Breastfeeding

I think that we are pretty lucky. Things have been going really well with breastfeeding. Garrett nurses every two hours like clockwork during the day and at night he goes 3-4 hours the first stretch and the 2-3 hours after that. He always initiates feeding and almost always nurses ten minutes on each side every time he eats. Since he is gaining weight like a champ (up almost a pound from his birth weight at his two week appointment) I assume that my milk is more than enough for him.

Now I am wondering how long we are going to do feedings every two hours. As grateful as I am that everything is going so well it is hard having your life run on a two hour schedule, and really since it takes a half hour to feed it is more like an hour and a half schedule. I know that eventually he will go longer between feedings as his stomach gets bigger. Since we are home and I don't really have that much to do it isn't a big deal to feed him that frequently but it does make going out and doing anything pretty hard. I have not actually feed Garrett in public yet and while it makes me nervous I know that I am going to just have to buck up and do it at some point. That point will definitely be this weekend when Brian's sister and her family come out. We have a lot planned, and most of it does not include sitting around the house.

I bought a pump hoping to get enough milk stored up that I could have at least a little for when we are out and about and just do the feedings by bottle but pumping has been harder than I thought it would be. The first day that I pumped I tried it a couple of times after feedings or when he only ate off of one side. That night he was fussy and wouldn't let us put him down pretty much from 7pm to 1 pm the next day. He was asking to eat most of the time as well. I think that he was hungry because I had pumped a lot of his feedings and my supply couldn't keep up. To top it off I really only got like an ounce and a half total that day. So I have been trying not to pump as much. In three days I have about 2 and a half maybe three ounces. That is discouraging. I know that all I can do though is keep at it and hope that it picks up.

I am also nervous to give him a bottle at this point. I don't want him to realize that the bottle is easier than nursing and start to refuse to nurse. I also don't want to hurt my milk supply by feeding him from a bottle instead of nursing or pumping.

I guess we will see how this weekend goes. I will probably throw a bottle and that extra milk that I have in the diaper bag when we go out and just see how it goes. I may use it and I may not. I am guessing not and all in all even though the freedom would be nice I am not sure that I am ready for him to have a bottle yet and risk messing up everything especially since it is going so well.