Gastric attacks... and the potential cure

I was hit by a series of severe gastric attacks since 3 weeks ago. I dont know how and why I get them. I never had gastric before and my diet is mainly fish and vegetables. I think I have eaten more fish in the past 3 months than I had in the whole of last year!

The first attack came suddenly about 3 weeks ago. The stomach pain was quite bad but it subsided after a while. I thought nothing much of it but David suggested I see a doctor. The doctor told me it was colic (I thought only babies get colic!) and gave me some mixture.

The second attack came a few days later, in the middle of the night. It was so unbearable that David took me to a 24 hour clinic, and the doctor gave me a jab for wind. We suggested to the doctor whether it could be gastric cos the previous medicine for colic didnt help. The doc gave me medicines for both gastric and wind. I think the doctor is a newbie as he doesnt look like he knows what's wrong with me, and yet he made me $100 poorer. And worse still, I couldnt sleep the whole of that night as the pain persisted.

It got so bad in the morning that David had to send me to Changi General Hospital's A&E. The doctor there told me it was gastric and prescribed 4 types of medicines. The medicine helped but I still got occasional pains, especially at night. These pains greatly affected my milk supply.

3 days ago, a potential cure was in sight. David bought a supplement from GNC called 'AbsorbAid', which the staff there said would help gastric problems. And true enough, for the last 3 days the pain did not come back. I am keeping my fingers crossed... Seems like 3 doctors cant match up to 1 GNC staff!

The mathematics of breastfeeding

If I hadnt chosen to breast feed Kaelyn, I guess I would have breezed through motherhood and really enjoy my 5 months maternity leave (ha, like real). But since I have decided to go down this path due to all its benefits (contains all the required nutrition for baby, bonding, blah blah....), I'd very much like to get it right and make it less tiring and 'painful' for me..

I've gotten the latch on to work and the supply seems to be sufficient for the time being, but I am beginning to have doubts today. So far, so good. But I cant seem to figure out the mathematics of it:

Equation 1: Amt expressed w/o latch on - Amt expressed after latch on = Amt baby drank

I usually express about 4oz without latch on. Managed to get about 1oz after feeding. That would mean she only drank 3oz right? But it cant be cos that would not be sufficient for her to go through to her next feed. I usually give her 4 - 4.5oz via bottle to last for the same duration.

Equation 2: Amount expressed = Amount available for baby to drink if latch on

Sometimes I only manage to express 3.5oz when Kaelyn's needs 4.5oz. That would mean my supply is insufficient to meet her needs right? But when I latch her on, she manages to get by until the next feeding and I can even express perhaps 0.5 - 1oz.

Equation 3: Amt of time taken to finish 4oz via bottle = Amt of time taken to drink 4oz via bf

Kaelyn usually takes 20 - 30 mins to finish her bottle. But via direct breastfeed, the timings can range from just 15 mins on 1 breast to 30mins each on both breasts! How can that be?? Does it mean that both times the amount she drank are the same, depending on how hungry and sleepy she is? But that's way too wide a gap..

The equations above dont seem to be right. Maybe Theresa is right, I cant put my accounting cap on for this. But if babies feed more efficiently on the breasts than on bottles, then how do I explain the hour-long feeding sessions with Kaelyn?

Still trying to figure out how breastfeeding works.. Perhaps my supply is really not sufficient for her? Perhaps my pump is not efficient enough? Perhaps she was having a growth spurt? Perhaps she fell asleep and was just using my breast as a pacifier? Perhaps, perhaps, perhaps.....

One big milestone

Something exciting happened yesterday. Kaelyn rolled over from her back to her tummy on her own! I thought this would only happen end of 3rd month or in the 4th month, but she did it in Week 10 (2 months and 1 week).

We were at a friend's place when this happened. I was so excited when I saw Kaelyn's achievement that I ran out to tell David of the good news. A few of my friends didnt quite understand why I was so excited over this seemingly small matter. But to a first time mother, this is really great big news!

From now on, we have to be careful where we place Kaelyn in case she decides to perform the 'stunt' again.

Venturing out with Kaelyn

David was on leave 2 days last week and we had some plans on how to spend those days. We wanted to bring Kaelyn out to the Botanic gardens on one of the days but it was raining. So we made a trip down to Plaza Singapura instead. I would say it was a successful attempt in bringing the little one out. I was initially afraid she would wail throughout but surprisingly she didnt! However, we spent quite some time locating the nursing room and feeding her. We also had people coming up to comment on how cute she is and asking whether she's Japanese! I think it was the cap she wore that made her look like one. We even managed to have lunch and dinner out, and did some shopping.

A day in Kaelyn's life.. and mine as well

It has been 8.5 weeks since I delivered Kaelyn. Time really flies. When I look back at how I have spent my last 2 months, I realised I have only been bathing, feeding, changing nappies for our little princess. Whatever spare time in between will be spent bathing and feeding myself and sleeping. Occasionally I do have the luxury of checking my emails and posting blogs. Also, the only times I step out of the house is to go for my checkups, bring Kaelyn to the clinic, go to parents' homes...

It sounds very boring here, but time just whizzed by before I could really feel it. This is how we spend our day:

• Between 6 and 8 am: Awaken by Kaelyn's cries. She's either hungry (which is the most likely reason), really wet and wanting a change of nappies, or just calling someone over to talk to her.
• By 9am: She would have been fed. Plays for around half to one hour. This is the best time to bring out the flash cards and teach her whatever I want.
  
