Christopher’s Breastfeeding Story.
This is the breastfeeding story of my first child. I knew that I was going to breastfeed from the start. I read very little on the topic, but had a mother, sister, and sister in-law that had all breastfed. All were stay at home moms when they nursed, but I had planned on going back to work. I looked for books on pumping breast milk but didn't find anything. So I just bought, an electric pump by Evenflo at the local K-Mart.
Christopher was born on Friday, December 13, 1991 in a delivery room of our local hospital. After his birth, I asked to hold him, but was told he needed to go to the nursery to be evaluated. His scores were 8 and 9 in the delivery room and he had no problems. I was sewn up and taken to the recovery room. After 20 minutes, I asked for my baby. They brought Christopher to me, binky in his mouth. I took out the binky, and tried to get him to latch on. It took about 5 minutes but finely he did.
I will say that it was painful nursing for the first couple of days. It wasn’t nipple soreness but the pain from my uterus closing (going back to normal size.) Nursing makes the uterus go back to pre pregnancy size faster, reducing recovery time, and bleeding. A non-aspirin painkiller about 30 minutes before nursing eliminated the pain. I did get blisters on my nipples, but using a cocobutter cream fixed that problem. And I had no pain or blisters after the second week.
I nursed Christopher from my breast for 3 weeks, then I started pumping twice a day, and having my husband feed Chris my pumped milk from a bottle. It was very hard pumping my milk with the electric Evenflo pump. Luckily, at my six week check-up, I read a magazine article about breast pumps. The article talked about the hospital grade electric rental pumps and how good they were. I called around the next day and located a rental station for the Amenda pumps, and boy that a difference that pump made. I could get 6 oz of milk, in 6 – 8 minutes.
Christopher slept in our bed for the first month. He nursed every three hours so that worked well. By two months we moved him to a cradle next to the bed, and he was nursing every four hours.
In the middle of February, I went back to my full time job with my breast pump in hand. I found a private room to pump in. It worked out nice because the room also had a computer, so I could read my office email, while I pumped. I pumped until Christopher was 8 month old, by than I had a lot of frozen milk.
I started Christopher on cereal at 8 weeks, because everyone at work told me that would make him slept though the night. At three months Christopher started sleeping though the night, but it had nothing to do with the cereal. By six months, Christopher was eating only table food and nursing (or drinking breastmilk from a bottle at daycare.)
It was the greatest feeling to nurse Christopher in the mornings, at night and all weekend long. To be able to bond that way with your baby after a long day at work is great, supper, unbelievable, et.. experence. I breastfeed Christopher until he was 13 months old. It was great. I never had a problem with engorgement. I will add that I had a job that kept me away from home 13 hours a day for 5 days a week.
