Kimber's Navy Family

  Sitting down to write a post on feeding newborns, I was surprised at how raw some of those feelings were for me, even years later. Having attempted to breastfeed each of our five children, my experience has taught me that each child is different and that each breastfeeding journey is different. Discovering what worked best for me  as the parent and for each of our newborns in regards to feeding-- breastfeeding, bottle feeding, or a combination-- was not always an easy or simple solution and it often was laden with guilt that I wasn't living up to certain standards, worry that I wasn't making the right choice, and frustration when things didn't live up to expectations I had put on myself. We welcomed our fifth baby to our family this past summer so you could say that I am well-versed in the newborn days. With our first son, I was so nervous about if I was "doing it right." I worried about when I should be nursing him and for how long the sessions should b...

   Every day in every way, it's getting better and better. -John Lennon   I think I've cracked the code on what people mean when they knowingly tell you, "It gets easier." For the longest time, I've wanted to ask these people, "What on earth do you mean by that? I've heard this since my oldest was born!" Four years and change and here is what I think they mean: survival and self-sufficiency. Survival: you get through it. When you have a newborn, you first must learn to feed it. This "gets easier" with practice. Feeding a one-year old can actually be much harder than feeding a newborn (don't freak out, new moms). Newborns don't throw food across the room or refuse to eat something because it is squishy/mushy/crunchy/green. You also pretty much know what a newborn will eat: breast milk or formula. One-year olds demand variety (or, perhaps, the same thing for every meal, turning mealtimes into a battleground). But-- here is...

Breastfeeding. I know how I felt about breastfeeding my twins: it was what we were going to do. Hopefully. I told myself that I would give my best to breastfeeding and, if it didn't pan out, that was fine. And here we are, the boys are 14-months and I haven't breastfed them or given them breastmilk since they were 2- or 3-months old. What happened? Home from the hospital The boys were born at 35-weeks, premature, but not too premature. However, neither of them had a very good sucking reflex. C did much better. It only took a little "reminding" each time I fed him of what he was supposed to do. O had no clue. I had to spend a significant amount of time with him every time I fed him to get him to suck. I had a lot of pressure in the hospital to supplement. This being my second successful pregnancy and delivery, my milk poured in much faster than it had with my first son (who was breastfed, but that is a different story). I felt that I wanted to only feed them my b...