Total breastfeeding, not as easy as expected

It's been about 20 days after we brought Renzo home from hospital. Life has been changed completely. I've cried a few times in front of Win and my sister, really that's something I totally did not expect because I thought I am not that emotional. But seeing baby not having good feed or sleep at times, and me not even able to hold a proper conversation with Win as usual just drives me crazy (yes I have to truly admit that having no private time with Win is something I could not accept the most).. And there are just so many new challenges everyday. The topic we struggled on the most so far is:

Total breastfeeding vs. Formula milk

I do not remember since when I became an advocate of total breastfeeding, when the nurse at Thomson Medical Center asked me right before my delivery, "Do you want to breastfeed your baby?", "Yes, I want to TOTAL BREASTFEED him!!"I answered her proudly with full confidence. During our 2 days stay in hospital, Renzo was brought to us every 2-3 hours and I just let him latch on for 15 minutes each side. I do not know what happened to him after each feeding when he was brought back to the nursery room, I was only sure that he has not been given any formula milk or water at all. And that made me believe that he will be able to survive the same way once we are home. And end up I tried breastfeeding him for a total of 5 days before we brought him back to TMC for the first review. And during these 5 days, he barely peed, and only pooped once but his stool was dark green color, which supposed to be his meconium. Am I worried? Yes definitely!! But I still insisted on total breastfeeding despite that my mother, my sister and my father all commented that I should give Renzo some water and formula milk. Win being the super supportive kind always, left the decision to me as he believes that I am the mother and all my decisions are for our baby's own good.

But eventually, I gave up when Dr Ong said that Renzo needs to be admitted for phototherapy due to high jaundice level, and it could be caused by not enough breast milk. We left him in TMC for 2 days and everytime I called up the nurse to check on his status, I heard that he's been taking 70-90ml of formula milk and peed and pooped well, suddenly I got this feeling that I should not be so stubborn, and I quickly discussed with Win about whether to continue with total breastfeeding. Obviously, I do not have too much a choice, I used my Avent breast pump every few hours but can barely express out 20-40ml from both sides, which is definitely not going to be enough for our poor little boy. Again, Win gave me his full support, we both understand how precious breast milk is for baby, but now first thing first, we got to make sure he has enough milk before we even talk about the nutritional value of the milk.

So right after we brought Renzo back home again, we started to give him Mamex Gold infant formula, the same one he had during his hospital stay. And just my 2 cents to new parents:

1. Give yourself 3 days, monitor your baby closely. If your milk supply has not came in, think about it seriously. How do you know if your baby is having enough breast milk? It is never easy to gauge, but check and make sure he has 6-7 wet nappy everyday. I checked on internet and some people said first few days baby will not pee that often, I do not know how true it is, but if he does not pee, he could be dehydrated and your breast milk is definitely not enough..

2. If your baby's pee is dark yellowish color, be careful.. And even worse, if you see some pinkish spot in his pee, be extra careful. Dr Ong said it is kind of "crystal" that passed out from baby's body, but it could be a sign of severe dehydration also..

3. Believe it or not, baby born before 40 weeks really have higher chance of getting jaundice and if you do not have enough breast milk, it is going to worsen the situation. Supplementing him with formula milk really somehow helps in clearing the jaundice..

4. Now you might say if you give your baby formula milk, he might have nipple confusion and refuses to latch on as it is easier to drink from bottle teat. Err who said that? Must be internet again but in actual fact, it really depends on individual baby. Renzo never refuses anything, maybe he's simply hungry..

5. If you are someone like me, who did not hire a confinement lady, and have to take care of baby day and night almost on my own (Win needs to work and I am trying my best not to wake him up at night, my mother needs to cook for us during day time so I need to let her rest well at night), most probably you will not produce enough milk due to lack of rest. So don't be so stubborn like me, everyone wants to give their baby the best but if that means you have to starve your baby, then nobody wants that to happen, so don't blame yourself for not being able to make total breastfeeding successful. The more you stress yourself, the less milk you can produce..

Now I am only able to give my poor little boy about 40-60ml of my expressed milk everyday. If we ever have our 2nd baby Chan, I am sure I will try breastfeeding again but before that, I will talk to a lactation consultant and many other successful breastfeeding mothers to gain more experience.