Our First Week of Co-Nursing IRL

We’re moms and we’re co-nursing!  After months of planning, pumping and waiting, little Augustus John finally arrived!

So how did co-nursing go IRL vs the plan? TOTALLY DIFFERENT!  Tara ended up having a quite challenging time for the 12 hours postpartum which led to us needed to totally change the plan, not once but 5 times.  Like we said going into it, we wanted a plan but knew we needed to be flexible – and thank God we had that attitude, because we had to change to plan on an almost daily basis.  What did we do and what changed?  Let’s dive in!

Our Co-Nursing Plan Going In:

• Immediately after Birth: As soon as baby comes out he’ll be placed on Tara (skin-to-skin) then I go after (or if for whatever medical reason Tara can’t go first then I will).  
• Days 0-2: Tara be the solo feeder,  then once our son is done actually feeding, I will comfort nurse him or let him just sleep/hang out on my boobs.   Basically, our goal is to have baby skin-to-skin with one of us all the time and to have him get used to both of us (our scents, touch and different nipples).
• Day 3 – 7: Build a strong milk supply. When one person feeds, the other will pump (and vice versa).  Tara will be staying home with baby for 6 months and I’ll be returning to work after 2 weeks, so it makes sense for her to be the primary feeder – but I’ll be there for all the snacks, desserts, and comfort nursing that’s needed.

Our Week 1 Co-Nursing Plan In Real Life

Day 0

Tearing, Skin-to-skin, and first latch: After being a week late, Augustus made a fast and furious entrance after only 7 hours of active labor.  When Auggie was born he was placed directly onto Tara.  Tara then quickly birthed out the placenta and they called for another doctor to come into the room.  We were informed that Tara had 3rd-degree tearing and would need to be stitched up.  Additionally, she lost about 1.5-2 liters of blood.  Tara was doing great (for all the trauma that had just happened) and baby was happy on Tara’s chest.  After about 45 mins Tara decided to try and have Auggie nurse (while they were still suturing) and he latched right away.  

Fainting episode #1 and my skin-to-skin time: 15 mins in (now 60 mins into suturing) all the color went out of Tara, she closed her eyes and became super unresponsive.  The nurse took Auggie off Tara (because she was passing out) and it was time for me to do skin-to-skin and for the Doctors to figure out what the heck was happening with Tara. It was such a strange combo of being thrilled to have my son on my chest, bonding with him and being terrified that something was happening with my wife.  They laid her down and pumped more fluids in her.  She stabilized and they finished suturing about 20 mins later.

More Fainting, Feeding, & the red emergency cord: Over the next 2 hours Tara got better tried nursing again, then awhile later fainted in her chair.  Then 3 hours later she was looking great and tried feeding 2 more times, got up and made it all the way to the bathroom (with a nurse) and fainted again in the bathroom.  It was SUPER scary.  Nurse Tiffany said, “Tara, you’re going to faint you need to sit down”.  Tara was already blacked out with knees locked and death gripping on to the rail.  I was holding Auggie and heard Tiffany say it again.  I shot up, laid Auggie down on the bed and ran to Tara.  Tiffany and I grabbed her and the three of us went down to the floor together.  Tiffany grabbed the red emergency cord in the bathroom and within 15 seconds there were 10 nurses and doctors in the room.  The maneuvered Tara back to the bed and reassessed the situation.  The doctor decided she needed a blood transfusion and got that in motion.  It was clear Tara wasn’t going to be able to nurse for at least 5 more hours (about an hour to get the blood to the room and 4 hours for the blood transfusion to complete).  Add to that Auggie was starting to get the jitters and show major hunger signs.  So Nurse Tiffany, Tara and I talked and decided it was the best course for me to breastfeed Auggie.  

I fed Auggie and it was everything: I wasn’t planning on being able to nurse Auggie for 2 days, and the fact that not only did I get to nurse him, but I NEEDED to nurse his was seriously such an incredible feeling. The moment made all the hard work I had put into pumping 100% worth it. I fed again 2 more times while Tara’s blood was transfusing

Day 1

13 hours after Augustus joined the world, and just after midnight Tara was finally cleared to be moved to family rooms. Once we got transfered she tried nursing again and her colostrum came in (thanks to those two beautiful bags of B+ blood)!  This meant it was time to update the plan again.  After discussing with the new nurses the plan was:

Updated Plan 1: Tara would nurse as much as possible and I would pump and do skin-to-skin (but NOT nurse).

