Signs That Breastfeeding Is Going Well

Do you know how to tell if your baby is breast/chest feeding well?

Are you unsure about supplementing? Did someone tell you to supplement?

This episode will give you the tools to determine if your baby is feeding well.

If you are a new listener, we would love to hear from you.  Please consider leaving us a review on itunes or sending us an email with your suggestions and comments to badassbreastfeedingpodcast@gmail.com

WE HAVE TRANSCRIPTS!!  You can also add your email to our list and have episodes sent right to your inbox!

Things we talked about:

We Expect things to go wrong  [5:31]

Asking Google [7:26]

Pain [9:31]

Diaper output  [12:19]

Weight gain [13:49]

Feeding on demand [17:21]

Supplementing [20:56]

Starving babies (or not) [24:48]

In summary…[36:03]

*This Episode is sponsored by Original Sprout and Fairhaven Health

Links to information we discussed or episodes you should check out!

https://badassbreastfeedingpodcast.com/episode/nursing-while-pregnant-and-tandem-nursing/

https://badassbreastfeedingpodcast.com/episode/weight-gain-in-the-breastfeeding-baby/

https://badassbreastfeedingpodcast.com/episode/medical-info-to-flush-down-the-toilet/

Set up your consultation with Dianne

https://badassbreastfeedingpodcast.com/consultations/     

Check out Dianne’s blog here~

https://diannecassidyconsulting.com/milklytheblog/

Don’t Forget!!  Dianne and Abby have started the new parenting podcast!  Check out Revolution Parenting!  

https://www.buzzsprout.com/1755123/8400508

Follow our Podcast~

• https://badassbreastfeedingpodcast.com

Here is how you can connect with Dianne and Abby~

• Abby Theuring  https://www.thebadassbreastfeeder.com
• Dianne Cassidy http://www.diannecassidyconsulting.com

Music we use~

Music: "Levels of Greatness" from "We Used to Paint Stars in the Sky (2012)" courtesy of Scott Holmes at freemusicarchive.org/music/Scott Holmes

Transcript

dianne (00:00):

Welcome to The badass breastfeeding podcast. This is Dianne, your lactation consultant.

abby (00:25):

And this is Abby. The badass breastfeeder. Uh, today's episode is brought to you by original sprout. Original sprout carries safe, effective, and pediatrician, tested shampoos, conditioners, styling, and body care products produced and packaged in the USA. And today's episode is also brought to you by Fair Haven health. Fair Haven health is excited to introduce a new product. The Sage, a personal moisturizer and lubricant. Uh, we'll hear more from our sponsors later, but these sponsors make this podcast possible. So please head to badassbreastfeedingpodcast.com and check out our sponsor page. If you need anything, see if you can give them any of your business. And while you're there, scroll down and enter your email address, and we'll send you episodes straight to your inbox every Monday. And right now, Dianne has our review of the week.

dianne (01:13):

Yeah. Our review of the week came from, I think it was your Instagram account, Abby, and this is from Nicole and there's no date on it. Nicole92 is her Instagram name. And, um, there's no date on it. So hopefully these kids aren't in college by now,

abby (01:32):

but it's not that long. It was like last week or something.

dianne (01:35):

Yeah, it was something like that. Hi, my name is Nicole. I'm from Wales in the UK. I listened to your podcast all the time. I absolutely adore it. I'm currently feeding my 17 month old and have recently had another beautiful boy. Who's now four weeks old. I forgot just how much hard work breastfeeding was in the beginning. But now we're getting into the swing of things. I'd love for you guys to retouch tandem feeding again, and how to deal with sibling jealousy and not feeling guilty about feeding the new baby first. Reggie, my eldest kisses and cuddles his brother Stanley. When he's feeding, he tries to jump all over us and pull him off and it breaks my heart. Thank you for all the amazing advice on your podcast. There's not as much support here in the UK, as there seems to be in the USA and your podcast has gotten me through so much. Thank you again. I love the tandem feeding.

abby (02:21):

Yeah. So it's happening so much more now is we're getting more information about it.

dianne (02:27):

