When breastfeeding doesn't work

Kivani is a great feeder (can you tell!?) and I'm so thankful.  However, we had so many challenges with Riles so I was pumping and feeding for 16 weeks (his tongue issues, fortunately I had enough milk).  This was *SUCH* a different experience of feeding.

Recently a friend couldn't feed for a while and I found myself dolling out advice on pumping etc.  Thought I'd write it down in case it can help anyone else.  This is *MY* input only, standard disclaimer that the medical professionals may not agree and that I'm only sharing my experience.  This is also info to help people who want to breastfeed - seriously, no judgement if you chose not to.

Two sections: initial challenges, then making it efficient. 

Initial Challenges: 
How to get through the first few weeks 

-  Figure out why you want to breastfeed.  Everyone will tell you the benefits.  As a long term pumper, I can tell you you'll need a reason.  For many, it's the health benefits to the child.  For me, I was all about convenience.  During the first two weeks I got stuck at our baby shower (!) and in traffic, with insufficient milk (boobs full of it yet he couldn't get any) and a screaming starving kid.  My motivation to continue was that I am lazy and disorganized but I can't forget my boobs. Seriously, that's it.  Health smealth.

- Take it one day at a time.  One day 3 if you'd told me he wouldn't be drinking in a week I would have quit immediately.  I read somewhere that 85% of breastfeeding problems are resolved within two weeks and 97% within a month (I'm that 3%).  That deluded me to keep thinking this breastfeeding breakthrough was just around the corner.   But hey, it worked.

- Buy the best pump, before you need it.  For some reason I had thought I'd get this later (though I bought the stroller before he was born even though it was a BOB and its for kids 3mo+?) and maybe I'd see which I liked (as if I could try pumps on or something?).  When you are told you need to pump, its 'cause something is wrong, and you're crazy tired and you are starving your baby and its miserable and rediculous in the bad way.  This is not the time to buy a pump.  Using a hospital pump is like using hospital pads - huge and awkward.  I don't understand people who pay $1400 for a stroller, but buy a $29 pump when they plan on breastfeeding after they go back to work, and then give up because it took too much time.   If you're going to buy it in a year anyways, have it from the get-go.  Especially if there are problems you'll spend 6 hours a day with your pump.  I did this in a chair for a week and cried.  And then got medela freestyle (double hands free) and suddenly had 6 more hours in the day for laundry, emails, dishes, driving.  And yes, crying.  But yes, the biggest change was that I'd put on the pump and forget about it while just being normal, it times out after 30 minutes, and sometimes I'd just start it up again and forget about it again.  Way'de pump for an hour without even realizing it. When you're trying to get your milk up, this is good.  (ps get a jacket that zips up over the whole thing.  You won't feel as much a freak)

- Think of it as your job.  For some reason it helped me to think I stopped working as an engineer to start working as a mom, and initially my job was to pump for 6 hours a day.

- Its okay to hate people who don't get it.  With a non-feeder kid, your life will be miserable in a way other moms don't understand.  Oh really, you're tired cause your fat baby snuggles in for a nurse for 20 minutes every few hours?  I have to wake every three hours with an alarm clock to pump for 30 minutes while staring at the same damn wall and then clean the pump and heat milk then wake my skinny baby that won't stay awake 'cause he's starving, and try to feed them with a bottle/tube/whatever the crack lactation person said won't cause nipple confusion but he screams anyways and is so hungry he won't wake up and it takes him 40 minutes to drink two ounces.  And then an hour later my alarm goes off again.  Yes, breastfeeding is wonderful, bitch.
ps, I can't even imagine what mothers of sick children feel.  Hearts out to them and recognition that my problems are trivial
pps, my second feeds fine (relief).  It is a truly different experience - SO SO MUCH EASIER.  There is no comparison.  If someone says yeah, breastfeeding is tough but their kid feeds and their house is clean and they have showered in the last week... you have my permission....

- Lactation consultants are your friends and your enemy.  Some are super.  But don't put up with Bull.  There's a well renowned breastfeeding clinic run by doctors in Vancouver that made me feel like crap (condescending dismissive people... you know who you are).  There are kooky lactation consultants that tell you you've damaged your kid for life - it's irriversable! if only you'd seen me first! -  by feeding them a bottle, or tube or cup or whatever.  Everybody has advise (irony noted in this advice column). Then there are fantastic supportive people who 'get' it and give just the right mixture of advise and encouragement.  I wish I'd figured out my filter earlier.  In general, the guys who want to know what I thought worked/didn't and then tweaked the direction, helped more than those who came out preaching with no ears.

- You will need huge support.  This first few weeks struggling with feeding was my hardest part of parenting, period.  If you want to feed, tell your husband/inlawns/grandmother to stop saying its okay to quit (I would have already if I wanted to, thank you) and start vacuming.  If your partner is off work and you're on the 3-hour alarm, make him wake up with the alarm, get the pump/bottles ready, change baby and then wake you up.  He feeds baby the last session's while you pump.  Life is easier when everyone's equally exhausted.

- I remember when I was preggo someone told me that they had bfeeding challenges and couldn't feed their baby unless they had no shirt on and it took her husband holding the baby's hands and the mother in law holding the baby to latch her.  And I thought there's no way that I'd ever hang with anyone, let alone my mo-in-law, without a shirt on and with pregnant belly fat hanging out etc.  And then.  Seriously, I don't know why I couldn't feed with a shirt on those first few weeks, but it was beyond me.  And I was totally ok with it.

- Accept the fact you will knock over your milk at some stage.  Likely right at the beginning when every drop is like gold.  Cry and get over it. If partner knocks over milk, divorce.

Longer term.
How not to go crazy when your life expands again

- see pump comments above.  #1 factor.

- When you go back to work, suggest not quitting just before or just after this transition.  You'll have enough guilt leaving bubs with someone else, and your baby is going through enough change as it is.  If you get efficient, you can pump in 5 minutes while emailing or reading or on conference calls. Take a bathroom break.  Pump during conference calls, or just do emails in a conference room while you pump (put up a sticker saying do not open door).  Try it for a week or two, THEN decide its not possible/too crazy.

- Breastmilk can sit out for 8? hours at room temp and up to a week in the fridge.  As such I figure the pump parts can sit in the fridge between pumpings and I only have to wash it once a day.  I just left it clipped into the bra and put the whole thing in the fridge (or if I'm being honest, on the car seat).  I can get this thing on in the amount of time it takes my cell phone to dial. Seriously.

- I don't know if its legal.  But I sure pumped and drove a lot.  I figured its hands free.  I'd pull out from one client, park around the corner, pull up my shirt, put on the bra-with-pump-still-attached-from-last-time overtop my work clothes, screw in new bottles, throw on my jacket and pump on the way to the next meeting.  Pull over in an alley, remove, pull into meeting without anyone knowing.  Huge timesaver. 

Even with all the chaos, and with going back to work the week after he finally 'got' it, I would still do it all again.  Even just the nights and weekends being bottle free was worth it.  Backpacking and traveling without bottles was wonderful.  And I got to love our time together once it got easy.