Feeding Troubles
I had two goals for Sunday: 1. Go to Target; 2. Get through the whole day without crying. I’m proud to say it was Mission Accomplished. It’s now 7pm on Monday, and today has been tear-free as well. I’m on a roll.
I’ve always considered myself a pretty capable person—even adventurous, or at least willing to take (calculated) risks when it came to going new places and trying new things. I’ve never been one to give up on things, or to assume I couldn’t do something just because I’d never done it before.
And yet I’m now humbled to say that motherhood has thrown me for a loop, to put it mildly. How is it possible that Lucia, a tiny being smaller than most housepets, has pushed me to—and past—my limits time and again over the past few days? We had a rough week last week. It was a culmination of factors, namely extreme fussiness and a hesitation—nay, a violent aversion—to breast-feeding. Each time I put her into feeding position, she began screaming shrilly, a kind of scream I’ve never heard from her before. She didn’t starve—she sometimes decided to feed; and if it went on too long I pumped and gave her a bottle—but it was incredibly, incredibly stressful for me. I felt like she absolutely hated me, and felt like a complete failure at feeding my child. She would scream, I would get increasingly frantic, and it always ended with both of us sobbing. This went on all week. By the time Andrew came home from work each day the house had become a place where tranquility was a distant dream. And the fussiness would continue.
I actually cried so hard this week that at one point a contact fell out. Now that’s some crying.
We’re still working out the cause of this strange screaming; she’s not sick, no fever or etc., so who knows. Doing skin-to-skin feedings seems to have done some good this weekend, and today she fed well, even falling asleep on my chest several times after a good nursing. I spoke to a lactation consultant today who reassured me that these things will pass; and we have a doctor’s appointment on Friday. If there is a cause to find, we will find it.
In any case, it was quite a week. The breast-feeding troubles unmoored me enough so that any tiny thing could set off a new crying jag; it was more like a week-long crying jag with small intervals of red-eyed calm. Now that a fresh week has begun, I am trying, really trying, to stay centered and in the moment, to approach each feeding as a beacon of calm reassurance, to focus on what I’m doing at any given time instead of worrying about what’s to come (the end of our Christmas vacation, when we’ll leave our families; Andrew’s upcoming overnight business trip in January). I am filled with admiration and awe these days—for single mothers, military wives with husbands abroad, friends who have survived their children’s infanthoods (sometimes with more than one child at a time), anyone who’s raised their babies and lived to tell about it.
This is hard. This is really, really hard. I love this baby to pieces; but I am simply blown away by the fact that she may be the greatest challenge of my life.
I’ve always considered myself a pretty capable person—even adventurous, or at least willing to take (calculated) risks when it came to going new places and trying new things. I’ve never been one to give up on things, or to assume I couldn’t do something just because I’d never done it before.
And yet I’m now humbled to say that motherhood has thrown me for a loop, to put it mildly. How is it possible that Lucia, a tiny being smaller than most housepets, has pushed me to—and past—my limits time and again over the past few days? We had a rough week last week. It was a culmination of factors, namely extreme fussiness and a hesitation—nay, a violent aversion—to breast-feeding. Each time I put her into feeding position, she began screaming shrilly, a kind of scream I’ve never heard from her before. She didn’t starve—she sometimes decided to feed; and if it went on too long I pumped and gave her a bottle—but it was incredibly, incredibly stressful for me. I felt like she absolutely hated me, and felt like a complete failure at feeding my child. She would scream, I would get increasingly frantic, and it always ended with both of us sobbing. This went on all week. By the time Andrew came home from work each day the house had become a place where tranquility was a distant dream. And the fussiness would continue.
I actually cried so hard this week that at one point a contact fell out. Now that’s some crying.
We’re still working out the cause of this strange screaming; she’s not sick, no fever or etc., so who knows. Doing skin-to-skin feedings seems to have done some good this weekend, and today she fed well, even falling asleep on my chest several times after a good nursing. I spoke to a lactation consultant today who reassured me that these things will pass; and we have a doctor’s appointment on Friday. If there is a cause to find, we will find it.
In any case, it was quite a week. The breast-feeding troubles unmoored me enough so that any tiny thing could set off a new crying jag; it was more like a week-long crying jag with small intervals of red-eyed calm. Now that a fresh week has begun, I am trying, really trying, to stay centered and in the moment, to approach each feeding as a beacon of calm reassurance, to focus on what I’m doing at any given time instead of worrying about what’s to come (the end of our Christmas vacation, when we’ll leave our families; Andrew’s upcoming overnight business trip in January). I am filled with admiration and awe these days—for single mothers, military wives with husbands abroad, friends who have survived their children’s infanthoods (sometimes with more than one child at a time), anyone who’s raised their babies and lived to tell about it.
This is hard. This is really, really hard. I love this baby to pieces; but I am simply blown away by the fact that she may be the greatest challenge of my life.
Comments
you are doing a great job by still feeding, i gave up and i regret it.
keep up the good work, it will all get better soon ;)
Good luck. I know it is hard not to get frustrated, especially when you are home by yourself during the meltdowns. Babies are full of lots of stages and we have to try to keep up!