I think that's amazing. And I also think it's kind of cute that she thinks we have good support here in the USA. Oh, I mean, we don't have terrible support, but it could definitely be way better.

abby (02:41):

Yeah. It could be way better. I mean, we have a lot of people working really hard to give good support against a machine that wants to give no support.

dianne (02:51):

So thank you, Nicole, for sticking it out for tandem feeding. And we will, we'll have to like look into talking more about the tandem. Cause it's definitely, like you said something people are doing a lot more now. A lot of parents are.

abby (03:04):

like a little to how to tandem feed

dianne (03:07):

how to, I don't know if you had jealousy issues with your boys when you were tandem feeding.

abby (03:15):

No, I mean, I think that that's a little, that's always a worry, but I think that it actually can help the relationship, you know, for them form a relationship. It's not, um, the battle that people think it's going to be. I mean, there's always a battle cause they're kids, but, um, I think people get really worried about jealousy and it's not, it's just not like that. Oh, it's um, really can help them, you know, bond and um, there's, you know, there, I mean, when, when Jack was tandem nursing with Exley the smaller one and he was looking at Exley like, you know, he's like, I don't know this guy. I don't know how I feel about him being here, but he's definitely doing something I recognize, you know, he could sort of speak that language. Yeah. Yeah. That's all. I think that was really important and really helpful to, you know, just the whole transition and him being able to continue to nurse with me and have that relationship with me, helps the transition.

dianne (04:20):

Absolutely. So you're doing good things, Nicole, thanks for your review. We appreciate it so much. And you can leave your reviews with us on iTunes. You can send us a message. You can shoot us an email at badassbreastfeedingpodcast@gmail.com and we love to get them well, thank you very much. Awesome. And you can check out our new podcast as well, which we keep forgetting to talk about, but it is live right now. Revolution parenting. You can find that wherever you listen to this podcast.

abby (04:53):

yep. Revolution Parenting anywhere you want to hear podcasts. And um, there's like five episodes. Yeah. So don't get too far behind. I know because then you'll have to binge like what people are doing now. They're like, oh, I'm bingeing all your episodes. And I'm like, that's like 200 episodes. I know. That's like a lot of Dianne and Abby talking.

dianne (05:15):

I know that's a lot. That's too much. So start now with revolution parenting. You only have to go back for a few episodes, but today we are going to talk about how to know things are going well, right?

abby (05:31):

Yeah. I mean, so you just started, started nursing and you had your baby and you're nursing and you're going along and you're like, I don't know, is this okay? Are there problems or is everything fine? How are you supposed to know? Cause sometimes problems are really obvious. Sometimes problems are really subtle. Sometimes there is no problem. And how are you supposed to know? Because breastfeeding is so not normal in our culture. You know, we don't see it. We're not around people who are doing it. Um, and you know, sometimes it's just like, we have so much doubt. We expect things to go wrong. We just expect it. You know, it's kind of our survival technique, you know, is just like expecting problems, preparing for things to go wrong. And um, so it's like, well, how do I know if there's a problem or not

dianne (06:28):

yeah. You know, that's a really good point because I hear that prenatally a lot. I hear people saying, well, yeah, I will. I'll breastfeed if it, if it works. Yeah. If it works or family members have said to them, well, it didn't, it didn't work for me you know that was my situation. My mom was like, it didn't work for me. So it probably won't work for you. So we kind of, a lot of, I feel like a lot of parents go into it thinking, well, you know what? It might not work. I'm not going to get hooked on it. I'm not going to attach myself to the fact that it's going to work.

abby (07:00):

The majority of the population is walking around, having not been successfully breastfeeding, you know, people having problems with no support. Um, not knowing what to expect, not knowing when to intervene or how to intervene, not knowing anything about this. And so how are we supposed to even know, how are we supposed to expect that it's going to work when everyone around, when it didn't work for anyone around us?

dianne (07:26):

