The last time I checked, it had been 3 HOURS since little P had started feeding. Oh yeah, those cluster feeds, when your little monster can literally feed for hours on end, can break the hardest of human beings.
I know a fellow-mom whose little one once fed for some 14 hours non stop!!!
Me, I was so ecstatic that little P was feeding from me, that 3 hours seemed nothing. My doctor had advised me to lock ourselves in a room, no disturbance, put on some music to ease my anxiety over feeding and just feed feed feed.
So, in true nerd style, the ipod was always at the bedside, the room was always comfortable, there was a water bottle and a straw, LOADS AND LOADS of pillows to support me and little P, and just us.
More importantly, I had three soldiers literally standing on one foot, ready to take orders from a screaming me, every time I wanted something. Mom, MIL and the husband were equally happy that things were finally working for us, and ready to provide me with a helping hand and leg!
There was a flip side to this, though. Our little P, it turned out, was quite a biter!
Only a nursing mother knows how painful it is to be bitten by a baby whilst feeding!
Man! Do no underestimate the power of those gums. Teeth are overrated! A little nip is all it takes for the blood to start oozing out instead of milk!
I sometimes think, maybe it's a good thing that nature provided women with two breasts! I would be retired hurt from one side for days on end. As soon as it would repair, bam! The other side would get seriously nipped, and I would have to suspend feeding from that side for at least 3 days for it to heal completely.
Here's another beautiful thing about breastfeeding. If you rest a injured side for too long, you end up getting either engorged, or with block milk ducts.
And when I say that getting spanked on your bottom is probably a lesser pain any either of these two bit***s, I am right!
Mother of god! The pain, and the shivering and the fever that follow these two beauties, oh wow!!!
This one time, I was feeding from the nipped side, I looked down, and he looked like a little vampire! His mouth was covered in MY BLOOD!
I hadn't realised, but I had seriously "broken a boob", as they say. There was blood gushing out like a waterfall, little P had no idea had he was guzzling on my blood, and his torso was also covered in blood!
The emotional trauma of getting bit was too much for me to handle. This was a recurring thing for me. Every few days, I was heard screaming my lungs out, crying hysterically, rushing to the washroom to see the damage and eventually roam around the house with a smelly Tee-shirt that would reek of milk, because I would leak to the moon and back, during those rest days.
Apart from the biting, things were going okay, I suppose. But, there was a weird part: Little P was refusing to sleep. This was one non-sleeper. He just wouldn't sleep. He would feed for 3 hours, but sleep for 10 minutes, and wake up for another feed.
So, we continued giving him his top-ups here and there, but he kept dropping weight, until one day, we got him weighed, and he had dropped roughly 1.5 kgs. Which is like some 20 kgs in adult weight.
My ego was satisfied that breastfeeding was working, but this wasn't how I wanted it to work. The doubts and the questions were back.
I know a fellow-mom whose little one once fed for some 14 hours non stop!!!
Me, I was so ecstatic that little P was feeding from me, that 3 hours seemed nothing. My doctor had advised me to lock ourselves in a room, no disturbance, put on some music to ease my anxiety over feeding and just feed feed feed.
So, in true nerd style, the ipod was always at the bedside, the room was always comfortable, there was a water bottle and a straw, LOADS AND LOADS of pillows to support me and little P, and just us.
More importantly, I had three soldiers literally standing on one foot, ready to take orders from a screaming me, every time I wanted something. Mom, MIL and the husband were equally happy that things were finally working for us, and ready to provide me with a helping hand and leg!
There was a flip side to this, though. Our little P, it turned out, was quite a biter!
Only a nursing mother knows how painful it is to be bitten by a baby whilst feeding!
Man! Do no underestimate the power of those gums. Teeth are overrated! A little nip is all it takes for the blood to start oozing out instead of milk!
I sometimes think, maybe it's a good thing that nature provided women with two breasts! I would be retired hurt from one side for days on end. As soon as it would repair, bam! The other side would get seriously nipped, and I would have to suspend feeding from that side for at least 3 days for it to heal completely.
Here's another beautiful thing about breastfeeding. If you rest a injured side for too long, you end up getting either engorged, or with block milk ducts.
And when I say that getting spanked on your bottom is probably a lesser pain any either of these two bit***s, I am right!
Mother of god! The pain, and the shivering and the fever that follow these two beauties, oh wow!!!
This one time, I was feeding from the nipped side, I looked down, and he looked like a little vampire! His mouth was covered in MY BLOOD!
I hadn't realised, but I had seriously "broken a boob", as they say. There was blood gushing out like a waterfall, little P had no idea had he was guzzling on my blood, and his torso was also covered in blood!
The emotional trauma of getting bit was too much for me to handle. This was a recurring thing for me. Every few days, I was heard screaming my lungs out, crying hysterically, rushing to the washroom to see the damage and eventually roam around the house with a smelly Tee-shirt that would reek of milk, because I would leak to the moon and back, during those rest days.
Apart from the biting, things were going okay, I suppose. But, there was a weird part: Little P was refusing to sleep. This was one non-sleeper. He just wouldn't sleep. He would feed for 3 hours, but sleep for 10 minutes, and wake up for another feed.
So, we continued giving him his top-ups here and there, but he kept dropping weight, until one day, we got him weighed, and he had dropped roughly 1.5 kgs. Which is like some 20 kgs in adult weight.
My ego was satisfied that breastfeeding was working, but this wasn't how I wanted it to work. The doubts and the questions were back.
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