• Bathes between 9 - 10am. Offer her gripe water and some warm water.
• 10 - 11 am: She may nap for a short while. This is when I can catch up on my sleep - but usually not long.
• 10.30 - 11.30am: 2nd feed 3 hours after the first. After which is lunch time for me.
• By 12 noon: Kaelyn is supposed to have her lunchtime nap of 2 hours but she always cannot get past an hour. My maid and I would have to take turns either talking to her or carrying her around the house.
• 1.30 - 2.30pm: 3rd feed.
• 2.30 - 4.30pm: I try to put her to sleep again since she didnt have enough of her lunchtime nap. Sometimes she can sleep for as long as 2.5 hours, but most times, she just managed half an hour at most. So will have to either play with her, talk to her or carry her around to appease the princess.
  
• By 5pm: 4th feed.
• By 6pm: Clean her and change her clothes.
  
• By 8pm: 5th feed. This and the subsequent feeds are the most difficult as she would struggle and bawl at the feedings. She'll have lots of wind in her stomach. So most of the nights are spent struggling to calm her down.
• By 11pm: The last feed of the daytime.
• In the night between 12 and 6am: She'll wake up once for a feed, no fixed timing.
• The time she wakes up for the midnight feed will determine her wake up time in the morning.
  

And then the cycle starts again......

This routine is really far from ideal. I'm still trying out variations of Gina Ford's routine in her book 'The new contented little baby book'. Hopefully I can get something to work for Kaelyn, even if we bring her out.

Kaelyn's developments

Kaelyn is growing so fast each day and I really have to keep track of her growth in case I miss out on anything. So far, I have noticed the following changes when she moved from month 1 to month 2:

• She no longer wants to be swaddled. In the initial weeks, swaddling is very comforting to her but now, she finds it too restrictive as she likes to swing her arms and legs.

• Her cries are different. I almost can differentiate the hunger cry, calling for attention cry and uncomfortable cry. In the first month, all the cries sounded similar - actually they were all screams.

• She likes to look towards her left.

• She smiles and laughs when you play with her. Sometimes she even makes noises other than crying, like 'ahh', 'eh' etc.
  

• She swings her arms and legs when playing. Sometimes she'll move her limbs and whole body as she laughs. Shows that she's really happy!

• Her hands found their way into her mouth. Initially I thought that was a signal for hunger, but realised she would also do that as and when she feels like it.

• She seems to know when you scolds her. She'll quieten down and look at you for a while. But then continue her screaming again!

• She loves to bathe. In the first few weeks, she yelled throughout her bath. But now she enjoys kicking and splashing around such that it is getting difficult to hold her down.

• She is getting quite strong. When you hold her in an uncomfortable position, she'll struggle and kick so hard you are almost wrestling with her!
  

Breastfeeding

This is no exactly my favourite topic but I really have to write about it. Mainly because I am still struggling with it, after 8 weeks... But I have to say I have improved tremendously since day 1.

Breastfeeding is the most difficult part of motherhood for me so far. The nurses in the hospital taught me how to position the baby and to let her suckle for 15 mins on each breast and burp her. It seemed rather ok at that time. A nurse would push her in for me to breastfeed - more to suckle and get the colostrum and when she continued crying, they would feed her with glucose water.

The real problems started on the day we brought Kaelyn home. She was screaming herself hoarse all of the journey back. As my milk had only started to trickle in, it's not sufficient to appease her. And I had no glucose water! Resorted to feeding her formula as a desperate attempt to silence her. For the first few weeks, I would let her suckle and if she's still not satisfied, we would give her some formula. I think my milk wasnt coming in fast enough and to make things worse, there was an excruciating pain on my right nipple each time Kaelyn suckled on it and it even bled. I had to stop her from feeding on this breast for almost a week.

I subsequently read that to increase milk supply, you have to let your baby feed from you as often as possible and try not to resort to supplement to match up the shortfall as this will lead to decrease in supply. Hence I tried to reduce the number of supplements and breast feed her as often as possible. It was a big struggle as I could be feeding as often as every 1.5 to 2 hours. It's really very tiring.

But I guess the effort really paid off, as now Kaelyn is on total breast milk. My supply is just enough to meet her demands. I still have a few issues to tackle right now:

(a) Increasing my supply to meet her growing demands
- I've been eating fish every lunch and dinner, drinking lots of fluids and taking Fenugreek and Longan & red dates tea.
(b) Re-stimulate my right breast as it has become close to defunct after I stopped for a week
- In every direct feed session, I would start feeding from this breast first and would pump out excess if any. Havent seen any improvements yet so far.
(c) Kaelyn is a really slow drinker. She can take up to half an hour to empty the first breast, and another 10 - 15 mins to fill her stomach on another breast. It's so tiring that at certain times of day, I just express and bottle feed her - it's much faster. Hope she can improve on this in time to come!

Breastfeeding is very tough and tiring for me, but I keep telling myself I should persevere, since breast milk is supposed to be good for the baby, and also I have 5 months of maternity leave to get it right!

Lastly, I would have to thank Sandy, Theresa and Huiyan for their encouragement and sharing their experiences with me. At least I know that I am not the only one facing all these problems with breastfeeding, and motivated me to perservere till now (Week 9).

The breastfed cherubic at full month