sutton024

Tatum, a healthy toddler who can stick out her tongue! Today's guest post is about baby Tatum. She was thriving on breastfeeding until a tongue tie lead to a sudden weight loss. This amazing mom continued to breastfeed through a hospitalization and four months with a feeding tube. Tatum is now a happy,  healthy, breastfeeding toddler! Tatum's Story I can't believe that it's been one year (and 6 days) since she had her NG tube removed. That horrible, uncomfortable, unsightly tube that provided her little body the extra nutrients it so badly needed for 4 months. For 4 months, Dane and I mixed donated breastmilk with a fortifier for extra calories and used a syringe to fill her belly with the milk that I could not provide for her by nursing alone.  When she was born, I noticed that her top lip didn't "flange" when she nursed. I was not incredibly familiar with lip ties or tongue ties, but I did recognize that the frenulum of her top lip was tight. At her 9 da...

Today I have a guest post from a mom, Diane Coombs of New Foundland, Canada, who shares her story on breastfeeding a baby with lip and tongue tie. My baby girl is nine months old today! Our breastfeeding relationship got off to a rough start because of an undiagnosed posterior tongue tie and lip tie. The pediatrician in the hospital did not diagnose her, neither did our LC nor family doctor. I was told over and over it was 'poor latch' or thrush or 'lazy feeder.' All were incorrect. Scarlett was gagging, coughing, extremely gassy, and she 'clicked' with each suck, my poor nipples were being crushed and so badly abraded my daughter would spit up blood after feeding. Nursing was making her so tired, she was sleeping through feeds to conserve calories, and was losing weight in a vicious cycle. I researched what could be causing our issues, trusting my gut that there was something more wrong besides the diagnosis given. I went to a LLL meeting and met a mom whose st...

I’ve often heard moms say that they don’t have time to breastfeed because they have older children to take care of. They don’t have time to “sit around nursing all day”. So what if you do stop breastfeeding so that you can have more time to spend with your older children? What does that teach the older children? That baby’s needs don’t matter? That if something is inconvenient then you just switch to something easier, even if the inconvenient thing was better? The truth is kids are really inconvenient (not to mention loud, messy, and demanding). Why is breastfeeding so often at the top of the list of things to be tossed? I love how this mom points out, “Some portion of ‘The Family Schedule’ belongs to you (the nursing baby).” I was there once. I was surprised when I heard myself think it. I considered not breastfeeding because it would take too much of my time and energy to do it. How could I, of all people, consider that as an option? My situation was a little different than most beca...

I have another great, inspirational story about breastfeeding success! This article, by mom Christina Adams, is both inspirational and informative. She was able to successfully breastfeed with hypoplastic breasts and following breast surgery: I had struggled with breast feeding my son, Vance. When he was born we lived in Japan and there wasn't a support system there at all. When I was struggling with supply issues, the hospital staff handed me an SNS (supplemental nursing system) and a case of pre-made formula and basically told me "Good luck". No one knew how to work the SNS and I was too nervous to try it. After 3 months of wondering why breast feeding wasn't working and having to supplement with bottles of formula, Vance developed a nipple preference and refused to nurse anymore. That was the end of that... When I became pregnant with Harper, I decided that no matter what, she was going to be breast fed for at least one year, come hell or high water! I r...

I'm honored to share the story of Tami Caudill and her determination to breastfeed her daughter, against all odds: My son who is now 3 was breastfed for 7 months, then was given pumped milk until 13 months. I thought I had challenges with him! Yeah, not so much. I had mastitis, oversupply ( which I liked) he was tongue tied and had a highly arched palate which caused my nipples to be hamburger for a month until the frenulum stretched and he matured/grew and the high palate wasn't an issue. At 7 months, after returning to work, he refused to nurse anymore. It was like he was mad at me. When my daughter was born I decided I would try harder and that she would actually nurse for 18 months. A few days after going home I had what I thought were symptoms of a UTI (nope) and mastitis (nope) and numbness tingling and weakness in hands and feet that got worse - higher. I had trouble walking and and was looking like a cow with mad cow disease. I went into ER and they said ...

In honor of his 9th birthday today, my story of nursing Scootch! My second son, “Scootch”, was born prematurely at 34 weeks. He was a good size at five pounds, 11 ounces. I was happy that he made it to 34 weeks. At 29 weeks, I started leaking amniotic fluid. Assuming that delivery was imminent, I was given a shot to mature his lungs and sent by ambulance to the nearest hospital with a neonatal intensive care unit (NICU) over two hours away from our home. We were lucky that I stopped leaking fluid and I was sent home and put on bed rest. I spent the next five weeks in and out of the hospital in an ongoing game to stop my labor. The hardest part of this was being away from my other baby, my 16-month-old son. Scootch was born healthy and breathing well, but he was sleepy. He did not wake up when I delivered him. It was 24 hours before he cried. I began pumping right away so he could be fed through a tube and almost cried when I saw the few drops of colostrum in the bottle. "This woul...

The Real Benefits of Breastfeeding by Dayna Markley We all hear about the benefits of breastfeeding from our doctors and other health care professionals. We hear it on TV, newspapers, magazines, just about everywhere! Well, what about the benefits we don't always hear about? The real benefits of breastfeeding. All the health benefits of breastfeeding are wonderful but the amazing emotional benefits to moms and babies are something you get to see and feel each day! I know well the deep feelings of love, closeness, and pride that come with nursing your little one. The breastfeeding moms group on the site Cafemom.com , a social site like facebook that is just for mothers, is a place for breastfeeding moms to come together and talk. Not to my surprise, many of the other moms had similar experiences to share. I want to share our thoughts and feelings with everyone who is a mother or soon will be because I feel these benefits aren't spoken about nearly ...

I always knew I wanted to breastfeed my children. I couldn ’t imagine doing it any differently. I was lucky enough to give birth to two beautiful boys and I enjoyed breastfeeding them both. Not that it was easy or without struggle, but it was what I wanted to do and loved doing it. In fact, I liked it so much, and felt so passionate about breastfeeding that I became a La Leche League Leader, so that I could help other breastfeeding moms. I really took to the idea of “Mothering through breastfeeding”. It wasn ’t just a feeding method for me, but a relationship with my child. My husband and I always talked about adopting a child who needed a family. We thought, if we can’t have kids of our own then we will adopt. Even if we can have kids of our own, maybe we will still adopt. After the birth of our second son it became clear that going through another pregnancy was not going to be good for me or our family. My doctor told me not to risk it, that my health was at stake. But we wanted ano...