nursing....what's the problem?

Date: may 16, 2006
Time: 12:36 p.m.

Feeling: rushed
Hearing: construction next door and my baby's sleep sounds

Wow, here's my first blog. My baby girl Naomi Natalie is three months old now, she is really a very pretty baby. All wonderful things considered-- lately I've been struggling a little with breastfeeding. Thats why I decided to start a blog.
Naomi has been feeding like a champ since day one, latching on wonderfully and eating great but the past week and 1/2 has been hellish at times. She started to refuse to nurse about once a day and I would get so worried that she was starving that I would cave and give her a bottle of either formula or breast milk that I managed to pump (I'm not the world's best pumper). Anyway this continued and I had been racking my brain to figure out what was going wrong. Did I eat anything new or weird that was irritating her? No, Did I smell different? No, no new deoderant or shampoo or soap or lotion. What I have finally decided the issue has been and still kind of is, is that she is dropping a feeding session, she has gone from 6 to 5 a day and also she had been a "nursing strike". That term, as unhelpful as naming the problem is did seem to make me feel better, basically because other moms have encountered the same breastfeeding problems I am now dealing with.
So because of all my worring I would pray that she would nurse so she would be happy and able to sleep and not start this vicious cycle of being hungry and tired and refusing to eat of sleep. Well, that's not entirely true, she will ALWAYS take a bottle but I have been tring to get her to nurse exclusivly, I think she prefers the bottle because it's easier- who doesn't like things to be easy. Anyway so with all this stress and worring I started to have trouble with my milk let-down which made the problem worse, she would latch on and then get impatient when working for a time and the let down wouldn't come. I just need to remember to relax, have confidence and my let-down will come naturally quickly.
So, each feeding I try to be calm and confident. I really want to nurse her for at least a year and would rather have the trouble to deal with later when I actually WANT to wean her.
So, there's my blog for the day- I'll keep updating with my nursing status. I love my baby and you know, as important as nursing is to me, it dosen't mean I will be a bad mom if Naomi wants to be bottle fed instead- so with that out on the table here's to nursing, wish me luck, I'll probably need it, if not I'll appreciate it:)