I've spent the last 11 days working on Project Nursing.
Sterling weighed 7 lbs, 3 oz when she was born on Friday. When we went in for our first official weigh-in on Monday, she weighed 6 lbs, 2 oz. Babies lose weight after they're born, but they're not supposed to lose more than 10% of their weight. My milk hadn't come in.
Dr Liz recommended Mother's Milk tea and we got a tincture of something-or-other from the Birth center. She also recommended drinking a hoppy microbrewed beer. I also got out the breast pump to give that a try.
Since then, my life has revolved around feeding the baby. Because I'm not producing all that much milk, she doesn't get full when she eats most of the time. She alternates from one breast to the other, then wants to go back to the first side. Periodically, we have to give her a bottle. Luckily, formula showed up on our doorstep. I'm not sure how the formula people knew we were having a baby, but we've gotten two containers of formula so far.
According to our baby tracking app, last week, I spent almost 19 hours nursing. So far this week, I've spent 10 hours. The past couple of days, I've been nursing on average every 2 hours. On the plus side, she sleeps for 4 hours or so at a stretch at night and we take a couple of good naps during the day.
Dr Liz thinks that much of the problem will resolve itself as Sterling gets bigger. She'll be more adept at nursing and, as we nurse more, I'll produce more milk.
Keep it up, mama! The first few weeks, sometimes we had to nurse every hour during the day (some of it comfort nursing, but mostly because she was hungry that often). I joined a facebook group called "the leaky b@@b", which helped a lot in the sanity department when i was up in the middle of the night nursing. You can do it!
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Lisa, you're doing an awesome job! Sterling is lucky to have you and Mike as her parents! Amazing how much love you can have for one so tiny, eh? And it never ends.
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