This worked pretty well throughout the night.  But when we woke in the AM Auggie was still showing major junger signs.  We started to worry again if he was hungry.  We talked with the nurse again and updated the plan again.

Updated Plan 2:  Tara would manually expressed her colostrum and feed it to Auggie on a spoon or with finger.  Tara would continue to nurse as well to help get more colostrum/milk to come in and I would continue to pump and both do as much skin-to-skin as possible.  

By mid afternoon we were both super exhausted and baby was STILL looking super hungry and started to get jittery again.  I had about 10 ML left from pumping, so nurse Cora recommended we put in this syringe feeding thing that got strapped to our finger.  Here’s a pic of it in action.

 

Updated Plan 3: The plan going home was Tara would nurse, then I would nurse to make sure he was getting enough food.  They scheduled a check in apt for the following morning and we were finally were discharged around 7 PM.

We went home – followed the plan and felt like we were all exhausted but doing pretty well.

Day 2

We wake up late and rush to the hospital feeling (and looking) like hot messes. They weigh Auggie and he’s lost just under 10% of body weight which is higher than the safe zone.  Then they had Tara nurse on each boob and weigh him after.  The left boob he stayed the same.  The right boob he lost a tiny bit of weight… which wasn’t great (but wasn’t untypical for Tara’s blood loss).  Then they had him nurse on me and he didn’t gain any either.  This meant that Auggie was working super hard to get milk and because neither of us had a ton of milk yet, he was burning more calories than he was eating. Which was a little heartbreaking to hear.  You want to be able to provide you baby with everything they need and then all of a sudden you hear you aren’t.  Luckily our lactation consultant was super positive and supportive and came up with an updated plan again

Updated Plan 4: We would only nurse one at a time and only for a max of 10 mins on each side for no less than 8 times a day.  We would both continue to pump as much as possible and after he nurses feed him whatever we pumped in a bottle, then feed him formula is he is still hungry.

So this was adding 2 new things in the mix: bottle and formula.  Formula wasn’t in the plan ever and bottles weren’t in the plan for weeks… but both were what Augustus needed, so we incorporated both without feeling too guilty.  

Day 3

The new plan was working and we were all feeling a lot better!  Then Tara’s milk came in, which meant more efficient eating for Auggie at her boobs and more breast milk to give in a bottle.

Another added bonus of using the bottle was we could share the feeding duties with other people who were here visiting.  Since we were both nursing and having that closeness, we felt comfortable sharing the bottle feeding with our family and friends who were here visiting.  This gave us a few extra moments to rest and allowed grandmas, grandpas, aunts, encles and friends to share some extra special moments.

Day 4

As planned, we headed back to the breastfeeding clinic to get checked out.  Auggie’s weight was trending back up and the plan was working!  Because he wasn’t back up to birth weight, but trending up they said to continue to follow the plan and come back in 2 more days.  We also decided to rent a hospital grade pump – which we HIGHLY recommend for anyone breastfeeding, but especially those who aren’t producing enough milk. 

Day 5

We were really getting into the swing of things.  Grandma Sarah would take Auggie after feeding 1-2 cycles over the night which really helped with sleep.  Then Grandma Suzy and Aunty Katy would take Auggie for 1-2 cycles after feeding during the day.  Also, we discovered to plan visit with friends right at the end of a feeding cycles to maximize happy/calm baby time.

Day 6

Auggie was back up to birth weight and we were OKed to increase the feeding time at boob gradually until our follow up peds  apt in 2 weeks.

Final thoughts on week 1 of co-nursing

• Be Flexible.  Our flexibility really did save us from totally losing it when we needed to update our co-nursing plan on an hourly or daily basis.
• Accept Help: We had a whole team of people around supporting us.  Letting them help us whether it was changing diapers, feeding bottles after nursing, or soothing allowed us to get some much needed power naps or down time and was SO important for our overall health and mental state.
• Track Everything: The lactation consultants need data to help make plans.  We used a pen and paper at first, then switched to the Baby Daybook App.  You can sync across devices with the pro version using dropbox sync.  It’s AWESOME!

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