Mom #9
(narrative exactly as written to me by a former contact mom)

When I was pregant, some friends at church told me about this really neat Bible study that they had done before their children were born. She gave me the PFP book and we dug in. It totally appealed to us as we like lots of structure in our lives. We read through the book and listened to the tapes. We eagerly anticipated his birth. He was born on a Saturday morning and before we even left the hospital, he was on a good 2.5 hour schedule. I had a c-section, so we had three good days to get the routine established. He was a good eater from the first. He never had trouble latching on or feeding from either side. I wasn't really that sore and life was pretty great. When we got home from the hospital, things changed a bit. We tried keeping him on the schedule and did fine except in the evenings. Babyname didn't want to be apart from us, but we stuck rigidly by the book and we put him ALONE in his bedroom for bedtime and expected him to go to sleep. He didn't "want" to sleep. He cried and cried and cried. I have written in my journal that "I need strength. He is sleeping all day and then wants to be up all night. He lays in his crib and sobs. It breaks my heart. I want to hold him so much, but we have to get him unconfused. I am tired and weak. I want desparatly for him to get rest. Poor baby, he wants to be held and loved, but I can't (IT WASN'T PART OF PFP). I can't listen to him cry much longer." That was my entry the first day we got home. I was full of hormones and some "baby blues".

When babyname wouldn't wake up to eat, we resorted to all kinds of things. Tickling him, putting ice on his feet for a minute.... anything to keep us on the schedule. I cried every time we had to do this, but eventually we did get on a schedule of eating every two and a half to three hours.

By October 2 (2 month birthday), babyname was fussy all day long. My journal entry says, "babyname is fussy because he is hungry and it is not time to eat." I wondered about my milk supply, but didn't know how to check it. On Oct. 4, I wrote that babyname had been sleeping through the night for about 2 weeks. That means we were nursing 7x a day when he was 6 weeks old. That was it. I never added another feed, because I didn't want to mess up the schedule and we were working on getting him on a four hour schedule at that time. I also wrote, "the day I went for my six week check up, I started my period back. Of 100% of women who breastfeed, only two get their period back." I guess this should have caused me to wonder what was wrong but I didn't.

Two weeks later [babyname is 8 weeks old], we went on vacation. It was an eight hour drive. Babyname cried most of the way there and I couldn't figure out why. Even when I tried to nurse him, he would turn his face and cry. I didn't know what was wrong. My mother kept telling me that he was hungry, but because she had never nursed us, I figured she couldn't know. So, we spent most of the vacation and all the way back home with a crying baby. We were on a good solid 4 hour schedule by this time.

On Halloween night, we went to the Fall Festival at church. All the pictures that I have are of him crying. In November, the crying continued. Also, babyname had pretty much quit pooping. I called the pediatrician several times and first he said nurse more, the next time, he said nurse less. At the three month check up, he only gained 2 oz. We were lucky that he gained anything at all. I didn't know what to do. Babyname was crying pretty much all day. I still didn't know why. I still put him down for his naps and couldn't figure out why he didn't sleep. I cried lots, too. We started giving babyname laxatives to help him poop. It was awful. He didn't have anything to poop. BUT, WE WERE THRILLED THAT HE WAS SLEEPING THROUGH THE NIGHT! I guess he cried so much all day that that was all he could do.

By this time, he was losing weight. He was almost 4 months old and he had yet to smile at us. He looked sad all the time. At the 4 month check up, he had gone from 12.7 lbs to 11.5 lbs. I was sick. I had been so busy sticking to my schedule that my baby was starving. Oh , how I cried. I started offering him formula that very day and HE STOPPED CRYING!!! It was wonderful and awful all at the same time. As soon as he finished the bottle, he fell asleep and slept for two hours. I was so sick at my stomach. I didn't understand why no one had told me that such a rigid schedule so fast was a sure sign of disaster. But, the good thing is that immediately, I had a fun, lively, laughing, smiling, sleeping and hardly ever crying baby boy!

When I actually "quit" nursing, I never had any engorgement, I never had to taper off feedings, there was just nothing there. I also decided that I wanted to become a contact mom for GFI so that I could help other mothers in my situation. The funny thing is that I never felt like I could give people the right advice because I wanted them to feed their babies when it was necessary, but that isn't what the book said. So, I eventually took a leave of absence and never went back. Now (two babies later), I encourage other mothers to find a middle ground between scheduling and demand feeding.

Read more case studies on Page One and Page Two of this overview.