How to get your baby to breast feed...

...don't do what I did.

When we left off, Caleb, aka the dude, has just been brought into the world. But let's look at what you should do and what I did do.

Step 1: Don't have a c-section
The first 4 hours, they kept him in the nursery. Actually, not even the nursery, the pre-nursery. It is hospital policy to keep babies there to make sure they are alright. For women who have vaginal births, they get to hold their babies for an hour before the babies go into the pre-nursery. For women like me with c-sections, they take your babies right away because the doctors have to stitch you back up so you literally get 5 minutes to bond.

Step 2: Get an LC or doula for after birth
So 4 hours later, they bring him to me and I want to breast feed him so he would get the allimportant colostrum. Mind you, it is now close to 11 and the lactation consultant has gone for the day. But I thought, how hard could this be? Babies want to suck, I have boobs for the sucking. It should go great. Not so much. So after wrestling with him for 30 minutes, the nurse came to take him for his nightly stats. And because he was hungry while at the nursery, they fed him formula.

Step 3: Keep the baby with you at all times
I did not know this. You can have the baby stay in your room as long as they dont need to check his stats. It seems so logical now, but at the time and being on pain medication, I was oblivious. So the first night, he stayed in the nursery. The second night, I told the nurse who was taking him away for his stats that I would like for him to stay in the room with me after they were done with him. I fell asleep and when they called, my husband told them to keep him in the nursery. Again, they fed him formula

Step 4: No schedule, just feed him
They had been feeding formula every 3 hours so I thought I had to do the same with breastmilk. So after 2 hours of having to wait, he was so hungry and frantic, he would not take my breast because the flow is much slower than the bottles they've been using in the nursery. We finally had to give him another bottle. This went on for the next 3 days. Boob, 3 hours later, would not take boobs, gave bottle. He was ok for 2 hours. Sucked pacifier for an hour, tried boob, would not take, gave another bottle.

Step 5: Bring pump to hospital
I was so confident that my baby would breastfeed with no issues, I didn't bring or prepare the pump. So when he wouldn't take the boob, I had to give him formula. I was not producing milk at this point (just colostrum) so the breasts were not engorged, but if I had the pump, I would have pumped and fed him my milk instead of formula.

Well there you have it kids...learn from my mistakes