This World Sharpens Teeth

Well, after the previous night's little adventure, Sunday could only be an improvement, surely?

We woke up a little later than normal, a small blessing as a result of a certain person's late bedtime. We had anticipated that Olivia would probably have woken in the night for a feed, but apparently not. So she would surely be ravenous come breakfast time. Well, not quite. She took five of her normal six ounce feed. Good enough, we thought; she'll not come to any harm on that.

Except that every subsequent bottle that she was given, Olivia seemed disinterested after just a couple of ounces, and not only that, was taking about as long as it would normally take her to finish the whole thing. She seemed to be favouring one side of her mouth. 'Oh ho!' we thought, 'Teething!' She seemed fine in herself, however. In fact, she's discovered the most delightful new noises, a series of coos and warbles that make her sound a little like one of the Clangers. It's lovely to watch her get to grips with these joyous new sounds, and it just makes us smile to hear it.

In the afternoon I took her out, as I often do, to give K___ a few hours off. We went to see Nana (or rather Great Nana now, since my mother has become Olivia's Nana). Great Nana was wearing woolly gloves, which I noted immediately, since it was quite a warm day, with low cloud cover making it feel close. Olivia seemed to be on great form. She was making her new noise and generally being quite entertaining and Great Nana seemed very happy to see her namesake.

Then we set off to my parents, just a short buggy ride away. Well, for Olivia; I had to push (she's very selfish sometimes - it's so babyish). On the journey round, Olivia fell asleep. All right for those not stuck pushing the buggy, isn't it? At my folks, she stayed asleep for another twenty five minutes or so. Upon waking, the chirpy girl who had entertained her Great Nana was gone. This one was sullen and whingy. I changed her nappy, but that didn't seem to improve matters and Nana and Grandpa didn't manage to get even the most miserly smile from her. It was about the right time, so I tried her bottle.

It normally takes Olivia about ten to fifteen minutes to do a six ounce bottle. After half an hour, she had just about managed two. She kept pushing the teat over to one side or pushing the bottle away. It seemed as though she was sucking the teat, but she must have just been mouthing it. In the end I just gave up. Cue a load of tears from Madam. It was no fun for my folks, so I packaged her up and took her home. For the remainder of the day she refused to take more than a couple of ounces per bottle and had LOTS of very runny nappies. She seemed so alert and okay in herself (for the most part), we weren't too sure how concerned we ought to be about dehydration. In the end, we phoned NHS Direct and spoke to a nurse. She established that Olivia's mouth was moist and her eyes were bright and there was still wee in her nappies and that her fontanelle wasn't sunken and said that as long as there was a wet nappy every six to eight hours, it wasn't too serious, but we needed to keep an eye on it.

As K___ would be visiting the health clinic to get Olivia weighed on the following day, there wasn't anything too pressing to worry about.

The Bottle and the Doctor Get You Through the Day

The Supplemental Nursing System I ordered recently arrived on Monday. I had a go using it on myself but it didn't go well and after about 10 minutes of fruitless trying Olivia was purple and screaming, and we were both pretty frazzled.

Not one to fall at the first hurdle I went to see a breast feeding specialist at out local Sure Start clinic. Sure Start is a government initiative to run childcare and health education for families. Our local clinic runs a variety of initiatives including the baby massage we do on Thursdays and a Wednesday breastfeeding support group. The counsellor showed me how to latch Olivia onto the breast while also using the tube to supplement the breast milk. The idea is that the baby receives the normal top-up of formula or expressed breast milk while latched on to the breast so they still get the food they need but the mother's milk supply is also stimulated at the same time.

Anyway, this time we actually got her to nurse while using the supplementer and she took 3oz of expressed breast milk. I think that the supplementer is something that would have been much better in the beginning few weeks when a real difference could have been made to the supply. It is also fairly faffy and time-consuming and probably better suited to those first few weeks when commitments were minimal and I had F_ around to help out with things. I will try it again on my own but I don't think the SNS is going to be totally replacing the bottles as the medium for supplementing her. The breastfeeding support worker who also come to help me put has asked me if I would be willing to speak to some of their groups in the future about my experiences with breast feeding after a breast reduction.

A lot of the things I am trying at the moment will probably benefit baby no. 2 (no I'm not up the duff after 8 weeks - I'm talking hyperthetically!) more than Olivia as hopefully next time around I will be able to try a lot of what we have worked out through trial and error from the beginning rather than faffing around so much.

Things I have found have increased supply:
Taking the prescription drug Domperidone
Pumping to increase demand and therefore increase supply - although next time I will hire a hospital grade pump to maximise effect for minimum time and effort.
Frequent feeding at the breast - although next time I will use the at breast supplementer as well to ensure maximum stimulation of the milk supply

Next time around supply is likely to be better anyway as lactation encourages formation of new lactation tissue and can also stimulate severed connections within the breast to regrow.