Yeah. It's really hard. It's really hard to be the only one in your circle that you know, and then who do you go to? And I'll tell you who you shouldn't go to is Google a lot of the time. But I mean, you can't help it. You know, if you Google, nobody do this by the way. But if you Google how to know things are going well with breastfeeding. I mean, you get a lot of answers, you get a lot of answers and some of those answers, cause I was looking at them and I was like, yeah, I wouldn't go by a lot of these answers. Like I would not. One of them was "you feel your let down"

abby (08:06):

what?

dianne (08:08):

Yeah. You know, things are going well because you feel your milk let down. I can honestly tell you working in this field for as long as I have with thousands of parents and thousands of babies, more people do not feel the let down than feel it. That's what you cannot go by that. You can't go by that.

abby (08:28):

And just because you're having a letdown doesn't mean like your baby doesn't have a tongue tie or something like, you know, that's, uh, doesn't even one doesn't even equal the other,

dianne (08:37):

right? Yeah. It was. So I was like, no, I don't agree with that at all. Um, I don't agree with, you know, a lot of times we'll say, oh, your baby will be alert. In the early days the baby feeds and goes to sleep. Like that's what your newborn does. They don't hang out with you or they're not alert. No. You know, so there's a lot of things we need to look. And one of the biggest things is remembering in your brain that all babies are different. So when you read online, oh my baby should be doing a, B and C. And my breasts should be feeling a let down doing this, doing that. Like that is not the same for everybody. So we really need to look at your situation, but there are some things that you can look at that are guarantees of whether or not things are going well.

abby (09:29):

Okay. And what are those?

dianne (09:31):

One of them is pain. You know, if you're having pain and that's a, that's a very individualized thing. You know, like if you're feeling pain with the latch, with the breastfeeding, then we got to fix that. Something's not right and that is not, you know, whenever a mom says, things are going really great, but I'm having a, really, a lot of pain with the breastfeed... Then things aren't going really great. Maybe your baby is gaining well and your baby's latching and feeding, but you're having pain. That's not sustainable. So that's not really great.

abby (10:01):

Right. And I think that we've come when it comes to pain. I think that we have just come to, to, to feel like we need to just deal with it. You know? Like, well everything's fine. It hurts. It hurts. But like, you know, I can just deal with it. It's fine. You know, we, we don't have this like sense of like actually I should be able to live my life and do these things without being in pain. But we don't as like women in this culture, we're just like, oh, well my pain is not like a reason to, to say that I need help or something.

dianne (10:34):

Or maybe you think that everybody should be in pain. You're breastfeeding. Yes. You're going to be in pain.

abby (10:40):

Well, that's what, yeah. That's what people say, right? They're like, oh, well it's going to hurt. Pain is pain is normal. It's supposed to hurt someone sucking on your nipple. That hurts. Of course it's supposed to hurt. You hear that a lot. It's going to hurt.

dianne (10:58):

You're going to bleed. You're going to have bleeding nipples and then the little toughen up and it'll be fine. No, no,

abby (11:05):

we don't need to be living like this in pain. Yeah. Pain is like not sustainable. Like don't you don't need to deal with that.

dianne (11:14):

Well, in any other aspect of the medical world, pain is a sign that something's wrong.

abby (11:19):

Right. Are you feeling any pain? When I push here? Does it hurt? Do you feel pain?

dianne (11:24):

Is it one to 10? What is, what is your pain?

abby (11:27):

That's like a gauge. That's your body going? Like no,

dianne (11:31):

and you're breastfeeding and people are like, oh yeah, you're going to have pain.

abby (11:34):

Yeah it's totally normal. Yeah. No it hurts. Oh yeah. That means it's good. Yeah. Well, I mean, you know, there and people have different levels of sensitivity, right? So, I mean, sometimes it's going to be like more sensitive in their nipples, whatever. Maybe it tugs, maybe it feels weird or something, but like pain, it hurts when your baby's nursing from you. The thing that is like supposed to be biologically happening hurts. Okay. Well then something is not right.

