Warning: Talk about boobs ahead... just as related to nursing a baby though.
Our big boy is finally closing in on getting back up to his impressive birth weight. Now should it have taken this long (7 weeks) for him to get back to it... well, no.
9 lb. 13 oz. (with clothes on) - on my jerry-rigged kitchen scale
- will need to check it at the pediatrician to be sure though
Let's start at the beginning. Dylan was born at 9 lb. 12 oz. - a big boy by all accounts who actually had every single nurse who worked the 3 days we were in the hospital intrigued enough about the "huge boy" who was born to "that tiny girl", that every one of them came by to meet him. Or possibly more to gawk at me and try to figure out how I grew him so big.
This is how for reference - I was huge!!
Anyways, I digress. At the hospital, he had a hard time keeping his blood sugar levels up, This was attributed to his birth weight and the difficulty to maintain in all large babies. (We in fact remember having the same issues with Travis when he was born, and he topped 9 lb. as well). So for pretty much the duration of our stay, Dylan had his heel pricked and blood drawn after each feeding to make sure that his numbers were high enough - they typically were just barely under the acceptable level which necessitated continuing the pricks. It also necessitated me pumping while at the hospital and feeding him the pumped milk in order to avoid having to supplement formula - something we again had been through before and didn't worry too much about.
The lactation consultant who we saw while at the hospital said that he might have a tongue tie, and we should get it looked at. This was also something that we had been through before with big brother Travis. However, Travis couldn't even stick his tongue out of his mouth, where-as Dylan certainly could - so we didn't think too much of it. We did of course talk to our pediatrician about it, but came away not thinking that anything needed to be done for the amount of tongue-tie that Dylan had. At the initial appointment for Dylan to meet the pediatrician I am not sure what he weighed since they didn't write it down for me but it was in the 9 lb. range.
At his 2 week appointment, Dylan weighed in at 8 lb. 10 oz. - so over a full pound down from his birth weight. The pediatrician assured us though that big babies take longer to get back up to their birth weight, and that it wasn't anything that we needed to worry about, yet. So for the following 2 weeks we went about our business as normal, nursing on demand, and thinking we were growing our baby boy.
At his one month appointment however, Dylan was all the way down to 8 lb. At this point the Dr. said we do start to worry. He said that Dylan's head and length were increasing as they should, and so likely he just wasn't getting enough to eat, and I would need to up my milk supply. We did a weighted feeding at the pediatrician's office, which seemed to reflect that Dylan got 2 oz. from nursing - which he said was fantastic. (I however now believe either the initial scale reading or the later one was somewhat off based on how the next week would go). Our instruction for the following week, which would take us right up to Christmas, was to nurse, then pump, then feed the pumped milk. So we did. And believe me, it was a long week full of tears for Mama, and feelings of guilt that I had been starving my poor little baby, that my boobs weren't doing their job, and that I was not going to be able to nurse my last baby.
Chubby baby a few days after birth
as compared to not so chubby baby a month after birth - same big brother
In order to up my milk supply, I started taking fenugreek and blessed thistle capsules; fenugreek tea; and lactation cookies full of flax seed meal, brewers yeast, and oatmeal (which totally were dubbed beer cookies for their unique yeasty flavor). I also had the boys convinced for a very short time that they would start making milk too if they ate my cookies, which got them to stay away - in addition to them not particularly liking the flavor.
Travis nursing his teddy bear
That first day of our new feeding schedule I got an additional 5 oz. of pumped milk. By the end of the week long test period though, I was getting 17 oz. of pumped milk. We decided to even do one day of only pumping to compare to the days when we both nursed and pumped. On that day I got 19 oz. - and then I knew that my baby was getting practically nothing from his nursing efforts, and my guilt came crashing back down on me.
Some people benefited from this arrangement almost as much as Dylan did though
We went back to the pediatrician 2 days before Christmas, and Dylan was up to 9 lb. 2 oz. - he gained over a pound in a week!! We were deemed a success and told to keep up what we were doing for the next month, and that he probably just had a weak latch and would get better at it with age.
Initial feelings of "ugh, this is going to be a really long month", gave way quickly to not being satisfied with the assessment that the baby would grow into his capabilities to extract milk on his own, So, I took to the internet and asked my "internet mommies" what they would do. The overwhelming response was to get him checked for a tongue and lip tie, so we did.
The Monday after Christmas, we went to a pediatric dentist, and were assessed for, and had a procedure done to correct Dylan's tongue tie. It seemed that although he was able to stick his tongue out of his mouth, that he was tied down and not able to forcefully lift his tongue, which is one of the important parts of nursing.
Within a day, he was getting half the milk I produced on his own as opposed to less than 1/4 which he had previously been getting (determined by the volume I was able to pump after nursing versus without nursing). So as not to create huge oversupply issues, and serious night time pain on my part, we discontinued pumping after every nursing session, and instead have only been pumping after the last two nursing times before bed. I am hopeful that we will not start losing weight again having done this.
Later this week we will go back to the pediatric dentist to make sure that his tongue has healed fully and see if any further corrections are needed.
Happy swinging baby staring at the stars on his swing this morning while Mama cleaned the kitchen
In hindsight, maybe we should have suspected something sooner, he felt very light to me, and he lost his chub and became all wrinkly from the extra skin. Then again it is easy to see what you know to look for, but much harder to see what you are not expecting to find. In our case we never expected that we weren't giving our baby enough to eat. That is Dylan's story so far, we hope things continue to improve and he gets back to being chubby soon.
