so, WHY am i doing this again?

I'm glad things are going better for you. You can do it. It's a
learning process.

Maybe you should read the little engine that could to DD#1 a few times
to help motivate you .

Best of luck.

LB

shelley wrote:
shelley sez: "THANK YOU for your replys and personal stories. It has
helped so very VERY much."

things are better already.... i got some sleep (turns out it wasn't so
bad having the bed to just me and baby) and some food and a clearer
sense of reality. the 2 yr old is off playing with daddy today (he
took a day off work, bless his heart) and i finally got some clothes
washed. so life is looking a little better.

and because some of you asked.... here's the history, if you're
interested...

with dd#1 i "attempted" to bf for about 3 months. it was absolutely
HORRIBLE. i didn't know before, but my nipples are "flat" and the
shells didn't help. neither did the nipple shield or the breast pump.
Sore, cracked and bleeding, my supply fell off, i developed mastitis
which errupted into an abcess which ended my motivation. I cried when
i had to buy formula. I hid for a month when i had to bottle feed in
public, too embarrased by this failure.

so, with dd#2, i wore the shells in the months before her birth and
was confident it would be "easy" this time. HA. DD#2 loves to suck,
and she was so hungry for the first week, i swear she was chewing on
me every half hour. Of course there just wasn't much there yet and by
the time my milk came in i was (again) sore, cracked, bleeding and
crying in pain every time she "latched" (we made a lot of mistakes).
At someone's suggestion, we rented a pump and expressed milk to feed
her so that i could heal. A week later, guess what? nipple confusion.
She slurps so contentedly at that *&^%$! bottle and flails around in
frustration at breast. And we are still working on getting the
"perfect" latch... so still sore, still inefficient, still "giving in"
to the easy bottle at 3am.

BUT, i am going to hang in there at least another week. she's already
better at opening WIDE and maybe it was a dream, or maybe i was groggy
last night, but i thought she made a "ooh,-that's-icky-face" when
presented with the bottle. And at least she's still getting
breastmilk. And she's gaining weight. and she sleeps. Things could be
worse!

shelley wrote:
my daughter is three weeks old today and we still haven't gotten this
natural art of breastfeeding right yet. I'm sore and leaking like
crazy and tired and cranky and nothing has ever made me feel so
inadequate and guilty for failing... My husband is sleeping on the
couch, my two year old is jealous and needy... where's the love?
where's the bonding at two in the morning when the baby is screaming
and arching her back away from the breast? I've seen three lactation
consultants and one LaLeched League leader... nothing seems to be
changing, except my mood which is gloomier....

so WHY am i doing this?

what kept you going?

this time, the only thing that kept me going was knowing i had done it
before (albeit 15.5 and 18 years ago...) and that it could get easier; also
laziness - i didn't want to deal with ff'ing. my first 2 times i couldn't
afford to ff. but, mostly just lazy and now i hate to think of paying for
formula...
--
Edith
oht nak

shelley wrote:
my daughter is three weeks old today and we still haven't gotten this
natural art of breastfeeding right yet. I'm sore and leaking like
crazy and tired and cranky and nothing has ever made me feel so
inadequate and guilty for failing... My husband is sleeping on the
couch, my two year old is jealous and needy... where's the love?
where's the bonding at two in the morning when the baby is screaming
and arching her back away from the breast? I've seen three lactation
consultants and one LaLeched League leader... nothing seems to be
changing, except my mood which is gloomier....

so WHY am i doing this?

what kept you going?

I'm way to lazy to deal with bottles and way to forgetful to be able to
remember to bring enough formula for our errands and, worse, for our
vacations. BF'ing may be a pain sometimes (and it still is sometimes for me)
but it's so much easier and more convenient than ff'ing that I can't imagine
switching. Each time I think about quitting, I remember how much MORE work
it would be to ff DD and that keeps me going.

In the beginning, with cracked, bleeding nipples, lots of pain and mastitis,
I kept it up because I was assured that it would get easier and I knew that
it was what was best for my baby.