dianne (12:00):

no. That's not right. So that is the first thing. So if you are, if you're not having pain, if it feels comfortable with the baby on, then we know things are going well with that, with the feeding, like that's a good thing, right? That's what we want. That's the goal to have your baby latch and for you to be comfortable. That is, that is a good sign. Diaper output is another thing that we, that is pretty standard across the board. I mean, obviously babies poop at different rates, you know, some babies poop more than other babies or more frequently than other babies, whatever. But the wet diapers, like we know, okay, if your baby's having good wet diapers, we know they're hydrated. And that's something that's not going to change. You know, we're not going to say, oh, your baby only had one wet diaper. Okay. Yeah. He's hydrated. No, like we, we want them to have lots of wet diapers and that tell us, tells us they're getting milk and that they're hydrated.

abby (12:53):

or like, oh, your baby's not, you know, there's not a lot of wet diapers, but with we'll just wait, the wet diapers will increase. Like no, no, no. They should be having consistent wet diapers from the beginning. Yeah. Not just like, oh, we'll wait this out. It's not like a thing that you wait out to get better.

dianne (13:08):

Yeah. We want them to have wet diapers. So that tells us that it's going well. And if you are ever concerned about, you know, is, is, are things going well or not? And you talk to a lactation consultant. That's my first suggestion too, by the way, is talking to a lactation consultant because they will help you feel so much better about how things are going. But one of the first things, your pediatrician, or a nurse or lactation or anybody who's going to ask you is how are the diapers what's happening with the diaper output? Because that tells us, are they getting anything if it's going in, it's coming out. So that is, that is going to tell us if your baby's feeding well. So weight gain is another one that's on the list. If you look online. Yeah. But babies gain at different rates. So that's another thing that we can't go, oh yeah, my baby should be gaining an ounce a day and they're not. So breastfeeding is failing. That's not true. You know, we, we are okay with babies, gaining breastfed babies, gaining half an ounce to an ounce a day. Because your pediatrician wants to see an ounce, Doesn't mean that that's where your threshold should be. Maybe your baby, isn't a baby that gains announced a day and that's okay.

abby (14:25):

Right. If all other things are in order, then that might not be the best gauge right there.

dianne (14:29):

Exactly. Yes. We want them to be, we want them to gain at the rate that they're supposed to gain. We don't want to force them into gaining more weight than they need to,

abby (14:40):

And that's, what's, you know, that's what happens in, in, I have a friend that Dianne has been helping and there was a lot of pressure and she has a whole host of things going on that are affecting, um, her breastfeeding. And um, they're just like, she went through a breast reduction. She's having like vasospasms. She has like situations where like are, you know, that are unique to her that have been affecting it. Um, but then they were like, okay, you need to, so you need to, the baby needs to gain, like, it got down to the point where the baby needed to gain like four ounces in two days. And I was like, that can't happen. It's not, that's so stressful. It's not going to happen. You need to like stuff like weights in her socks.

dianne (15:28):

I know rocks in her diapers.

abby (15:31):

It's not even possible. And you know, so it was like very, very stressful and an expectation that was just not in line with like really what babies do.

dianne (15:41):

But our culture is used to seeing formula fed babies. Right. Right. And I mean, if you didn't listen to last week's episode about, you know, weight, growth percentiles and things like that, then definitely go back to that episode because our society is used to seeing a gain based on formula fed babies.

abby (16:06):

who gain faster, they gain faster.

dianne (16:09):

So that is not, you know, and we still have pediatricians that look at that and say, your baby should be gaining an ounce a day. And if they're not, then we want you to supplement. And that is not necessarily a good gauge to go by. That might not be what your baby is doing. So that's, that's not always what you, you know, what you got to look at. You have to look at all the things, all the diapers and everything to see, okay. Is it going well? Is the baby latching? Well, are they feeding frequently? That's another thing we want to see. We want to see that your baby is feeding several times a day. We say like eight to 12 times in 24 hours for your newborn. But it's really more like 14 probably.

abby (16:58):

And don't count. just put the baby on the breast.

dianne (17:00):

Yeah. That's another thing.

abby (17:01):

Cause then if you count, who can count to 14 throughout the day, what number feed is this? And who knows if you're a bit, if you're like keeping your baby at your breasts, which is a great thing then like, if they're just there the whole day, then you can't count the amount of times that they're coming on and off. This is why it's so helpful to just keep them there. As often as possible.

