My visit with the lactation consultant

Sure, he looks really sweet here, doesn't he?

That little face turns to one of pure rage if he doesn't get fed immediately when he's hungry or just wants to nurse. I call it a severe case of the milk rage.

My little milk-a-holic thinks he needs to feed every hour, on the hour, for at least 20 minutes at a time. Normally this wouldn't be a problem for a newborn but unfortunately it is for me. Turns out I produce a  crap-ton of milk and all at once too. I finally got my pump and tried pumping just for five minutes and produced three ounces. Probably could have kept going for a while too but since pumping just increases the demand for your supply, I didn't.

Well, I thought some of my tricks I was using to help control my over supply/forceful let down issues were working but poor baby Jack started getting even worse reflux symptoms and constantly was having gas issues. His poor little belly often looks like this:

So I had to start giving him Mylicon gas drops at every other feeding just to keep it under control. Then came the milk rage/desire to constantly nurse and it was basically compounding the problem. Jack likes to comfort nurse because that is what he knows will make him feel better but when he is basically overeating by a lot, it really isn't helping. He's been a little better at allowing me to soothe him other ways, but nursing is still preferable. His inconsolable crying at midnight lead my husband to have to sleep in his game room last night on the air mattress so he could at least get some sleep. So not only did I feel bad for Jack, I felt bad kicking Dan out, but the guy needs his sleep too. Then meanwhile for me, I feel awful that my milk is causing my baby boy so much pain. So in turn, I cry like a baby too. lol. It's just a giant mess.

That is when I knew I needed to go see the lactation consultant. I'd met her before when I took that breast feeding class a few months ago. She's super nice and I figured she might have some ideas on what I can do to ease this problem.

Here's what I learned:

Jack basically gets the amount of food he needs per feeding in abou 5 to 7 minutes. There is no need for me to switch from breast to breast because he will only get the foremilk and that is likely what is causing the gas/reflux issues to begin with. Luckily she does think he must be getting a good amount of the hindmilk too though because he is gaining weight well. He's already up a pound from his birth weight! He's gotten so long already that I had to adjust the straps on his car seat to go up to the next setting. Wow! Tall kid!

She also showed me a new hold technique that is going to help him control the flow a little better. I just hope some of these things work because I hate to watch him cry. It seriously breaks my heart.

We have Jack's two-week appointment tomorrow and I hope to talk to his doc a little more about his reflux/gas issues and if there is anything else I can do to resolve that. I'll keep you all updated on how things go and if any of you readers out there in cyber land have any thoughts or advice on this issue, please comment below or feel free to send me an email at s.arnold528 at gmail.com.