As I was walking out of the hospital with my first-born held carefully in my arms, the doctor kindly told me to not bother about the 2 hourly feeding advice and to “feed on demand”. My anxious heart in its naivety interpreted it as “feed when the baby cries which could be after 3 or 4 hours of sound sleep”.
As any mom would know, my interpretation was widely off-base. A new born’s hunger is not guided by a timeline, and sadly the intervals are anything but big. I would be feeding her 30 min after the last feed ended, sometimes one feeding session merging into the next during phases of cluster feeding. Being a first time mom, dealing with mild post — partum depression, I reacted by refusing to nurse the baby after sessions stacked very close together. My logic was that I am “spoiling” the baby by nursing so often. This led to a lot of tears — both on part of the baby and the mother. I was so out of depth, not knowing what to do and how to go about it. After multiple mis-steps and anxious weeks, we did eventually settle into a schedule but that did not take away the pain of early parenthood from me.
So, when I got pregnant a second time I was determined to be better prepared for the new born. I read books on breastfeeding, baby sleep, different styles of early parenting. I reached the conclusion that I would go primitive with this baby. If keeping the baby close and comfort-nursing worked for our ancestors, then there is no reason for me to tweak it and make the early weeks more difficult than they already are. I decided to play with it and see if it works for me.
The baby latched on great in the hospital itself. The early days were easy as I knew the basics well. Then came the 3rd week cluster feeding phase, which I feel is the roughest because pregnancy hormones upheavel is still an ongoing process, the recovery from having the baby is incomplete and sleep deprivation is real. Amidst all this, having the baby latched on constantly for hours is extremely stressful. Instead of timing the baby’s nursing hours, I went with the flow this time and the phase ended with some tears on my part, but the baby did really well.
Now, we are at the 6th week of the new baby’s life and still going with intuitive nursing. Thankfully, we have fallen into a pattern with each other. I finish off all that I want to do by sunset and then settle down with my water, snacks, kindle and phone. And then begin the holding and nursing sessions. The baby is fussy at times, is nursing almost constantly — but it is much less stressful as I am mentally prepared for the long haul till the baby falls into deep sleep a little before midnight.
My grandmother is visiting us and seeing my routine each evening commented that her elders would say “ every baby latches on to the mother as soon as the sun sets”. With this anecdote, I am convinced that this is what has worked for mothers in my culture for generations, so this will work for me too.
