When I finally to latched him on, he took to it like a pro. The only problem was that he did not have an appetite enough to keep him hydrated, something common in “Kidney Babies.” He was chronically dehydrated, and not growing on his own. The doctors needed to know what he was taking in so they asked me to switch to a bottle. I switched giving him expressed milk instead of formula.
After just a few days of the bottle, it was getting harder and harder to get him latched on. This went on for months. Conner would latch on less and less as time went on. I would try to hold him close, and he would not even let me do that. Every time I picked him up, it became a fight. I was frustrated, tired, and extremely exhausted with everything. It was all I could do to even get up in the mornings.
Around 9 months, I became exhausted trying to keep up with two babies, pumping, and all the extra medical attention Conner needed. Conner continued thriving exclusively on expressed breast milk for about 11 months, with no signs of solids in sight. At that point, I decided that I had done all I could, and I started weaning myself from the pump. It was an extremely emotionally hard decision to make, leaving me feeling that I had let my family, and Conner, down. I had enough freezer supply to keep Conner on Momma's Milk for a month after I stopped pumping.
Conner started on medical formula after that, which he hated. The strong vanilla flavor was too much for his taste buds. He was on this formula for another year, and I would cringe every time I opened a can. When I began nursing our new baby Caden, Conner come back to the breast, about once a day. He was not nursing long, only about a second or two, and mostly out of jealousy. He just turned four, and since his birthday has not seemed interested in nursing anymore. Please read on to find out what happened when I tried to breastfeed Caden
