First week with Lauryn

So far this first week is going well. She sleeps ALL the time and hardly ever cries. We had to wake her up for feedings her first couple of nights home until we got a clean bill of health from the pediatrician on Monday. Now, I don't wake her up at night. If she wakes up, I will feed her, but otherwise I will get up around 8:00 and wake her up to feed her, and then during the day I work on breastfeeding her every 2 to 3 hours. So far she is sleeping through the night! Crazy.

The most frustrating part for me so far has been breastfeeding. I never knew it could be so hard. My milk didn't come in until yesterday (4 days after I had her!) so we had no choice but to formula feed her since her bilirubin levels were a little high. The more a baby eats, poops and pees, the better the bilirubin level gets, so you better believe I was feeding this baby like crazy! The downfall is that she got used to the bottle nipples that made the milk practically pour into her mouth and all she had to do was swallow, so sucking for a few seconds before milk comes is foreign to her. Anyway, I pumped every 2 hours until finally I had a decent milk supply and then I talked with a lactation consultant today for some tips on how to get her to latch on. I ended up buying a Medela nipple shield, which is a silicon nipple that you put over your nipple and it sucks your nipple up into it. Then the baby sucks on that and it is more like a bottle for them. It is a nice transition from bottle to breast. Eventually you stop using the nipple shield, but this will take some time. So far it is working GREAT! I am still giving her breast milk in a Breastflow Bottle and she gets formula a couple times each day to make it easier on me time-wise, but I hope to have her exclusively on breast milk by the weekend. We will see!

Here are some pictures of my pretty girl from this week: