Knowing When to Say When

For Jen and I, the last four days have been a very important lesson in trusting our parental instincts.

From the get-go, our plan was to feed Gaius at the breast. It was a good plan, the best thing for baby and Mommy alike. We got off to a decent start. For the first week-and-a-half, Gaius seemed to be getting it: decent latch, voracious eating, and exceptional weight gain.


Jen was doing okay, too, until about five days ago, when Gaius's nursing at the breast turned into chewing and biting. A giant crater appeared in Jen's right nipple. Gaius would not settle down and became fussy all the time. He would only sleep for 10 minutes before waking up, screaming for more food. He nursed for 4 hours at a stretch. Something was going on.






Desperate for answers, we sought help from some of the area lactation clinics and leaders. They all told us the same thing: Gaius is slightly toungue-tied (a relatively common, treatable, and often self-resolving condition) and it was interfering with his ability to take milk properly from the breast. Initially, two solutions were presented to us: clip the membrane under his toungue and / or "train" Gaius to suck better through a routine called "suck training".

Nobody ever suggested that maybe we should pump and feed from a bottle, make sure the baby was getting enough that way. In my estimation, the unspoken sentiment was to keep Gaius at the breast at all costs, power through the pain, and not deprive him of the experience of being on Jen's breast. Although nobody said it, anything less would be hurting the baby.

While at the clinic, we also purchased an automatic, double breast pump. Although we bought it for when Jen goes back to work, I think we knew we were going to need it sooner; something in the back of our frantic new-parent brains told us something was not right.

Anyway, not wanting to cut the membrane under his tounge, we opted for suck training. Let me tell you, it really sucked. After 5 hours of jamming my finger deep into Gaius's mouth and trying to feed him with a finger feeder (see that dead-mouse-looking-thing below), we gave up. Gaius was going beserk, screaming for food and thrashing around. We had no choice but to put him back to Jen's one good breast. To keep Jen's crater-boob producing milk, we pumped a couple of ounces of milk with the new pump and went to bed.




That was last night, and Giaus ate for two 4 + hour stretches. At 5:00am, Jen woke me up, crying. She was done. Gaius was begining to chew apart her last good nipple, and he did not seem satisified, no matter how long he was on the breast for. She told me to go get a bottle and the pumped milk. Bottle feed him.

We felt like failures. I prepared the bottle, gave it to Jen, and sat back to watch the emotional sabotage of my son. But something funny happened. Gaius stopped crying. He ate, for the first time in days, voraciously and deeply. Three ounces in 5 minutes. When he was done, he let out a giant burp and fell asleep for 3.5 hours.

Holy shit, we thought, we have been starving our baby. And all becuase we felt like we needed to keep him on the breast (no matter the health consquences to Jen) and away from the bottle. Since putting Gaius on the bottle 13 hours ago and feeding him breast milk that way, he is a changed baby. He does not cry all the time, and he sleeps when you would expect a baby to sleep.

We went back to the hospital clinic this morning to learn how to use the pump correctly. The lactation consultant at the clinic told us we did the right thing by going to the bottle. In fact, it turns out that Gaius had been losing weight: 3 ounces, when he should have gained 4.

So, our plan going forward is to express breast milk using the pump, and bottle feed it to Gaius. We think that makes more sense than slicing his toungue and/or sticking our fingers down his throat 7 times a day. No sense starving our little baby to achieve somebody else's ideal. If they think we're bad parents and weak people, you know what? F_ck them.

The lesson in all of this: do what works for you and your baby, use your common sense (e.g., if your baby seems like they are not eating enough, maybe they aren't).

Without further pontificating, here are some pictures:


The bottles.







The babe, full at last.

The babes.