Days 15 & 16 - Focusing on feeding

There was some good news on Tuesday morning when Jessica was weighed and found to have gained 20g bringing her weight up to 2310g (5lb 1oz) – it looked like the extra top-ups of fortified expressed milk were helping.

Our friends Gavin and Alex came to meet Jessica in the afternoon, as did Louise's friend Carole, who is one of her midwifery colleagues.

Jessica was being a little milk monster in the evening and was feeding almost continuously from about 7pm to 2am. Louise was hoping that all this extra feeding was going to result in some weight gain for Jessica in the morning so it was a bit disappointing to discover that Jessica’s weight was still the same when she was reweighed.

As the day wore on, it became apparent that stress and the challenges of trying to eat and drink properly had been taking their toll on Louise’s milk supply as Jessica was wanting to feed more and more frequently and was no longer settling after feeds and Louise was also struggling to produce extra milk when expressing to give as a top-up. Although we had hoped that we would just be able to give Jessica breastmilk, it was clear that she needed more than Louise could produce and so has started having some formula top-ups after each feed. Hopefully a few days of being more vigilant about eating and drinking enough and trying to rest will help with the supply of mummy milk.

Jessica had some more visitors in the evening – Katy popped in again to say hello as did Uncle Adrian and Auntie Julie and she also got to meet cousin Dawn for the first time.