Yesterday was a really interesting day in the Puzzoni household. Earlier in the week, the doc put Simon on formula to supplement the breastfeeding, which at that point was still colostrum only. He dropped 15% of his body weight, which pushes what they consider comfortable weight loss, apparently, so she wanted him getting more. And lo and behold, it also made him much, much happier and easier to manage.
Yesterday, the milk came in, and with it, a flood of hormones that really messed with Diana. I was just dozing off on the couch while Simon was sleeping, and I woke to find Diana hysterically crying over me, still not clothed out of the shower. That triggered some panic for me, but looking around, everything seemed OK. Turns out, she just started crying in the shower, and her lymph nodes were really swollen, causing her to further freak out. But it was also that moment that she realized she finally had milk.
And so the lad fed for real, for the first time. For about an hour between the two breasts. This helped with a great deal of Diana's anxiety as well. We went into this feeling, you know, if breastfeeding works, great, if not, no big deal. Most of our closer friends and family in recent years have not fed that way, so we don't perceive it as something broken. But I'll tell you, once you start that battle, you want to win, and that's where Diana has been for some time.
The boy slept for many hours after that, and hopefully Diana's body was getting the signals to kick into high gear. It was a happy time. But as the night wore on, he started to act as a crack addict. He couldn't get enough. This is when we learned yet another lesson: Being tired out of your mind can cause you to not think rationally, and you can't deal with solvable problems.
The solution was already suggested by the doc, that even when the milk came in, it probably won't be enough to satisfy him, so supplementing is OK. Instead, Simon's frustration was a kick in the pants to Diana's morale, and it took us until 2 a.m. to figure that out.
I have to say, the hormone effects are nuts. It makes sense when you think about it though. When a woman gets pregnant, the changes are a bit more gradual, but in the span of a few days around the birth, the body has to go from supporting something inside to repairing the carnage and sizing of the uterus, and get the breasts producing milk. That's a pretty radical change in a very short period of time. Diana started crying over a story on the news about a dog that was nearly starved to death, and she was completely aware of how much she was over-reacting. It's wild.
It's still pretty fascinating (when you're not tired) how every issue the kid has, there's likely a solution. The key is really having all of the variables considered.
No comments yet.