Skin to skin

chase  ·  Sun, Aug 16, 2015

Last night was a bit harrowing. After a few days in which we thought breastfeeding was coming more or less naturally, Milo stopped being satisfied. From nightfall to midnight and beyond, we were either feeding her or soothing her nonstop, and because she kept fussing, it didn’t seem like we were doing a good job of either. We kept calling the nurse, who didn’t have great hands-on guidance for our technique but who seemed to have limitless patience for our hair-brained schemes; she gave us a nipple a shield, and then an hour later she set us up on the breast pump (even though she must have known that we wouldn’t have any luck with colostrum), and then an hour later she brought a pacifier (which Milo flatly rejected).

Frustrated and sleep-deprived, we finally found our own way. We fed her again, played white noise from our phone, and I took off my shirt and cradled her in the crook of my arm, skin to skin, as I crowded out Misty on her hospital bed. Our girl responded to the heat and finally gave us several good hours of sleep, and in the morning we once again felt like this is something we can do.