dianne (17:21):

feeding on demand as another one. Is your baby feeding. I love it. When people say there's one of my things I always ask people is how often, you know, how, how frequently does your baby eat? Because I do want to know, like, you know, if they're coming to me with a problem or with a weight gain issue or something like that, then I do want to know like how. And honestly, it's really common in our age right now, where everybody is putting everything on an app and they count every single thing that's going on, which I find very exhausting. But for some people it really helps them. I love it. When I have a parent that tells me, I don't really know, I just put them on whenever they seem like they need it. I don't really, I don't really count. I don't really know how often it is. It's just whenever I love that because that's how it's supposed to be.

abby (18:08):

Yes. And let's talk more about that. After a word from our sponsors. Today's episode is brought to you by Original Sprout. Original sprout carries, safe, effective, and pediatrician, tested shampoos, conditioners, styling, and body care products produced and packaged in California. USA are you sporting a wild hairstyle that needs extra hold. The classic hair gel is made with apple and apricot extract while hydrating hair with cucumber securing, even the most elaborate hairstyles. I personally use it to take my frizz and flyaways, which I have a lot of and the classic styling bomb. This is Exley's... Is made with Shea and cocoa butter that provides a long lasting hold and ideal for styling curls. He's got super wild curls and a cool hairdo, and he uses this all the time. And he's seven. All of the original spout products are paraben and phalate free, vegan and cruelty-free. Their proprietary formulas contain nourishing extracts from fruits, vegetables, and flowers that the whole family can enjoy made for babies. Perfect. For grownups to check out the entire line@originalsprout.com and use code badass for 25% off of your purchase. And today's episode is also brought to you by Fair Haven Health. Fair Haven Health is excited to introduce Sage personal moisturizer and lubricant, the newest product and their vaginal care and comfort collection products designed to support vaginal health through every stage of life. Sage is designed to replenish your natural lubrication and provide temporary relief from vaginal dryness. While vaginal dryness is most common in older women, there are a handful of other factors that lead to vaginal dryness, such as breastfeeding, antidepressants, some fertility and cancer medications, stress, and even exercise as with all of their vaginal care products. Sage is made without estrogen parabens, glycerol or coating oils, check out Sage and all the other vaginal care products at fair Haven health F a I R H a V E N. health.com and use promo code badass for 15% off of your purchase. And these sponsors and their promo codes can be found in our show notes. Under this episode on badassbreastfeedingpodcast.com our show notes. We'll also include further information about things we talk about in this episode and at badassbreastfeedingpodcast.com, you will also find our breastfeeding resources, all of our other episodes and information about scheduling your very own one-on-one online lactation consultation with Dianne and back to, uh, how to know when things are going well.

dianne (20:56):

So along with how to know if things are going well, people have asked us in the past, how do you know when to supplement, right? And honestly, and maybe, I mean, you have a different idea, but really the only reason I can think that you need to supplement as if you're doing all the things you're feeding your baby on demand, you are, you know, doing everything and your baby is not gaining weight. Yeah. That's the only time I ever really see to legit supplement, but we also need to find out why, why, why is your baby not gaining weight on your milk supply? You know, we need to look at that and see what's what's going on. Is it your milk supply? Which I'll tell you that a lot of the time, it is not a lot of the time. It's the baby, unless you have a situation like a breast reduction or, you know, something like that. But most of the time, the baby itself is not feeding efficiently. And we need to determine why that's happening and get it back, get them back on track. But we also need to make sure that they are eating at the same time. So that's when we see that supplementing comes into play, supplementing should not happen because somebody tells you that your baby needs a specific vitamin and it's not your breast milk. Or they tell you that, you know, you have to go back to work and you can't pump like, something like that is, is not, I don't find a reason to supplement.

abby (22:27):

