Breast Feeding Isn't Easy

2 Weeks 3 Days Old

I am sure you have heard this before but breast feeding isn't easy.  Our little peanut does great latching on but I was just not producing enough milk for her.  We were having such a hard time getting on a schedule because I would feed her when she wanted to eat and to me that seemed like it was ALL DAY because she would nurse for 40 minutes at a time and she still seemed hungry after wards. 

Yesterday we took Annabelle to the Doctors and we found out that she is down to 5lbs 7oz she has continued to lose weight from her birth weight.  I felt so bad because I felt like we did everything we could and that I was starving her.  We had been having trouble with her crying for hours every night and we couldn't figure out what was wrong.  The Dr. said we just had a very hungry baby.  They gave her a bottle at the Dr. and she sucked it down so fast.  Our poor baby was starving, how horrible did I feel.

The Dr. told us to let her nurse for 15 mins then to give her 1oz to 1.5oz of formula every 2-3 hours during the day and at night we can go up to 4hrs.

She is finally acting like a baby and eating, sleeping, and pooping vs. eating, eating again, sleeping, pooping and screaming.  I was trying to nurse her so much it was getting very uncomfortable and she was not getting the sleep she needed. 

We are now changing more diapers some of which are 100% blow outs!  It is nice to not have her crying at me all the time and to see her full and satisfied is a great feeling.  Breast feeding was very stressful because I never knew how much she was getting and she would fall asleep while feeding.  The Dr. said she was probably burning a lot of calories just trying to nurse.

We are going to keep trying to breast feed to get her some of that "liquid gold" but for us the formula has been a god sent and now I feel like her and I can have other time together that was centered around nursing.