Breastfeeding & Homemade Formula!

Or lack there of.  Prior to giving birth to Becket, I'd heard breastfeeding adventures of all kinds from friends and from reading I'd done.  Even so, I feel like nothing prepares you for the moment breastfeeding doesn't just happen naturally.  Being thoughtful about nutrition and from the school of thought "breast is best" and having read up on the current organic formula options, only to find out I don't like some of the ingredients in any of the options, led me to be very depressed about not producing enough milk.  On top of this, they say stress will hinder your efforts to produce.  Great, so I was back and forth between being stressed and sad and then trying to be optimistic while trying a million and one things to get my production up as much as possible.   Add sleep deprived (also hinders production) and dealing with the lact-aid feeding tube that Becket was not a fan of, but I still had to try every feeding so he could get practice on the nipple and then after 20 minutes trying that, move to finger-tube feeding to get him fed.  This took up to an hour and within 40 minutes after that... it was time to attempt tube-breast feeding again!  Finally after a week or so of this our midwife said we were at a cross roads:  Becket might get better at breast feeding if he could get more energy to stay awake, but to get more energy he needed to get more food in him.  So we opted to try the bottle with the risk of him not wanting to go back to the breast, but decided only to use the bottle during the wee hours of night and early a.m. so feeding would go faster and we could get back to sleep sooner.  During the day we used the lact-aid so as to keep up the breastfeeding sucking muscles.  Bottom line, Becket was a champ.  Bottle, tube feeding and breast, he took it all with no issues.

The things I took to help with increasing my production:

Mother's Milk Tea

Goat's Rue

Goat's Rue is a powerful herb for stimulating the production and flow of breastmilk. It works directly with the mammary glands, and is a great choice for women experiencing problems with low milk production from the beginning, or for women with previous breast surgeries or IGT (Insufficient Glandular Tissue).  It has been shown to increase milk production by up to 50% in many cases, and may also even stimulate the development of the mammary glands themselves.

Domperidone
Domperidone (Motilium™) is a drug that has, as a side effect, the increase of milk production, probably by increasing prolactin production by the pituitary gland. Prolactin is the hormone that stimulates the cells in the mother's breast to produce milk. Domperidone increases prolactin secretion indirectly, by interfering with the action of dopamine, whose action is to decrease the secretion of prolactin by the pituitary gland - See more at: http://www.breastfeedingonline.com/domperidone.shtml#sthash.KmkhJTJt.5bNQRJRO.dpuf

Even with renting a hospital grade pump and everything else, my production was still just about 5.0+ ounces a day maybe so we knew we'd have to supplement.  Early on while Becket was only eating 18-20oz per day, we supplemented with donor breast milk from one of Pearl's patients who had a baby girl 3 weeks older than Becket and was an over-producer and had about 75-90oz a week to give us!  Then Becket quickly gained weight, got stronger and demanded closer to 30oz a day so we knew we would have to supplement with formula as well.  We wanted to make our own rather than store bought formula, but had to wait for some of the ingredients to arrive by mail so there were a few feedings where we did use organic Baby Only powdered formula.  It was, so far, my worst experience!  He was so constipated and at only 3 weeks old his system was too young to handle that kind of bowl movement.  He was and still is such a calm, happy baby and he was in tears and little wailing yelps as he tried to pass this formula through.  It killed me I couldn't do anything to help other than massage his tummy, do little leg pumps and I even found acupressure points to do on his feet from the web.  Thankfully we got our ingredients and quickly started on 16oz of homemade formula per day and the other half was still donor breast milk.  He has been thriving ever since!  Becket loves to still nurse and I could not be more grateful for this.  I love that it comforts him so much and I am able to provide this as well as a tiny bit of my own breast milk.  With all this comes the bonus that other people can help with bottle feedings, yay!  Always an optimist ;)

Homemade Infant Formula Info:

From Weston A. Price Foundation & Nourishing Traditions, we use the raw cow's milk formula found Here.  This site also has links to Testimonials and FAQ's should you be really interested.  I've read everything.

Here is the direct link to the nutrient comparison chart for breast milk and homemade formula.  Most pediatricians are concerned with babies getting enough iron.  I confirmed this is not an issue with homemade formula:
Mother’s milk is low in iron for a reason–iron competes with zinc, which is needed for neurological development. However, the lacto-ferrin in raw milk helps the baby absorb all the iron that is there in the milk. If you will look at the nutrient charts for our formula recipes (see below) you will see that there is actually more iron in the homemade formulas than there is in breast milk, so there is no need whatsoever to add additional sources of iron up to the age of six months. At that time, the baby does need additional iron. This should be given in the form of egg yolks and liver–liver is the first weaning food in traditional cultures for this very reason–because at the age of six months, the baby does need additional iron.