Yeah. I feel like though, I mean, I was told to supplement with Jack and the reason was there was no, I don't even know. There was like a lot of times, it's just, it's so ingrained in our culture that we need to be supplementing, adding, boosting, topping off that, that it's just being told to us, even when they can't even really give us a clear answer on why. I mean, I was in the hospital when they told me that, because I was induced that I wasn't making any milk and that my baby was hungry. And so I needed to start giving him formula. And you know that those that's not even true. That's not even, that's not even, they're basing it off of like, just information. That's not even accurate.

dianne (23:13):

Somebody told me recently, I almost, I should have texted you about this, but I totally forgot. She told me this happened in one of the hospitals here locally, where I am, she was told that she had a C-section and 95% of the babies that are born via C-section are supplemented.

abby (23:32):

what?? That's not true

dianne (23:33):

That's bullshit Right?

abby (23:34):

Like that's a lie.

dianne (23:36):

That's ridiculous. But that was the reason that was what they told her when they wanted her baby supplemented was well, 95% of babies born C-section are supplemented because your milk takes longer to come in. That's like a huge blanket statement that is not accurate. And we shouldn't say, oh, your baby was born in this specific way. Well then we're going to supplement them.

abby (24:00):

Yeah. Which I mean, people with C-sections breastfeed all the time and maybe there's in the beginning, there's a couple of situations that we can help them through. But like, right.

dianne (24:10):

The other thing is, people do not understand what breastfeeding is supposed to be in the beginning.

abby (24:18):

Yeah. Right.

dianne (24:19):

Or they don't understand what breastfeeding is overall. You see a lot of that supplementing happening in those first days, because of cluster feeding and people saying, oh, my baby was starving. So I had to. And they weren't getting anything. I didn't have anything, but colostrum and the baby was starving. No, your baby is, is cluster feeding because they just arrived on the planet and need to be with you.

abby (24:43):

And also your baby is not starving. They just suck the living life Out of you for nine Months. Feel the way you feel because your baby is literally sucking you dry of everything. They're inside. They come out of your body, fully, fully fed with like all of the nutrients. They just sucked out you, your baby is not starving. It's insane to call a newborn babies starving.

dianne (25:13):

They don't, they're not starving. They're not born looking for the buffet. It is just not the way it is. I don't care What they tell you in the hospital. Your baby is not born starving. They might look like they would just want to suck, suck, suck all the time. And that everybody goes, oh, they're starving. Look, they're, they're rooting. They're trying to find their hands. They're starving. They aren't.

abby (25:36):

They're starting the process of like finding your breasts to be there, to, to, to, to, to be near you. They don't need, they don't have the ability to eat a whole bunch of food. No, they cannot swallow a whole bunch of stuff. Their stomach is tiny. They're rooting. And they're looking for you because this is the beginning of attachment to you. And this is the only environment that they're acclimated to and will be a part of for a long time. That's just where they need to be. And it's instinct. It's biological. It's their instinct is to, to be there. Not because they need to start gobbling down food. Cause they're starve They came out starving.

dianne (26:15):

This is, we don't trust the process.

abby (26:18):

Right. We just don't even understand it.

dianne (26:20):

We don't understand the process and we don't trust the process. And when I say we, I don't mean me and Abby. I mean like collectively as a society, we really do not trust this process at all. We have these babies, we trust our body and we've said this a million times on the podcast, we trust our body to make a baby. But when it comes to feeding the baby, we say, you can't do that.

abby (26:40):

Yeah. It's wild. As soon as the baby gets here to like all that stuff, all that trust and all that, all that goes away, you don't, nobody would ever look at their belly and be like, I don't think my body's growing my baby Right. I know. I don't think my baby's getting enough. Do you think my baby's getting enough food inside of me? I know I don't. We don't ask these questions. It doesn't come up. And as soon as they're here, it's like, oh my God, I'm not, my body's not working. My body can't feed my baby. My baby, my body is just doesn't know what to do. I don't know what that is. I need, like, I need, I need more. I need, I need more. I need to, I need to study this more or something. I mean, I'm sure it comes right down to, you know, all of the things that we are faced with here in our... It didn't also, didn't used to be like this. It's not like people hundreds of years ago were like, oh my God, I don't know how to feed my baby. I can't do it. My body's broken. No that just worked. But now we're confronted with all of these reasons ahead of time of why it's not going to work. So of course we expect it not to work.

