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I always said I would do a little thread like this if we made it to 6 months....and here we are today 
I don't think our bf story is particularly exceptional but without a doubt getting this far is the probably the my proudest achievement ever
Ivy was born after a fairly traumatic induction due to my gestational diabetes. What followed was a pretty horrible hospital experience with Ivy's blood sugar being monitored before and after every feed and in effect forced formula top ups.
I had the normal few days of my nips toughening up but was blessed with a baby with a beautiful latch - unfortunately I had a midwife that thought that because I wasn't engorged and wasnt leaking that my milk couldnt possibly have come in, she left my house on day 3 telling me to buy some formula and to start flushing out her jaundice.
By day 10 Ivy still wasnt back to her birthweight and I was all over the place - I didnt know if I was bf or ff. I was an absolute wreck and the midwife was coming around daily to weigh Ivy. It only took til day 15 and Ivy was back to her birth weight and finally the midwife from hell backed off a bit...
The next challenge was that I was absolutely obsessed with her weight gain, the poor little thing ended up on the kitchen scales almost every day. I was an avid nappy counter and at one point I think I developed a dependence of fenugreek I thought there must be something wrong - I don't leak, I don't get engorged, I can only express 1oz and my baby isnt huge...luckily throughout all of this Ivy made every attempted ff an absolute battle and we were down to only one bottle of formula a day.
Despite my fixation with her weight gain I was determined to get off the formula - every day I said to myself 'this will be the day you can do this on your own'. All the mucking about with formula had taken its toll and we went through 8 weeks of what felt like continuous cluster feeding - I sobbed my way through new years eve when she fed for 14 hours in a row. Eventually though one night we cracked it, she didnt have a bottle. It took another couple of weeks but we did it finally and we were exclusively bf by 10 weeks.
Since then we havent really looked back - I have come to accept that as I am only 5ft 1 and my DH is as skinny as a rake I shouldnt be shocked that we have produced a dinky little 2nd centile baby We have ridden out a 3 month distratable phase which resulted in me inventing the 'udder technique' (don't ask 
) and now I am without a doubt addicted to bf and can't wait for the next 6 months.
I owe it all to my little Ivy though - for being absolutely determined to bf.....oh and she refuses to take a bottle now!
I don't think our bf story is particularly exceptional but without a doubt getting this far is the probably the my proudest achievement ever
Ivy was born after a fairly traumatic induction due to my gestational diabetes. What followed was a pretty horrible hospital experience with Ivy's blood sugar being monitored before and after every feed and in effect forced formula top ups.
I had the normal few days of my nips toughening up but was blessed with a baby with a beautiful latch - unfortunately I had a midwife that thought that because I wasn't engorged and wasnt leaking that my milk couldnt possibly have come in, she left my house on day 3 telling me to buy some formula and to start flushing out her jaundice.
By day 10 Ivy still wasnt back to her birthweight and I was all over the place - I didnt know if I was bf or ff. I was an absolute wreck and the midwife was coming around daily to weigh Ivy. It only took til day 15 and Ivy was back to her birth weight and finally the midwife from hell backed off a bit...
The next challenge was that I was absolutely obsessed with her weight gain, the poor little thing ended up on the kitchen scales almost every day. I was an avid nappy counter and at one point I think I developed a dependence of fenugreek
I thought there must be something wrong - I don't leak, I don't get engorged, I can only express 1oz and my baby isnt huge...luckily throughout all of this Ivy made every attempted ff an absolute battle and we were down to only one bottle of formula a day.Despite my fixation with her weight gain I was determined to get off the formula - every day I said to myself 'this will be the day you can do this on your own'. All the mucking about with formula had taken its toll and we went through 8 weeks of what felt like continuous cluster feeding - I sobbed my way through new years eve when she fed for 14 hours in a row. Eventually though one night we cracked it, she didnt have a bottle. It took another couple of weeks but we did it finally and we were exclusively bf by 10 weeks.
Since then we havent really looked back - I have come to accept that as I am only 5ft 1 and my DH is as skinny as a rake I shouldnt be shocked that we have produced a dinky little 2nd centile baby
We have ridden out a 3 month distratable phase which resulted in me inventing the 'udder technique' (don't ask ) and now I am without a doubt addicted to bf and can't wait for the next 6 months. I owe it all to my little Ivy though - for being absolutely determined to bf.....oh and she refuses to take a bottle now!
you should be very proud 
such an achievement
so if i was there i would give you this
enjoy it my lovely 
x
you have inspired me to do the same when I reach 6 months!! Big congrats you've done a fabulous job 
