Lucy as a glow worm - you can kind of see the bright blue lights through the swaddle blanket.
In other good news, her weight is up to 8 pounds, 4 ounces - only an ounce away from her birthweight. She gained almost 6 ounces in only two days!! Of course, this is not entirely unexpected, as we have been trying our best to keep her very well fed. This has meant a lot of bottles, but I am slowly coming to terms with that.
I had a semi-private session (1 other person was present) with a lactation consultant this morning. It was a good, if not entirely encouraging, session. I gave Lucy part of a bottle, then breastfed her. She latched on pretty well, but only managed to take in about half an ounce from me. I explained to the LC that my main goal was to reduce or eliminate the pumping - I don't need to exclusively breastfeed my baby (at this point it seems like an unrealistic goal), but I just cannot spend my time hooked up to a pump, or watching the clock to plan for my next pumping session. The consultant seems to think this is do-able, and I am now moving to a feeding plan where I give Lucy a supplemental bottle BEFORE I breastfeed (a little less than I think she truly needs to be full), and then let her finish at the breast. This should give her the patience and energy to try to get more milk out. Eventually, as she gets stronger and more used to taking in milk from me, I hope to be able to reduce the amount of the pre-breast bottle an increase my supply a bit. I am NOT going to pump after each feeding session, unless I feel uncomfortably full (ha ha, pretty sure that's not going to happen). If I feel like it, I can pump a couple of times a day to have a little extra milk on hand.
I like this plan, it takes a lot of the stress out of feeding sessions. I already feel more relaxed and human. I kept feeling, every time that Lucy fell asleep on me, that I needed to put my baby down and pump. I was feeling guilty for our cuddling time because I knew it was not helping my supply (I felt the same way when we were using the bili-blanket, too - cuddling was a no-no because it meant she wasn't hooked up like a little glow worm). And that's no good - new moms should be able to cuddle their babies as much as they want!!
Well, time to feed Lucy again and then give her her first real bath. Her belly button stump fell off on Saturday, but things have been so hectic over the weekend (Finn at home, the 2-hour feeding and pumping schedule, etc) that we haven't managed to give her a proper dunking. Time to go fix that!
Glad to hear that some of the decisions you've made are making you less stressed. I totally agree that cuddling is the #1 priority!
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