Babies feeding babies

It's taken me a couple of weeks to come to grips with the babies feeding babies phenomenon that is now our norm. And to be honest I'm still not sure I'm at peace with it, but such is life I guess. You win some, you lose some (or in my case: you fill some, you starve some).  

 

Nursing has always been my thing. Getting pregnant, staying pregnant, delivering babies, having healthy babies, now those are all things I'm admittedly not very good at. But nursing? Well I've always had enough milk to feed a village and my chunky babies were the proof. I nursed T for a year and Ev well over a year and the thing I was most excited and least worried about with this new little one was nursing. Because psh, I got that!

 

But then enter Quinn and her oh-so cute but totally-tied tongue. A few snips in the mouth couldn't rid her tongue of it's heart shape (I'm sure there is an analogy in this, mom?) and although she could nurse better after the procedure, she was still pretty terrible at it--just ask my shirts and bras and undergarments that were soaking with milk after every feed. But we soldiered on through every sloppy, gaggy, gassy feed and by all accounts things were going well.

 

And then something unexpected happened at Quinn's 4 month check up. We put her tiny little body on the scale and she had gained a mere 8 ounces in the previous month. EIGHT OUNCES! IN A MONTH! I immediately felt sick to my stomach. My doctor and I agreed that she had been sick which could contribute to her weight and that she'd probably gain a ton of weight soon but I couldn't shake the feeling that something was not right. I had noticed lately that after feeds she was really fussy. I chalked it up to gas, but I started to wonder if she just wasn't getting enough to fill her sweet body. No big deal, I thought. I'll just pump and set my fears to rest.

 

An ounce, ya'll. That's how much I got when I went home and pumped at her scheduled time. One ounce, from both sides. I immediately texted my mom and sister a picture of the lame little milk bottles telling them that my boobs should be ashamed of themselves. Because seriously? An ounce? Luckily I had a freezer full of frozen milk (from when my boobs were working overtime) and sure enough Quinny drank down 5 ounces of de-frosted milk like her life depended on it. And turns out most people's lives do depend on eating, so I totally understand the girl.

 

There was a good 10 days right in the middle of this transition when we thought something could be seriously wrong with my body and that might be the reason that my milk was tanking but most of those tests came back A-OK, so we're back at square one in the milk-loss department. (She's always been a bad nurser and then she was sick, so maybe that caused my milk to tank? Add crazy hormones, stress, and who knows what else...) And I guess I should mention that some of those tests (which were for other symptoms, but milk production could have been related) required me to stop nursing for 48 hours so I pumped and dumped and blew through my freezer stock in no time. So I gave her formula. And although I dramatically thought everything was going to go to heck in a hand basket when she took her first sip of that stuff it ended up being just fine. More than fine, she loved that stinky drink more than I can say (which was not, in fact, a compliment to her chef of the past 4 months!) For now I'm doing triple feeds (nurse, pump, formula) and even though I know it's not sustainable, I'm hoping my milk will decide to return with honor! Today I only had to supplement a total of 8 ounces of formula with her breast milk feeds, so maybe it'll happen?

 

In the meantime my big babies are feeding my little baby all the time and as they're smiling and being sweet to each other my heart is both breaking and bursting, because it's so endearing but at the same time isn't feeding the newborn my job? But they're loving the responsibility of "nursing" the baby, and she is growing right before our eyes like I think she always should have been doing.

 

If there is a lesson to be learned in this (which isn't there always a lesson to be learned?) it is that sometimes things happen that are out of our control. I think during my milk-heavy times I was always a little questioning of people who lost their milk. Never judgmental, because I completely respect the choices all mothers make for themselves and their babies, but I guess I always assumed that they just didn't really want to nurse all that much or they would have/ could have. But I'm eating my words now in a real way and I know that I was wrong. So wrong! Because sometimes these "natural" things are not as easy or natural as they should be. I'm also realizing that sometimes what should happen is more important than what I want to happen. I want my baby to exclusively nurse, but what's more important is that she eats and grows and gets nourishment, even at the hands of a bottle.

 

In the long run, this is just the smallest of small deals, but it has taken me awhile to mourn my ideal--I think that's always the case when things turn out different than you planned. I guess I'm still working on it. But looking at these pictures of all my loves make things feel so much better!

  

Not only do all my boys take turns feeding her, she can now feed herself on the busy streets of NYC! And don't mind her outfit, that baby is rarely dressed by the end of the day!