WIC Breastfeeding Peer Counselor
When Jamie was well enough to be put to breast, he did try sucking right away. But he was still very weak, so we had to do much the same as we had done with Eric in the beginning, giving him pumped milk in a bottle when he tired at the breast. I had a lot more confidence this time around, so I did not feel I needed to keep a “log”. I could tell that he was getting enough to eat, just by what was in his diapers. We also had him weighed often enough for reassurance. By the time Jamie was about three weeks old, I no longer needed to pump since he was now able to feed well at the breast. I found pumping for every feeding to be tiring work, and I was quite happy when I could stop doing it.
We still had a few difficulties, though. Jamie’s mouth was very tiny, and I got sore nipples. It was hard to get him to latch well enough to prevent the soreness, but as he grew and his mouth got a bit bigger this issue resolved itself. We had a nasty bout of stomach flu, and I worried about my milk supply, but we managed to get through that ok too.
Then I was diagnosed with gallstones, and needed to have my gall-bladder removed. I was worried enough about having surgery, but even more worried that it might affect my milk supply. I pumped extra milk and froze it, so it could be fed to Jamie during my surgery and the first few hours of my recovery. My surgery went well, and I was glad to no longer have those extremely painful gall-bladder attacks, but I did find nursing Jamie to be a challenge as I healed. It hurt to hold him against me for nursing, so we had to try some weird positions to get him to nurse without touching my surgery wounds! But that problem too resolved soon enough as I healed.
A few weeks later, I developed very sore nipples with shooting pains in my breasts. I called my WIC peer counselor for advice, and she said it sounded like thrush! I called my doctor, and they determined I did indeed have thrush, which is a yeast infection. Ugh! Probably an after-effect of being treated with antibiotics for my surgery. Both Jamie and I had to be treated with Nystatin, and we did finally get the yeast cleared up. But my breasts were quite painful until the thrush was gone.
When Jamie began to cut teeth, he tended to bite down on me a lot. It was not pleasant for me, and I had to try many things to prevent him from biting me. He can be a bit stubborn, and it was hard to make him stop biting me. But I am stubborn too, and I was determined to continue breastfeeding him, in spite of his biting! I knew he needed my breastmilk, so I refused to wean, no matter how much he bit me. I was sure it was generally associated with teething, because he bit me most just before a tooth popped through the gum. When his teeth were not bothering him, he would not bite me.
Jamie was always a really cuddly baby, and I think my nursing bond with him was tighter than with Eric. I did not offer Jamie solids until after he was 6 months old, and then we went really slow with them. He was not all that interested in eating solids and seemed to prefer nursing for most of his meals. He was eating a lot more solids by a year old, but he still nursed 5 or 6 times a day. Gradually though, he dropped nursings one by one, and he finally weaned at 16 months old.
I was really proud to have been able to nurse him that long. I truly appreciated the support of my WIC peer counselor, especially in those early months when we had so many things happening.
When Jamie was almost 6 months old, my peer counselor told me that she was no longer able to continue her job as a peer counselor. Then she said she also wanted to recommend me to fill her position as peer counselor---if I wanted the job! I thought “wow! what an opportunity!” I carefully considered it, and decided that, yes, it would be something I would like to do. Kind of like “pass it on”. She had helped me when I needed it, and now it could be my turn to help other moms when they needed it.
So I attended a training seminar, and here I am today. I love my work as a breastfeeding peer counselor, and many moms have told me that they might have given up on breastfeeding if it were not for my support and advice. I feel proud that I could “pass it on”. Thank you Laura, for your help to me, and for recommending me for this work.
"Eric's Breastfeeding Success Story"