First, Congratulations! I know it's been a month now since your initial question, but I wanted to chime in based on my own experiences.
First, as far as treatments go, can you do some of them while you nurse? I used to do hypertonic saline while nursing, because I figured there was no harm if she inhaled HS. What about doing something other than the vest when you feel like you need your boob out
- like the Accapella?
My DD never took a bottle or a paci. She was a NICU baby and, for the first week, she would ONLY take a bottle and wouldn't nurse. We hired a lactation consultant who got her nursing, and, after that, I was scared to give her a bottle and ended up regretting it because she nursed every 2-3 hours (during the day), until she was 11 months old, so I never got a break! So, I would say definitely keep working on the bottle. Plus, there may come a time where you may have to go on a drug that's unsafe for nursing, and, if that happens, the last thing you want to stress about is how on earth are you going to feed her. I almost had that happen to me when DD was 10 months old. I was a wreck until I got a second opinion and then did a lot of research and found out that I could actually continue nursing her.
That is great that you are sleeping when she sleeps. I was not very good about that (I'm not a good napper) and I was EXHAUSTED. I was scared to bedshare, but I would still fall asleep nursing. I remember nursing DD sitting up in bed, and then waking up and hour later with my head resting on the slats of the bed and DD alseep on the My Brest Friend. I found it "funny" how you are so sleep deprived with a new baby, and nursing relaxes you, and then you are supposed to stay awake at 3:00 AM! So I did a lot of research on safe bedsharing and decided I might as well just do it safely.
First, as far as treatments go, can you do some of them while you nurse? I used to do hypertonic saline while nursing, because I figured there was no harm if she inhaled HS. What about doing something other than the vest when you feel like you need your boob out
- like the Accapella? My DD never took a bottle or a paci. She was a NICU baby and, for the first week, she would ONLY take a bottle and wouldn't nurse. We hired a lactation consultant who got her nursing, and, after that, I was scared to give her a bottle and ended up regretting it because she nursed every 2-3 hours (during the day), until she was 11 months old, so I never got a break! So, I would say definitely keep working on the bottle. Plus, there may come a time where you may have to go on a drug that's unsafe for nursing, and, if that happens, the last thing you want to stress about is how on earth are you going to feed her. I almost had that happen to me when DD was 10 months old. I was a wreck until I got a second opinion and then did a lot of research and found out that I could actually continue nursing her.
That is great that you are sleeping when she sleeps. I was not very good about that (I'm not a good napper) and I was EXHAUSTED. I was scared to bedshare, but I would still fall asleep nursing. I remember nursing DD sitting up in bed, and then waking up and hour later with my head resting on the slats of the bed and DD alseep on the My Brest Friend. I found it "funny" how you are so sleep deprived with a new baby, and nursing relaxes you, and then you are supposed to stay awake at 3:00 AM! So I did a lot of research on safe bedsharing and decided I might as well just do it safely.