Aphrodite’s Arrival

I want to start by sharing Aphrodite’s story. (The really condensed version.)

When my daughter was born, she wasn’t breathing. So, they had to take a few extra measures to get her up and going. Once she was crying and stable, they brought her to me while they finished closing me up (I had a C-section due to her being breech). Once we got back to the post-op room we had about a million different people coming in every 15-20 minutes to check on me and baby. Our first night as a family of three was…rough. Aphrodite (my daughter) would not stop crying. I was trying to feed her, we checked for diapers, made sure there were no hair tourniquets, everything we could think of. She was evaluated by three different professionals for oral ties and all of them said she was perfect. Once we finally got her down, getting her into her bassinet was a whole different challenge. One nurse had come in and recommended a “shushing machine” to try and get her to stay asleep during the transfer, it worked-but not for long. Within about 30 minutes she was back up again looking for me.

As a first time mama, I was extremely overwhelmed and confused. Not only did I just have a major surgery and the scare of a lifetime, but I was also going through one of the biggest hormonal shifts a woman endures. Feeling helpless, my husband and I decided to take shifts so we could both get some much needed rest. I stayed awake with baby girl over night and just let her sleep on my chest while I watched movies, reached out to family members, and scrolled through Facebook- really doing anything I could to stay awake. My husband took the day shift (as much as he could since I was exclusively breastfeeding) and would wear my shirt to try and “trick” Aphrodite into thinking he was me. Really, the best recipe to keep her peacefully sleeping was to be silent as a hawk. She didn’t want a pacifier, didn’t really want dad, and definitely didn’t want to be put down into that cold plastic box these people call a “bassinet”.

It wasn’t until she was about a week old that she was finally diagnosed with a tongue and lip tie. We got it revised as soon as we possibly could. My poor mama heart could not stand how uncomfortable she was. So, I followed my intuition and nursed her as often as I could. I’d let her fall asleep on the breast because I was the only form of comfort she’d accept. I didn’t realize that her falling asleep during feeding was because she was too weak to continue to nurse due to her poor latch. After 2 more weeks of no weight gain, I started pumping and giving her expressed milk as well as donor milk. She was FINALLY gaining weight! But, I wasn’t making enough milk for her. I looked up every single possible way to increase my supply, I can’t say for sure which thing did it or if they all contributed but here are a few of the things I did to help.

I drank a stupid amount of water. Like 2 gallons a day. My husband made me all of the lactation snacks we could find on the internet. Mostly consisting of oats, brewer’s yeast, fennel, flaxseeds, chia seeds, peanut butter, coconut oil, and chocolate chips. The idea was high fiber, high protein, high fat content. Nutrients are SO important for milk production and quality. I also desperately needed to sleep. So, any time Aphrodite was asleep, I’d lay her in bed next to me (If she wasn’t with my husband) and we’d sleep together supervised so I knew she was safe. I took lots of herbal supplements too. Moringa, Shatavari, Goats rue, and some of the Legendairy Milk supplements. I also tried the Mother’s Milk Tea but it wasn’t working for me and there are two reasons why. 1) You have to drink an obnoxious amount of it to get the recommended value of Fenugreek which is the main ingredient, but the caveat to that is Fenugreek can actually tank your supply if you have thyroid issues. So, Mother’s milk isn’t actually recommended by lactation experts anymore. For the first 12 weeks your milk supply is hormonally driven, so I would keep Aphrodite in my sight while I pumped, and if she couldn’t be next to me I’d keep a onesie of hers on my chest so I could smell her. (This I know for a fact helped boost my supply as there was a sizable difference when I didn’t do this.) Lastly, I pumped every 2 hours around the clock and would feed Aphrodite afterwards so she’d get more of the fatty hind milk.

We did end up “triple feeding” until she was about 3 months old. Essentially, she would nurse for about 10-15 minutes, I’d pump for 30 and then give her whatever I pumped. If she was still hungry I would either make her a bottle of donor milk, or put her back on the breast. After she surpassed her birth weight, and my pumping output had increased enough we finally felt comfortable enough going back to exclusively breastfeeding.

One problem she still hasn’t grown out of at 14 months old is her lack of night time sleep. Remember when I said I’d let her fall asleep on the breast? Yeah… well that was the ONLY way she’d fall asleep up until she was about a year old. This meant her dad had to get creative. When he would put her to sleep he would flip between a wide variety of different things. He would bounce her and pat her back as he hit the bottom of the bounce, to create a stronger effect. Have you ever heard of the “Dad hold”? Basically, imagine a quarterback holding a football, now replace the football with the baby. The baby’s head is often cradled in the hand- this produces a “hammock” effect, which kind of mimics the womb. Speaking of the womb, he would also frequently put her in a stretchy baby wrap he wore around his body and get into the shower with her in there to simulate the “womb” she was missing. He would also frequently turn on binaural beats for her which has actual science backing its efficacy. Essentially, you listen to two different frequencies that are pretty close together and your brain creates an illusion of a third frequency creating calm within the body. The last thing he would do is he would hold her tight to his chest, offering some safe compression, and spin in a circle which helps a child develop their proprioception and offering better sleep.

These days, Aphrodite is weaned off the breast and takes a bottle of warm water to go to sleep, but that’s for a future post.