It has been an incredibly rough 4 days for me. On Thursday, I took Elliot in for her monthly weight check. She's been a slow but steady gainer since she was born, so we take her in frequently to make sure she's on the right track. At Thursday's appointment, we discovered that she had only gained 11 oz. in the past month. Not good. I was given 2 possible causes for her lack of weight gain. She was either getting lazy and not eating enough when she nursed, or she had an alarmingly high metabolism and was burning all of her calories before she could store them as fat. We needed to determine which of the two was the cause.
The solution to this was to have me stop breastfeeding her for 4 days. I had to pump exclusively and give her bottles so we could determine exactly how much she was eating. If she gained, we would know that she was just a lazy eater at the breast. If not, we would move onto bloodwork to figure out what was going on with her metabolism.
I spent the first 2 days of this experience sobbing uncontrollably. E is not a cuddly baby, so nursing her is really the only time I get to snuggle with my little girl. I was also terrified that my milk supply would completely tank and she wouldn't be able to nurse again after this little experiment was over. On top of that, pumping every two hours is a less than pleasant experience. By Friday afternoon, I was ready to give up, and I almost did. Then I convinced myself that if I gave in and nursed her now, the last 2 days would have been a complete waste. I decided to suck it up and keep going, and just hope that I wouldn't completely screw up my supply.
I was hoping and praying that it was a breastfeeding issue and not a metabolic one. I figured the worst case scenario with a breastfeeding issue would be that I'd have to offer her pumped milk after nursing to make sure she was full. Not ideal, but not too bad. Plus, we could work with a lactation consultant to try to get her to eat more when she nursed. The solution to a high metabolism - if I wanted her to continue getting breastmilk - would be for me to pump, and then add formula powder to my milk to make it higher in calories without making her eat a larger quantity. Or I could switch her to a high calorie specialty formula, which is simply not an option in my book. I am determined that this baby will be breastfed. I was terrified that it was a problem with her metabolism. I let her nurse for as long as she wants, so why would she stop before she was full?
Because she's lazy, apparently. I should know this by now, considering it took 42 weeks of pregnancy, a crazy amount of pitocin, 23 hours of labor, and eventually a c-section to even get her out of me (seriously, all she would have had to do was turn her head slightly to move things along!).
We took her in this morning to be weighed. She gained 8 freaking ounces in 4 days!!!! That's half a pound!!!! I'm feeling slightly freaked out about the fact that she hasn't been eating enough for the first 3 months of her life, but the doctor assures me that she's completely healthy and right on track developmentally, and pretty much perfect in every way. The only problem is, now that I'm nursing her again, she doesn't want to take the bottle after. I'm not sure if this is because she's decided that she likes a full tummy and is now eating more, or if she's just lazy and content to take the edge off her hunger and leave it at that (which was what was causing the problem in the first place). We are now on a mission to find a good lactation consultant and motivate this kid to eat!!!
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