Feelings of Inadequacy.

Yesterday was the first day I felt inadequate as a mum.

For the past few days, Carter's sleep time was becoming shorter and shorter, and he was feeding for longer periods of time. It was baffling me how he could feed for 1 to 1 1/2 hours and wake up hungry after only 2 hours during the day and night. It was becoming increasingly harder to settle him as he was crying continuously, and we just couldn't figure out what was wrong.

Helen (our lovely health care nurse) dropped in yesterday for a checkup, and to weigh Carter to see how he was doing. Well. That's when I got that awful sick feeling in my stomach. My poor little baby was actually losing weight, and after trying to express and getting nothing, we established that I had a low milk supply, and he wasn't getting enough during each feed.

I felt awful. My heart broke at the thought of Carter crying because he was so hungry, and I couldn't give him enough.

However, we have a game plan in place. Helen rang the lactation consultant, and she bought out a script for me today for a medication to boost my supply. I'm still feeding him, then topping him with formula, and expressing after to keep everything stimulated. Hopefully, in a couple of weeks I'll be able to breastfeed exclusively again. If not, it's not the end of the world.

So far, since we've begun topping Carter up with formula, he's become more settled, happy, and is sleeping around 3 to 4 hours which is wonderful. In fact, I actually had to wake him up tonight at the nurse advised us to wake Carter if he hadn't fed for more than 4 hours (to ensure weight gain). Let's hope he continues that trend tonight!

On a side note, today was the first day that Deon and I took Carter for a walk around the block in his pram. I'm not sure how impressed he was, as he slept the whole time! It was such a lovely day, (25 degrees in August) and it really gave me a lift. Definitely the best day since being at home with my new little family!