My child must be starving today

My child must be starving today
My child must be starving today
Anonim

During my pregnancy, I really prepared for breastfeeding, I was wondering how it would feel, whether I would have enough milk, how long I could feed my baby this way. I tried to do everything right, as this is the job of a perfect mother: you have to breastfeed, said the older, "benevolent" relatives. And I thought so too.

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I read a lot of specialist books, internet forums, I asked my doctors, my girlfriends and happy-unhappy people. But I still didn't know how to do it well. And of course the kid came along, he wasn't well-mannered and understanding enough to wait for his mother to get her PHD on the subject.

I was lucky because in the hospital - unlike many places - they helped me. The baby was already on the breast in the delivery room, even though he was laying eggs on his mother and on the specialist books, he certainly screamed for two hours, and the last thing he was interested in was the breast. But I knew we were on the right track, this is the first step and unfortunately many mothers are not given this either. We were assigned to the children's ward, where everyone was an expert on the subject. My roommate gave birth to her second child with gestational diabetes, and in theory she should have been on a diet, but miraculously, she missed it, and the baby was born weighing 4.5 kilos. (I note that I also had gestational diabetes and because of the new diet I lost 15 kilos, and the baby was also born with a normal weight and he althy). It was explained to us already on the first day that newborns will lose weight in the hospital, don't worry, milking is expected on the third day ideally.

My roommate got into a fight with all the doctors, saying that he couldn't breastfeed with his first child either, so he won't or won't try now, and his child will surely starve to death today. If not today, then tomorrow for sure. They tried in vain to explain to the poor woman that a baby of that weight would survive for a week from the reserves, but she did fight off the sugar water. The baby literally drank 40-50 grams of sugar water for each meal and of course he was so exhausted that he slept all day. At such a time, I would have liked to have asked my dietitian what the chances are that this baby will be diabetic. The other starving children in the room, whose mothers forced them to breastfeed and did not give them sugar water - including mine - of course screamed all day. And our roommate gave us advice that we should be given sugar water too, because otherwise our children would starve to death. Milk induction was done nicely for everyone, as it should be, except for the aforementioned sugar momma, but I was already unsure of what to do now? How can you do this well?

I had three mastitis in the first four weeks, even though I tried to milk whenever I could. Either the child was hanging on me or I was on the breast pump. Obviously, I did everything I could to keep my milk from drying up, because I love to breastfeed and I saw no reason to switch to formula when I didn't have to, and even with a little effort, there was still milk. I told my gynecologist that we tried to get through this period by putting the baby to the breast as often as he needed and breastfeeding for an hour if necessary, so the milk started to increase nicely. He scolded her terribly, saying that a he althy baby eats every three hours and no more than twenty minutes. Then you have to get it off my chest! I say fine, but then he won't eat enough and after half an hour he will scream, not to mention that my milk will slowly dry up. The answer was that then it would have to be supplemented with formula. I can't breastfeed for an hour! By the way, breast-feeding with mastitis is absolutely forbidden! (His colleague at the emergency room told him before that it is not recommended in case of persistent fever, but until then it can be).

I say, fine, then again I'm the stupid one, but I'll just ask the nurse too, because my instincts told me who cares about the doctor, my child knows what's good for him. Nature solves things smartly, these small scopes are well put together. The nurse told me that I did the right thing, just breastfeed as needed, and a guy should talk about breastfeeding if he has already tried it.

To this day, my baby falls short of the daily amounts prescribed by the "textbooks". I must be the stupid one again and the gynecologist is right that a replacement is needed, but I think if my baby smiles after nursing and sleeps through the night, then it shouldn't be such a big deal. You can read everywhere that babies reach twice their birth weight by the time they are six months old. Well, out of curiosity, I took out my old little book that had my baby data from 25 years ago. Of course, my weight gain did not reach the minimum prescribed by doctors, and I was not even close to double my birth weight by the time I was six months old. That's why my mother was never teased, she breastfed as best she could and I became a he althy child. All this, of course, I say again, it was 25 years ago. Obviously, a lot depends on genetics, but don't you sometimes have the feeling that everything is too regulated? Many of us measure that unfortunate little package twenty times a day, like an exasperated mouse, and it doesn't even take a mother's instinct to see if it's eating enough. Of course, I know there are cases where this is not enough and we do need guidelines, but then we really treat them as guidelines. Maybe we won't have enough milk in the end either, and then of course I'll switch to formula without socks, but until then I can at least try?

It is very instructive to read the Terrible advice section on the website of La Leche League (for example here: https://www.lll.hu/node/151). Some stories made my hair stand on end. Just one example:

A mother tells me: When our doctor looked at my 3-month-old baby, who was breastfeeding well and gained more than a kilo every month, she said she was satisfied with his weight development, but not he finds the child quite fussy, so I should give him formula before feedings. But so that the volume of the formula is not too large and the baby's tummy is not full of it, I should just dissolve it in a little water and give it to him like that.

I still don't know how to do this well, but luckily I've gotten to the point where both me and my baby follow the different advice and only take care of ourselves. I accept one opinion, namely that of the pediatrician, who checks every month to see if there are still those certain loops. Our weight gain is still at the low end, but we will continue to try exclusive breastfeeding until the baby is comfortable that way. I don't give advice to anyone, so tell me what terrible advice you have received about feeding your children?

Ancsi

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