Adventures in breastfeeding (III)

Baby A is strangely big for a breastfed baby. Actually she’s practically falling off the height and weight charts and I guess that makes her big for her age whether bottle or breast fed. But she’s so tiny compared to us and not particularly chubby cheeked (she carries most of her weight in what her pediatrician calls her “meaty thighs” ) that it's easy to forget. So far she’s been exclusively breastfed--exclusively i.e. other than the daily vitamin drops we remember to give her once every fifteen-or-so days and the splashes of bathwater that she slurps up at bath time and the night that Big A and I were fighting so hard that my body seemed to forget that there was a baby I was supposed to be making milk for.

If you can’t tell, I really enjoyed breastfeeding Baby A--she has an awesome latch, is an eager nurser, and got progressively snugglier. Also, I’m proud of how baby and I did a good job. Especially since much of what the lactation consultant suggested at the hospital didn’t seem right to me. Use a Boppy pillow to nurse? No, thank you, we like snuggling. Football hold? Uhh, I want a natural embrace.

So now that she’s four months old and has significant spit-up, the pediatrician would like us to introduce solids. And it’s so strange because I loved, loved, enjoyed, loved breastfeeding her, but I’m so relieved not to be her only source of sustenance any longer.

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