On the other side....

[Almamiel]

I feel more babies coming into the world over the next few days! Let's talk about life on the other side of birth.

[Almamiel]

Baby boy is sweet and gorgeous - slept pretty well last night after some rough ones (I had insomnia). My girls are totally in love with him, too.

I developed full blown mastitis this morning, after the onset of cracked nipples on Wednesday night. Trying to work on a shallow latch and am on antibiotics and anti-yeast. Feeling really crappy. I know I'm whining - here's hoping I'm the only mama dealing with this!

[KarenMT]

Sorry about the mastitis.  I've had issues with plugged ducts and mastitis with both of my girls.  I usually try and prevent the plugged ducts with lecithin and prevent the mastitis with a very careful latch and a ton of vitamin C. Be kind to yourself and get lots of rest, if that is possible.  I know that my bouts of mastitis were a combination of engorgement and just doing too much.

[clutterbug]

I'm sorry about your mastitis, what a bummer :(  Do you have lots of support at home right now?  I hope you can just get into bed with baby for a couple of days and have people bring you copious fluids to drink and lots of hot packs for your boobs.  Ouchie :(  Hang in there!

[ryleeee]

ughhhh mastitis. sooo sorry mama. cabbage leaves help a ton! you just put them in your bra. and massage massage massage that out in the shower, and make sure he is nursing first on that side. mastitis is soooo horrible =__=

[dayiscoming2006]

I had that 3 times with my first. Resting, lots of water, hot packs, massaging the area all helped it work it's way out for me.

Second time around, I got some herbal stuff for whenever my ducts felt like they were getting plugged up and that and massaging and making sure baby nursing there well all helped to prevent any mastitis.

Possibly helpful link

[Almamiel]

Thanks for all the kind words and commiserating! I feel much better today - I think the antibiotics are kicking in. I went ahead and went to the doc yesterday after midwife urged me to (very swollen breast, fever spiked to 102+). lots of nursing, massaging, cabbage leaves. Lesson learned? Just because this is my third time around doesn't mean I don't need to be super concientious about latch, lots of rest, etc. My girls have been good little nurses - oh, the benefit of having older kids!!

[clutterbug]

Glad to hear you're on the mend!!  Keep up all the good healing stuff, it'll help those meds kick in even better :)  How cute that your DDs are nursing you back to health :)

[Almamiel]

Ev slept 4.5 hours straight last night - I feel like a new woman!

[sharita]

Originally Posted by Almamiel 

Thanks for all the kind words and commiserating! I feel much better today - I think the antibiotics are kicking in. I went ahead and went to the doc yesterday after midwife urged me to (very swollen breast, fever spiked to 102+). lots of nursing, massaging, cabbage leaves. Lesson learned? Just because this is my third time around doesn't mean I don't need to be super concientious about latch, lots of rest, etc. My girls have been good little nurses - oh, the benefit of having older kids!!

That was my mistake with #5 as well.  I thought after nursing 4 kids I was a pro and wasn't as careful about latch and such and really paid the price!!  I was lucky and didn't get mastitis but got cracked nipples and was miserable for weeks and nursing was so painful i thought about giving up.  I think if I had been more careful right from the beginning and not letting DS be lazy and making him latch correctly I could have avoided it. 

Hope you feel better soon mama!

[camprunner]

I made this mistake with #2 and it really made an impression. Will be super careful about nursing tummy to tummy with this one.  With the first I'd done some much research that it didn't hurt at all. Thought I knew it all with the second and it HURT!

Originally Posted by sharita 

That was my mistake with #5 as well.  I thought after nursing 4 kids I was a pro and wasn't as careful about latch and such and really paid the price!!  I was lucky and didn't get mastitis but got cracked nipples and was miserable for weeks and nursing was so painful i thought about giving up.  I think if I had been more careful right from the beginning and not letting DS be lazy and making him latch correctly I could have avoided it. 

Hope you feel better soon mama!

[lizzie]

Originally Posted by Almamiel 

Ev slept 4.5 hours straight last night - I feel like a new woman!