dianne (27:48):

Uh, you know, this, a lot of this starts in the hospital, you know, a lot of people's say... They told me we needed to supplement in the hospital because the baby was cluster feeding and was not getting enough from me. Or, you know, the baby lost a certain amount of weight in the hospital. And they said that was too much. And I needed to supplement well,

abby (28:05):

and that comes right down to all of the incentives that your hospital has to push formula onto you. And I hear people say, I didn't feel like formula was pushed onto me. Well, good. I'm glad that you didn't, that you had that experience, but that is not the experience of a lot of people. And that is not how the system is set up. Right? Formula companies give free formula and loads of money to hospitals to start the supplementing process, to get their product out there to you. And so this is where this norm happens. And a lot of time we're being told in the hospital to supplement for weird reasons because they just, it's just normal. Yeah. To them. It's just part of the protocol in the hospitals to do that.

dianne (28:49):

When, and I know I've told this story before, but it's been a while. So my niece had a baby about a year. Well, it was a year in March. Um, she just turned a year in March and when she was born and in the hospital, you know, they were breastfeeding and the nurse came in and said, we think you should supplement with formula. We're worried about her blood sugar. Now my niece is a nurse. So she knows like signs of low blood sugar and things like that. Even though I will say, even if you, you can be whatever kind of medical professional, when it comes to your own child, it's really hard to make that designation. But she also has an aunt who's a lactation consultant. So she called me and she was like, they said that we should supplement because of her blood sugar, what should I do? And I'm like, well, what it, she goes, well, they didn't test it. They just told me that that's what I should do.

abby (29:47):

They didn't test the baby's blood sugar, but they're worried about the blood sugar.

dianne (29:50):

Yeah. And they wanted to supplement,

abby (29:52):

well, that doesn't make sense

dianne (29:53):

no. So my niece was like, can I ask them to check her blood sugar? I said, yes, you absolutely can do that. So she asked them to check the blood sugar. They never checked it and they never brought it up again.

abby (30:09):

What? That is so shady.

dianne (30:09):

Was just probably one nurse who did not trust the breastfeeding process and said, we need to give this baby some formula, because I don't think it's going to work with just what she's getting with breastfeeding. Yeah. So, I mean, if she had, if my niece had not asked, if you had just been like, oh, okay. I don't want her blood sugar to drop. Of course give her formula.

abby (30:31):

That sounds scary.

dianne (30:33):

It does. And you know, but she was obviously, you know, blessed enough to have a lactation consultant in her family, which not a lot of people have that. So it's like, that is insane. And they were luckily able to go on for a year without that baby ever having any formula, which I told her that is a really hard thing to do. Yeah. Like to never have a baby be supplemented is pretty rare. Especially in that first week is really rare. I mean, it's just, we don't trust it.

abby (31:10):

No. And we don't know what to do. I feel like we don't know what to do when, you know, when we have, we have questions when maybe things aren't going well to, to maybe fix what's happening to establish breastfeeding, we just go straight to, we'll just supplement. No, they're not transferring enough milk. Maybe they're not gaining as much as we want. Maybe there's not, you know, all these signs, maybe that, maybe that things aren't going well. And then, so, okay. Well when then we need to supplement, okay. There was a big jump there. If your goal is, if you want to use formula fine, then that's, then, then, then we don't need to talk anymore. But if your goal is to breastfeed, then like we don't need to do that. We need to. I mean, except for like rare, you know, in real situations we, we do, but there's also a few things that we can try to, you know, I mean, the same thing happened with Exley when he was born, um, I was nursing him and he wasn't gaining weight. And I was lucky enough, you know, as your niece to know, a lactation consultant to who I called and was like, okay, well let's try these things. But like, and it worked and they weren't complicated things. But if I had called like my pediatrician, well, not my pediatrician, but a most pediatricians, they would have been like, oh, well the baby's not gaining weight. So we need to supplement this like so common. This is so normal. This is so exactly like what happens to most people? Well, the baby's not gaining weight, so we need to supplement, this is what happens.

