Brief Breastfeeding Update

First things first. Thank you all for the awesome comments on my blog, on facebook, twitter and in email. Your support and kind words have been sustaining me through some dark and challenging moments. I'm drafting a post in my head with the title "Thank PTB We Have No Formula in the House." And now:

I think we're getting the hang of this. And now it's time to go back to work (well, next week) and figure out how that's going to work all over again.

But, no, seriously, starting a few days ago, Em started to really nurse using the nipple shield. She'd get a few ounces at a time and I was really pleased.

Somewhere along the line, I noticed that it seemed like she would latch on better to the shield if I laid her down and hovered my breast over her. One day I tried doing that without the shield, after we'd already been nursing a bit with the shield. She latched on! It was wild.

She's still doing that - latching on without the shield after a bit of time with the shield. It's not all the time, and she goes back and forth on whether it's ok with her or if it's going to make her cranky, but it seems to be mostly ok. Funny too that she prefers the right side - I'm going to take her back to my awesome chiropractor in a week and ask her to see if everything is ok in her neck. Apparently it's not just mommies that can have birth injuries!

She also doesn't nurse well at night - we still haven't gotten side lying nursing figured out, and she just doesn't latch as well, nor stay awake very well, so I'm still pumping before bed and when I get up so that we have milk to feed her overnight. I think she's getting better overnight too though.

My dads are here this week and we're having a great time. But it's very busy with sightseeing in addition to the baby care that I'm still just getting used to.