Yay! So great that you're both doing so well now! :)

[ibusymomto5]

Glad you got the mastitis under control. I had a bout of that with my last baby, and it was awful.

I'm 4days pp and woke this morning with plugged ducts and bad engorgement. Dh went and got me some cabbage and I've done that a couple of times today and also started taking lecithin. I think the cabbage helped some, but good grief I forgot how big the girls can get. I'm thankful to have some of the bigger comfy cotton bras I ordered late in pregnancy.

Anyone else doing belly binding? I'm using the Belly Bandit binder and can tell it's helping everything shrink back and not feel so wobbly inside.

I'm also doing placenta encapsulation for the first time. The mw assistant that came to my birth offered to do it for me, and I decided to go for it. She came out and did it at our house after the birth. I'm so excited to see what difference it makes this time.

Gotta run, time to nurse baby again.

[Almamiel]

Yeah - I, too had forgotten the joys of engorgement. With dd2, I'd just stopped nursing dd1, so I don't recall it being anywhere near as bad last time. Hope the cabbage leaves help - they helped me!

[Almamiel]

Oh - and not doing belly binding, though kind of wish I had during those first few days when my organs felt out of whack!

We just froze the placenta to bury later - given how emotionally unsteady I'm still feeling, I'm rethinking that choice.

[jr'smom]

Originally Posted by Almamiel 

Ev slept 4.5 hours straight last night - I feel like a new woman!

Edited by jr'smom - 5/8/11 at 8:24am

[jr'smom]

I don't know why my words will not show up above! 

I was just agreeing that 4.5 hours of sleep would be heavenly!  Zoe will sleep like that during the day. She has a great morning nap from about 8am-noon!  But she doesn't sleep that long at night yet.  If only I could take naps!  It's too loud around here for me though! 

[gummibears]

Originally Posted by Almamiel 

Baby boy is sweet and gorgeous - slept pretty well last night after some rough ones (I had insomnia). My girls are totally in love with him, too.

I developed full blown mastitis this morning, after the onset of cracked nipples on Wednesday night. Trying to work on a shallow latch and am on antibiotics and anti-yeast. Feeling really crappy. I know I'm whining - here's hoping I'm the only mama dealing with this!

Oh, I hear your misery. I spent a long, tearful night with a similar issue. My daughter seems to think she knows better than me about latching and won't accept a latch unless it's nipple only. I've been trying to correct her, but she just keeps pulling off/fussing until I relent because I don't want to see her cry and be hungry. Last night I developed cracked/bleeding nipples. The one that's not cracked was being nursed from for hours straight and she still cried for more. I was sore, tired and out of options.

I broke down in tears and told DH get the formula and bottles out and we fed her that. She was happy and satisfied, but I feel like a failure now. I'm not sure I want to give up nursing her. I wanted to nurse her 6 months+. But I can't nurse when my nipples can't heal or she won't latch right to let them heal. And I can't nurse 2 weeks fully with the pain/nipples how they are. There's not much choice. I'm hoping I can still nurse her a bit with the formula (best of both worlds) but I'm not holding out much hope since nipple confusion will likely make that impossible. I have an emergency number for a lactaction consultant I can call today, but since we've already given her bottles I'm not sure there's much hope there either.

I was having such good signs with nursing, too. Leaking (I rarely leaked with DS) and she's filling out and was satisfied yesterday afternoon. But after we got home it was constant nursing always hungry and it was too much for my body. :(

[Almamiel]

Yeah - the worst thing about the first few days (besides mastitis and cracked nipples, lol) was the sleep deprivation. I had to make a conscious effort to sleep after a while - otherwise I was going to totally lose it!

[Almamiel]

Oh gummibears - hugs mama!!! Visiting the LC was one of the best things I did. I'm also only nursing on the less injured right breast and pumping from the left (which is way less painful). Ev is taking bottles of expresses milk and the breast - there's been no nipple confusion, so don't take that as a given. I know what a hard place you're in - be kind to yourself! I can't believe how much better I feel today as opposed to days 5-8 after his birth.