldn't latch and pushy staff that insisted they breastfeed when they physically couldn't. I was determined to try it anyway. I thought I had an idea of what to do from the classes the prenatal classes, but oh how wrong I was.

After the baby was born, I was initially told by the postpartum staff that my trying to force out colostrum to my baby was forcing the nipple out of her mouth and she wasn't able to suck as well. "Just let her suck, it's fine". I found that after the first nurse who received us to the post-partum unit, we got many bits of breastfeeding advice. I know that some things work and others don't; it's about finding what works for you and your baby. The problem was that there wasn't any CONSISTENCY in the advice we were given.

For instance, I was told that my hold on her was wrong. And another staff said, oh no that's wrong again. And no that's still wrong. "Here let me do it for you" from a 5th staff member. All of this, I found out later, could have been alleviated with a breastfeeding pillow, of which I had one. Not one staff member suggested I try it.

After 3 days of feeding the baby breastmilk, it came time to leave the hospital. We were told during the discharge checkup that the baby wasn't gaining weight. "Oh you should try weighted feeding." This feeding was done by the Mother/Baby clinic. Sure, let's try it, I thought. The baby was weighed by a nurse from Mother/Baby, I fed her for 20 minutes, "She should have enough from 20 minutes of sucking", and would be weighed. She didn't gain any weight from the breast milk. Conclusion was I had no supply so I should feed her formula. Off goes the staff member to get us some ready-to-feed bottles. She didn't return for an HOUR. We had a screaming baby cause I was told "feed her for 20 minutes" and I was waiting for the bottles and didn't resume feeding her. I could have but I was so distraught that we called another nurse to get her bottles after listening to her scream bloody murder for 20 minutes. It was so heart-rendingly hard to listen to your baby scream in hunger and being told not to feed her.

We were given a crash course in feeding our baby with a bottle and I was shown how to use a breast pump ("to strengthen your supply!"). We weren't sure quite what to do, but assured that it was only until supply picked up. I found that we were given bad advice on the bottle. First we were told to yank it frequently because it would allow her to breathe. My partner was feeding her bottles while I pumped. Well she eventually didn't want to feed from him after a month of yanking the bottle. We weren't told that the yanking was only until she could learn to breathe and eat at the same time. We felt like absolute failures when it came to feeding our own child.

It took advice from a couple of grandparents to get us feeding her with confidence (WARM the bottle, don't just feed it cold; DON"T yank it out of her mouth; DON"T burp her every 10 seconds, that's too frequent; your supply takes a WEEK to establish, not 3 days, that's not long enough). All in all, we got terrible advice from the get-go, and it sabotaged our feeding journey to the point that we have NO FAITH in any of the advice we got in regards to feeding our child from Mother/Baby clinic.