"If you don't give a bottle
to your baby in the first two months, he may never take one,"
said an article. Wouldn't want that to happen, I thought. I knew
that I should not give artificial nipples in the first six weeks.
To be safe, I decided to wait seven.
By seven weeks, nursing was quite familiar and pain free. I made
the decision that it was time to try a bottle experiment. I hand-expressed
about an ounce into a bottle and sat down to see if David would
drink it. After some initial hesitation, he took it and then happily
went back to my breast. I breathed a sigh of relief. I thought
I could go back and forth from the bottle to the breast with no
problems. A week later, I gave him his second bottle.
Uh oh. There's trouble in paradise. David wouldn't open his mouth
wide enough to nurse. When he did open his mouth, he immediately
stuffed his fist into it and then was furious that there was no
milk there. I swaddled him to keep his hands confined but he kicked
off his blanket. After a great deal of effort, I'd get him to
latch only to hear the dreadful clicking sound. He was sucking
his tongue instead of properly latching. When he did latch, I
was afraid to take him off even if I was in pain. It took so much
work to get him latched, even if it wasn't a good latch, that
I didn't want to stop and start all over again. The bad latch
continued. The blisters came back. The pain came back.
Nights were the worst. Time after time, I sat trying to get David
to latch on. I tried all sorts of variations: lying down, sitting
up, with or without the Boppy. Time was ticking away and still
my baby was hungry. He was screaming, I was wailing and my husband
was about to break down, too. The frustration of the whole situation
was about to overwhelm us all. At one point my husband asked me
"Are you going to feed him or not?" "I can't feed
him," I sobbed back, "he has to feed himself."
After forty-five minutes, David finally latched on and soon he
is asleep. An hour and a half later we were doing it all over
again.
Looking back at it now, I have no idea why I didn't just give
David a bottle. In my exhaustion I simply sleepwalked out of the
realm of reason. Instinct took over and the bottles were not an
option. I just knew that I had to put my son to the breast if
I wanted to feed him. By sheer luck I avoided the slippery slope
of nursing sessions replaced with bottles, increased nipple confusion
and perhaps progressing to decreased supply and a premature end
to breastfeeding. I danced on the edge of a cliff and didn't even
realize that it was there.
I was just plain lucky that David never rejected the breast.
Perhaps waiting those seven weeks did that much good. It was obvious
that he knew where the good stuff was and he wanted to get it.
It just seemed as if he had forgotten how. That quickly, after
only two bottles a week apart and with a spoonful of milk each,
he was confused about how to latch. I never realized that nipple
confusion could grab a hold so quickly or fiercely. I didn't know
that even an occasional bottle could jeopardize my entire nursing
relationship.
I don't remember how long this nightmare lasted. Time sort of
suspends itself when you are struggling with your baby. I know
that the worst was over within ten days. A month later it was
all a distant memory as I was telling a friend how smoothly our
breastfeeding relationship had started.
Two and a half years later, I start my days with my son snuggled
against my breast. If I needed a reward for holding out against
nipple confusion, I couldn't have asked for a better one.
11/2001 |