Feeding Babies

Feeding babies has been on my mind a lot lately.  In the past couple few weeks we've started rice cereal.  It went pretty good the first time.  It wasn't fast enough for Sam, but Emily ate like a champ.  The problem started a few days later.  We had been out of town and on the way back home poor Emily was having a tough time.  She was riding in my parents' car and we had to stop.  She was all stopped up.  We have been lucky and neither Sam nor Emily have been sick so this was the first time that one of them was not feeling right, and it broke my heart.  Luckily the problem resolved itself after a rough evening.  So after talking to the nurse we are waiting until their 6 month to try food with Emily.  I guess she might be on another type of cereal.  We have been working on Sam eating still.  He is getting better but still loves his bottle.  We aren't sure when he can start to eat "real" food with his rice cereal but we might just wait until next Monday.

This past week has also been the last week for milk for Sam and Emily.  Since they are almost 6 months old and I'm out of prenatal vitamin I've decided that I'm done pumping.  It has been harder to stop then I thought it would be. 

When the babies were first born they were too little to breastfeed.  Preemies generally aren't ready for breast or bottle feeding until 34 weeks (or later).  So I started exclusively pumping.  From the beginning I struggled with a low supply.  I had most of the risk factors that included: premature birth, C-section, pre-eclamsia, blood loss, and the fact that we needed help getting pregnant.  There was at least a week where every visit to the NICU included a visit from the lactation consultant about what to do about my low supply.  I was eating plenty, drinking enough, pumping every 3 hours, trying to sleep but still was barely producing any milk.  I almost gave up.  I wanted to badly to provide for my babies but my body wasn't working with me and having to talk about it every day wasn't helping.  After I finally broke and broke down crying to Paul when I got home and he told me I didn't have to do it if I didn't want to I decided I would just do what I could.  Some was better than nothing, right?  Breastfeeding never worked for Sam and Emily.  When they were in the hospital we tried and tried but I was impatient to get them home and they both ate great from a bottle.  I had numerous meetings with the lactation consultants to try to figure it out once Emily came home but my first bout with mastitis that took two rounds of antibiotics interfered with that.  (One doctor thought it might be yeast and the last thing I wanted my newly released preemie and my baby still in the hospital to deal with was thrush so I exclusively pumped and took a break from attempting breastfeeding.)  We tried again when Sam came home but it was going to require a great deal of supplies (breast shield and a supplemental nursing system) and a lot of time.  I decided that they were still getting all the positives from milk in a bottle and that it would be okay if they never breastfed.  I also knew that with my low supply they would still need to be supplemented with formula anyway.  I eventually was able to pump enough for Sam and Emily to get half and half. 

When I went back to work I continued to pump.  Teaching and pumping creates and interesting set of obstacles.  The first was where and when?  My schedule only allowed for two times an hour apart which wasn't ideal but it would work.  I luckily have one of two rooms in my building with a closed classroom with a door.  I figured if I locked the door I shouldn't have any interruptions.  But I was wrong.  We have very helpful janitors in our building and they unknowingly unlocked my door to let in students TWICE.  The first time they knocked and I was smart enough to stop but the second time was after school and the janitor closer so they walked in on me.  At least they were teacher's kids.  The other problem was field trips.  I can tell you there isn't a great place to pump and the Museum of Nature and Science.  I was still able to keep my meager supply up until the end of the year but I don't see pumping until January working.  It makes it difficult to meet with my teaching partner to plan, other teachers about issues and make phone calls to parents.

I think all of the work makes it hard to be done.  I had a feeling of satisfaction every time I was able to give the babies milk instead of formula.  The formula smells bad, is expensive and they seemed to feel better with milk.  But they are getting bigger and soon will start to eat more food and need less formula.  They will and have done great with their mixture of milk and formula and will grow with just formula.  So I'm done.