You don’t have that power!

Um…ok? So if baby eats every hour or every 2 hours that’s bad? Or is this a baby who goes more than 3 hours without eating, but perhaps is very efficient in sucking? Is this LC trying to put a nb on a schedule?! Geez, I must be effed up then. I’m 24 and I’m not even on a regulated schedule! I eat when I’m hungry and stop when I’m full, I sleep (if I can) when I’m tired…I don’t get it!

This makes me think of those scenes where someone is trying to be poliye by eating what’s on his plate and then spitting it into his napkin when no one’s looking. Since when is a LC – especially one giving bad advice- allowed to make that call anyway?

I had one like this. I was supposed to write down on this little chart when I nursed. I tried to nurse in the morning, baby wouldn’t open his mouth and was sleepy, my breakfast came, and I set the baby down to eat. A nurse comes in, looks at the chart, which showed me last nursing at 6 a.m., looks at the clock, which says 9:15 a.m., and without asking me any questions, picks up my baby, yells “In this hospital, our breastfed babies eat every three hours!” and took him away for a heel stick, while I sputtered incoherently.

She seemed almost sorry that his blood sugars were just fine when she brought him back bawling.

At that point, I turned to my husband and said, “Find whoever needs to sign whatever and get us out of here!”

Can you tell my insurance that? Unless you’re *that* dedicated that you’ll cover expenses if they don’t.
Anyway, I don’t think LCs have that authority, do they?

This is a hospital, not a jail.

This baby is mine, not yours.

This momma will feed him when he is hungry, not when you dictate.

If you attempt to interfere with the natural flow of daily events, I will have you removed.

You have absolutely *zero* authority over me. YOU work for ME…

…PS You’re fired.

it’s like this, I don’t need to tell my baby when to breath, pee, poop, hiccup, sneeze or fart; he just does those things. And when he gets hungry, he eats. I never saw a lactation nurse with either of my girls, she came in and I sent her out. I offered the breast often on babies cue and my kids took it when THEY wanted it. I have two wonderfully healthy teen daughters and a son on the way. I look forward to breast feeding this one when he is hungry or on his cue, I find they latch better and eat more if it’s their idea. This is why many mamas get so frustrated and end up bottle feeding. It’s discouraging to think you are failing to do right by your baby so a lot just give up. I say take it one feeding at a time and just go with it. I know it’s different for every body but in the end don’t we all have the same goal? Healthy babies and happy mamas!

Um… well, good thing I wasn’t with this jerk. While my first ate that often, easily, my second ate maybe 5 times while we were at the hospital in the 24 hours after she was born. She was sleeping off the drugs in her system. She would later get on a schedule (of her own) of every 45-120 minutes, except at night, where she slept 5-6 hours like some freaking miracle.

This is exactly why I lied on every last one of my children’s forms that I was supposed to record feedings and diaper changes. They all did great, in the beginning they all cluster fed during the day and then I nursed on demand at night. (Not a big deal when cosleeping at home.)

I had this too…but it was midwives saying it not LCs. The Transitional Care Unit (TCU) was run like a prison camp-no picking up your baby unless you were feeding or changing the nappy; no sitting in your bed; lay in silence during nap time; only parents allowed to touch baby; eat everything on your plate, at the table and my personal favourite, do not leave baby even to go to the toilet! The 3 hourly feeding annoyed me no end, we did have a chart (that would have been far too helpful for the mums!), we had to feed at set times. I’d literally just finished a feed and climbed into bed, when in came a midwife to inform me it was time to feed my baby, I told her, no I’d just finished, but she insisted it was 6 am and the last feed had been at 3am…I was demand feeding, and didn’t see why I would have made my baby wait until the clock said 3, just to satisfy a midwife! She wasn’t having it, and reminded me that I would be discharged and escorted from the hospital if I failed to do as I was told….I pretended to feed a fast asleep baby just to shut her up! Thankfully she didn’t think to check his latch! Sad thing is, one of the mums in the next door room snuck out for a cigarette, and much as I dislike smoking, I was horrified when they discharged her and sent her home, and put baby into SCBU. The midwives were huffing and puffing all day about how irritating the social worker was, and that they were put out by having to call social services in! It certainly helped keep the rest of us in line!

facepalm.jpg

Power trip much?
Unless you are ALSO the OB, you don’t discharge the patient.

well its a good thing your not in charge of me huh? And to the lady that had your baby taken from you, I would have raised hell. NO one touches my kids without permission, let alone take them out of my sight. Things like this make me sooo grateful for my amazing nurses with my last two kids. they asked when i fed last and if he was having dirty and wet diapers and left it at that. How horrible of this nurse.

Does anyone here ever stop to even think about the other side of the coin?

I went visit my SIL the day after her first was born. Discovered he hadn’t eaten in over 6 hours. I asked her why and she said all he wants to do is “play” at the breast. I asked her what he was doing and he was sticking his hand in his mouth. I showed her how to move his arms and the kid was ferociously hungry. Newborn BF babes need frequent feedings. I wish someone there had told her no more than 3 hours between feedings.

But it was only 3 hours and 15 minutes since the last feeding, not 6 hours.

Yes, it is possible for a baby to be “content to starve” and not eat for hours and hours. Especially if a mother ignores the baby’s feeding cues (sticking tongue out, licking, turning head, hand in mouth, and finally crying) enough times, the baby will stop trying for it and be “content to starve”, which it sounds like your SIL’s baby was doing until it was brought up to the breast….

BUT that’s not what was happening here. In this case the baby was fed at 6am and the nurse walked in while Mom was having breakfast at 9:15am and baby was still waking up. That’s no reason to take the baby away for a heel stick!
If anything, the nurse should have asked the Mom if she tried to nurse, said “Newborn babies need to eat frequently”, or even told her to nurse then. Any of those would have been better alternatives to taking the baby away for an unnecessary test.

And yes, your SIL *should* have been instructed by her nurse or lactation consultant at the hospital, during her prenatal visits at her OB/Midwife, during her childbirth classes, or by reading either before the baby was born or papers given to her during discharge and have been aware that breast milk is meant to digest quickly… but that has nothing to do with what the OP’s issue was.

They said if my baby didn’t eat for a continuos 30-45 minutes at a time every few hours I had to supliment. I ended up giving in because they were saying he was going to have brain damage from jaundice. He was barely jaundiced and now I know better. He has never to this day (5 months old) eaten for more than 15 minutes at a time. He is 21 lbs at 5 months and super healthy. I only supplimented him twice while in the hospital to shut them up.