Anyone needing info about breastfeeding after reduction should definitely check out BFAR and I would also strongly recommend the La Leche League book 'Defining Your Own Success' by Diana West. The cheesy title aside this book is crammed with useful tips and info as well as success stories from BFAR mothers.

General breast feeding resources I have found useful are :
Kellymom.com - a website packed full of useful articles and handouts on all aspects of breast feeding
Also the instructional materials of Dr Jack Newman, which can be linked from a variety of websites, including Breast Feeding Online . Dr Jack's handouts cover a variety breast feeding topics while his video clips offer a useful audiovisual resource with practical demonstrations of various apsects of feeding.

Did You Drink Too Much Too Soon?

We recently changed Olivia's formula from SMA Gold to Hipp First Infant Milk.
When I was pregnant I wanted a few small ready mixed cartons in case I needed them in a hurry. In a push to support breastfeeding (and the cynic in me says there might just be an element of cost cutting) our local hospital equires you to bring your own milk if you want to bottle feed and I wanted to be prepapred in case I had to transfer in a hurry and the breastfeeding didn't work out. These came in very handy when we were told by our midwives that we needed to supplement Olivia with formula. Once they were used up F_ went off to the shops as I wasn't back on my feet and asked the ladies in the chemist what formula was best only to be told something along the lines of 'oh they are all the same so just use whatever'.

Now on closer inspection they are NOT all the same. Once I sat down and read the ingredients on a tin of baby formula my jaw dropped at the zillion ingredients. Although lots of these were vitamins etc. I was left wondering what the hell the rest were! In the early days post delivery we used Waitrose Deliver a few times to stock up on nappies and food.

Without digressing too far onto a topic which could keep me busy for hours lets just say that I strongly believe in the ethos of Waitrose, their environmental stance, support for local products, fair attitude towards producers etc. and would not give my money to certain other major supermarkets. If you want to know more then click here and also check out the excellent 'Sold Out: the True Cost of Supermarket Shopping' by William Young. Without showing myself to be the Guardian reading, polenta eating, tree hugger that I secretly am we believe in recycling, biodegradable (and if her belly button ever heals up washable) nappies etc., farmers markets, supporting local producers and independent shops etc. We also get organic milk and eggs delivered by our milkman and seasonal organic vegetables delivered by Abel and Cole. Ok so I lied, I did digress...

Anyway, whiling away time on the Waitrose website I discovered the Hipp organic baby food range. Never having spent much time in the baby aisle in supermarkets I hadn't really thought about organic baby food at this stage. I knew we wanted to ween Olivia onto home made organic baby food but for some reason it had never occurred to me that there was such a thing as organic formula. So now she has that in addition to breast milk.

Now maybe I am naive in my recent state of motherhood, and will be eating my words in a few months time, but I always find it really annoying when people say things like 'oh, little Johhny will only eat oven chips'. WHY will little Johnny only eat oven chips - surely the adult, the one in charge, and sets the agenda for is eaten by...um...buying it. Unless little Johhny is off down Iceland (a frozen food emporium for our US readers) when Mummy's back is turned buying McCain's finest then where do said oven chips come from???? I know it isn't that easy because my firned never let her baby have sweets, preferring to give her dried fruit as her sweet treats, which all worked well until she went to nursery and saw the contents of everyone else's lunch box! Having said that, thanks to recent government initiatives (nothing to do with jumping on the Jamie Oliver bandwagon - much, honestly) many school no longer allow the packet of Monster Much and Wagon Wheel, which along with Nutella sandwiches of cheapest white bread were the staple foods in my day. So maybe, especially where we will, Olivia will grow up coveting her neighbours roasted vegetable and houmous salad???

So, after another little rant there, the upshot is that Olivia now eats organic food like her Mummy and Daddy. Meanwhile Mummy and Daddy live in fear of the day when little Olivia is invited to her first childrens party at McDonalds...

Loving by the Pound

Olivia has finally exceeded her birth weight. As of Monday she weighed 8lb 10. Took four weeks but we got there is the end. The daily drama of guessing how much formula to give her after a breast feed proved too much for all concerned. The previous week she had only gained 3 ounces and we just couldn't go on with her not putting much on. Now I give her a big breast feed in the morning when I have a decent amount of milk, followed by just a few ounces of formula, and then the rest of the day she has her full formula feed followed by as much time as she wants on the breast. She is still getting the benefits of breast milk and the comfort and bonding (or Mummy Loving as it is known in our house:) but we know that she has the calories she need to grow.

Here she is looking positively blooming!