It does get easier. Go one feeding at a time, one day at a time. Don't look
ahead to six months or a year but to tomorrow. As in, "I can do this today,
and tomorrow we'll see." Good luck and I hope it gets easier for you soon.

Oh, one other thing. Several women I know had better luck when they saw the
same LC a number of times rather than several different LC's.
--
Melissa (in Los Angeles)
Mum to Elizabeth 4/13/03

"Melissa" wrote in message
news:FoXdb.631182$Ho3.121539@sccrnsc03...
shelley wrote:
my daughter is three weeks old today and we still haven't gotten this
natural art of breastfeeding right yet. I'm sore and leaking like
crazy and tired and cranky and nothing has ever made me feel so
inadequate and guilty for failing... My husband is sleeping on the
couch, my two year old is jealous and needy... where's the love?
where's the bonding at two in the morning when the baby is screaming
and arching her back away from the breast? I've seen three lactation
consultants and one LaLeched League leader... nothing seems to be
changing, except my mood which is gloomier....

so WHY am i doing this?

what kept you going?

I'm way to lazy to deal with bottles and way to forgetful to be able to
remember to bring enough formula for our errands and, worse, for our
vacations. BF'ing may be a pain sometimes (and it still is sometimes for
me)
but it's so much easier and more convenient than ff'ing that I can't
imagine
switching. Each time I think about quitting, I remember how much MORE work
it would be to ff DD and that keeps me going.

In the beginning, with cracked, bleeding nipples, lots of pain and
mastitis,
I kept it up because I was assured that it would get easier and I knew
that
it was what was best for my baby.

Yes. I agree with this. I'm feeding my 3rd nursling, and we had a
hellacious first six weeks. I had bloody, cracked, sore nipples and a baby
who, though perfectly happy to latch, was *killing* my nipples. If I hadn't
KNOWN I could make it work, because I'd done it before, I'd have had a
harder time continuing. But I *knew* it would get better. And it did.

I can tell you that I didn't really start enjoying feeding this baby until
she learned to smile...about a week ago. Before that I had no feedback,
just a poker-face kiddo who wouldn't even look at me. She's a lot more fun
now. I get that ache in my chest, you know the "love" sensation, when she
smiles. But I didn't have it before. I just slogged on. And it got better.

Breastfeeding is instinctive, but it's also *learned*. Babies are born
knowing they have to suck. That doesn't tell them how to do it properly.
That's something they have to learn. It helped me a great deal with my pain
when I finally learned how to do an asymetric latch, with the nipple
off-center in baby's mouth - much more of the aureola on the lower-lip side
of the nipple in her mouth, and very little of the aureola on the upper-lip
side. Pain eased off in one nipple immediately when I learned how to do
that; the other nipple was injured so it took longer to heal and for the
pain to go away (35 days, but who's counting?).

If you haven't tried swaddling your baby until she just can't move, and
*then* trying to nurse her, you might try it. My daughter was doing the
arch-and-scream thing, and I think what was really bothering her was those
annoying arms and legs moving around. She just wanted to be able to stop
moving, and focus on her mouth. I also kept my hand away from the back of
her head, which is apparently a trigger point for rooting (will make baby
keep trying to find the nipple, which she thinks is behind her because
that's where her head is being touched). A hand on the back of her neck, or
on her upper back, is adequate for pulling baby in close to the breast when
she opens her mouth, especially if she's swaddled up tight into a single
'unit' of baby.

My kids have been jealous of the baby too - though mine are older (6, 4 and
4) but I can read books to them while nursing, which helps the jealousy
thing. When my eldest was 2 and her twin sisters were born, I tandem-nursed
her with them. There was no jealousy. But if you're not tandem
nursing...maybe you can cuddle your eldest with one arm, while nursing baby
in the clutch/football hold on the other side?

I can't help with the husband-on-the-couch thing. We put a night light in
our room so I could get up at night without turning on the big light (we
have a big recliner-rocker I nurse in) and my husband frankly sleeps through
anything, But there may be things he can do, like wear earplugs...?

We'll try to help you come up with ways to improve your experience. Please,
let us help?

--angela