Breastfeeding. Where do I even start? When deciding how to feed Mila breastfeeding was my obvious choice, it seemed the easiest way to feed her and there are so many benefits for both mama and baby. I never set myself out any aims of how long I wanted to breastfeed for I just wanted to see how it went and hoped that I would be able to do it as I know that so many women either struggle to breastfeed or can't breastfeed.
Up until 2 weeks ago Mila was almost exclusively breastfed, having the odd bottle of formula here and there. My breastfeeding journey was very up and down. In the first couple of days she latched on brilliantly and I'd say for the first 6 weeks we had no trouble at all - she was gaining weight really well and feeding for a good amount time. The biggest hurdle that I had at that point was getting used to breasfeeding in public as I realy hated it at first, but slowly I built up my confidence. So like I mentioned in Mila's 5 month update the 8 week jabs really changed everything for us. After the jabs she obviously wasn't feeling to great and over the course of a few days was feeding less and less. It got to the point where everytime I would try and feed her she would fuss, kick and arch her back. She was rejecting me and I had no idea why. So we started feeding her a bottle of expressed milk in a bid to keep her hydrated as I was starting to worry that she wasn't having enough. It was a difficult couple of days and it got to the point that she would only feed on me when she was tired so I was only able to do about two feeds a day. I was so frustrated and was starting to think that I was either going to have to pump or we would have to start using formula. We did start using formula as I couldn't keep up with the expressing but day by day I managed to slowly get her back onto the breast. I ended up having to give her the dummy and swap the dummy for the breast and that really helped. In the end we slowly built back up and she went fully back onto the breast however from then on we gave her a bottle of formula every so often.
So from that point on Mila hadn't really had any problems feeding until we hit 4 months. Then suddenly she became the most wiggly and active baby when feeding, pulling off every 2 minutes and looking around and eventually becoming disinterested. It was so difficult to get her to feed and in the end it was taking me about an hour just to try and complete a feed and I felt like I was constantly feeding! We then started noticing a change in Mila, she was up in the night more and didn't seem to be growing out of the 3-6 months clothes, my mum intuition told me that something wasn't quite right so I headed over to the child clinic to get her weighed. It turned out she hadn't gained even half the amount of weight that she should have gained within the last month. I put a brave face on but really I found it quite heartbreaking - realising that the reason she was probably waking up in the night was due to hunger isn't a nice feeling at all. So from that point on we decided to slowly transition over to formula. We still don't know exactly why she wasn't putting weight on - it could be me not making enough milk, it could be that Mila wasn't spending enough time at the breast to access the hind milk which is the fattening milk that helps them to put weight on, it could of been a combination of both. The main thing is that it wasn't making Mila happy, she wasn't putting weight on and wasn't sleeping well and in turn it was making me stressed out as well. She's now been on formula for two weeks and we've such a change in her sleep and her overall temperament, she's also back on track with her weight gain.
So if you're reading this and are in between or trying to decide whether to make the switch to formula, do whatever is best for you and your child. As much as I had mixed feelings about making the switch to formula in the end it's best for both me & Mila and as long as she is healthy and happy so am I.
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