dianne (32:53):

We need to know why your baby's not gaining weight.

abby (32:55):

Right. Because yeah, because it very well may not be needed.

dianne (32:59):

No, it might not be needed at all. But to just say, oh, your baby's not gaining. Yep. Why don't we start supplementing? Or I've had families even just come to me in the, in the beginning of a pregnancy or beginning of breastfeeding after their baby's born and say So when do I need to start formula? Yeah. You never do. Right. And so ingrained in our culture to use it.

abby (33:19):

Yeah. Yeah. When do we use it now? It's like a pump. When, when do I start pumping? You don't have to. Unless there's a reason. Yeah.

abby (33:29):

Um, I had like seven stories to tell all at once when I was a baby, I was breastfed for like three months. And then my mom's doctor was like, okay, you can wean now and use formula. Time's up. She was like, okay. Yeah. Like it was just time to switch to formula, but why? And nobody asked why it was just normal. It's just a normal thing that we are just, well, the baby needs formula now. And I, and with Exley when he wasn't gaining weight, the things that we tried were very simple. I mean, even just the simplest things can affect their ability to transfer enough milk. And like these little tweaks, I mean, they were the tiniest tweaks. It was like readjust. She made like three suggestions. Give, make sure he's getting the full breast. I mean, duh, you're a brand new mom. I was a brand new mom. didn't know how to tandem feed. I was just like two boobs, two kids let's go. Yeah. And I was just doing whatever. And then like Exley was a lot of times getting the breast of the Jack had already fed off of. And so, you know, there was not, that was not the best way to do it and make sure he gets the fuller breast. Okay. That makes sense. Um, do some breast compressions while he's eating makes sense and uh, help his latch, fix his latch, a little fish, his lips out, making sure he's getting a deeper latch. We did those things. I did that for a week. Bam. That baby had gained like twice as much as he was supposed to. It was amazing. Cause, and those interventions are not complicated. Those little things were affecting his weight.

dianne (35:01):

And you are, you were an experienced breastfeeding, right? I mean, already experienced with education on it and you were, I, I don't know what I'm doing wrong here. Something needs to, I need help with us. It's it's okay. Like that happened.

abby (35:18):

Totally. We don't, this is not normal in our culture, the logistics, the like all of this back in the day in village type settings, when people were living communally and you know, taking care of babies together, people knew what to do. They knew to be like, okay, over here, you know, the elders were like, let's get this going and let's get this going. And we don't have that now we're so totally isolated. We have just capitalism is like bombarding us all the time with products and things to do to fix these things and those things. And we just do not see breastfeeding at all. And we have no idea about these tiny little logistics and they're simple, but now they're so hard to access. Cause we just don't. We don't have it around us.

dianne (36:00):

No we don't.

abby (36:03):

Yeah. So that's how to know when things are going well, what was it as a summary diapers, weight gain.

dianne (36:12):

Just diapers, weight, gain pain.

abby (36:18):

Oh, yeah pain. Yeah.

dianne (36:19):

That was the first one we talked about and try not to use the internet, but do access a lactation consultant. Whether it's reaching out to me and asking questions, or if you have one that you work with or, you know, have one, um, if you are unsure, talk it out with a lactation consultant because there's plenty of times that I see families and I'm like, you know what things are going way better than you think they are.

abby (36:42):

Yeah. Well that's the thing. And if you have, you have a feeling that things are going well, then it's probably going well. I mean, feeling that things are going well, I'm going to say I'm guaranteed that things are going well. Yeah. Trust yourself. Let yourself believe that things are going well, let yourself believe that you're being successful because that's another problem.

dianne (37:01):

Absolutely. And you know, look at your baby because your baby cries or as fussy does not mean the feeds are not going well. You know, they're fussy. Their babies are just fussy. So don't use that as a gauge and ask the questions, you know, ask there's nothing wrong with that.

Speaker 1 (37:20):

Thanks for listening. Thank you. [inaudible].