My poor, poor baby girl. Yesterday was horrible. She had so much painful gas that she pretty much screamed for most of the day.
We are fortunate enough to have a free breastfeeding "warm line" (you leave a message and they call you back rather than having it staffed 24-7) that gets answered periodically by none other than Kathleen Huggins, the author of The Nursing Mother's Companion.
After seeing that Zoe was eating a huge amount (we've rented a scale from her store to monitor how much Zoe is getting each feeding), Mark called and left a message. After describing how much she was eating, Kathleen asked if she was having a lot of gas. Apparently babies will feed more to get the gas through their systems. When she found out that I'd been switching sides during each feeding, her estimation was that I was overproducing and Zoe was getting way too much foremilk. Foremilk is super high in lactose and by getting so much of it the enzymes in her digestive tract just could not keep up and that was likely the cause of the gas. Or it still could be a dairy senstivity.
The course of action now is for her to nurse on only one side each feeding and for me to skip pumping unless I get so full that it is a) excruciatingly painful or b) too full for her to get a latch. Yeehaw. If this doesn't clear things up within 48-72 hours, I'm finally gonna have to break down and completely remove dairy from my diet for 2-3 weeks. That is how long it can take to get all the dairy proteins out of my system. Ugh.
I have been so very, very close to giving up on breastfeeding this weekend but there really isn't another viable road I'm willing to take. If it is dairy, that rules out most formula and I don't want to use soy formula because of all the phytoestrogens. That pretty much leaves me and my sore nipples to feed the baby. I never, ever expected it to be this hard just to get her fed and I totally understand why so many women don't even make it a month, especially if they don't have support. I'm at my wits end and I've got a fair bit of support between Mark, the warm line, and the lactation consultants from the breastfeeding clinic. I can't imagine trying to figure this all out on my own.
To end on a good note, after the 2am feeding (that probably ended around 3am) Zoe fell sound asleep fairly quickly (according to Mark, who took her and sent me to bed) and slept right on through until 8am. About that time she woke up hungry and I fed her and changed her diaper and she's been asleep on my chest for about 2 hours. Also, she totally reset my brain by smiling at me while I was talking to her and singing her the lullaby her daddy made up for her.
UPDATE: Note to self: Put nursing pads in the diaper bag and the car so when you overflow the ones you're wearing while you're out at a restaurant and notice a wet spot on your shirt you won't have to replace it with napkins and paper towel.
