Day Three

It was my first day at home with a baby well day two i was home with baby but at 5:30pm. The night before was so hard, feeding her in middle of night it was harder especially being half asleep in the dark. It was a game of Latch on latch off latch on til I got her breastfeeding comfortably. It wasn't comfortable enough though because my nipples were crack & blood blistered.  I was having a really hard time in pain. I came to a point when I refused to breastfeeding.

First of all I could not handle the pain, second of all she would not latch on and would fight & cry and third of all I was having the baby blues. My hormones and emotions mixed was horrible. I never thought it would of felt like that, an uncontrollable feeling. You just needed to cry. I was like that since baby arrived. Being at home with baby was a shock to me physically, emotionally and mentally. I was happy to be home but oh my gosh I have to feed this baby and care for it. It harder than it looks. Sleepless nights or broken sleep being woken every 2-3 hours. It's torture. Things mums do for their children. Never taking my mother for granted ever again.

As I may of said, a lot of the early days with baby is breastfeeding/bottle feeding, sleeping and of course nappy changes

For the first week with baby my midwife would visit and help me out with breastfeeding and anything about my body I was concerned with. She was great. The thing that annoyed me was my daughter would only latch on to feed properly when my midwife was here and when she wasn't Ella was back to not latching on and fighting me. So midwife came back several times a day to get this breastfeeding better established.

The first three day to a week is a huge challenge with getting breastfeeding right. don't give up keep trying even if you express or pump your milk into a bottle it still giving you baby a great start. When I was learning to feed her on the breast i hand expressed til i got a manual pump. It took ages, an hour, hand expressing but it gave my nipples time to heal from being crack and blood blistered. When it was time to breastfeed I would have a bottle waiting beside me if breastfeeding didn't work. It help boosted my confidence and lowered my anxiety and anger. I would never hurt my baby so I did have times where I hand her to her daddy and went outside for a breather or a walk with my rottweiler dog.

Never give up on breastfeeding keep at it and you and your child will benefit from it.

Big smiles from
Avril