Breastfeeding...Rest-feeding?

 I love breastfeeding.  Always have, always will.  Okay, maybe I haven't always loved breastfeeding - I mean, I don't think I cared very much about it as a teenager.  But definitely since my first pregnancy.  And now it is engrained in my being - for the rest of my life, some of my greatest memories will be those spent nursing my babies.  I am so thankful and so blessed that I am able to breastfeed my girls.  I especially have thanked God this time around - after having such a successful run with Reilly, I have prayed and prayed to be allowed the same experience with Reagan.

Things have been going great- feeding constantly, no sleeping, growing baby, nice and chubby.  Hubby has been encouraging me to pump so he could help me and give a bottle at night - giving me a little stretch of sleep longer than the 2 hours that I have been getting recently.  So 2 weeks ago, I decided to pump, as I had done every day for about 10 months in 2010/2011.

And without going into too much detail - I became very sore after I pumped.  It wasn't anything I did differently or wrong, but my body had changed since Reilly and I needed to be using a different kind of pump.  I only found this out afterwards when speaking to a lactatian consultant.  So for the last few weeks, I have been in immense pain every time I feed babygirl.  Which is every 2 hours around the clock.  I didn't know how I would ever get better, or ever heal, if my body was not given the chance.  But not breastfeeding was never an option for me - I just kept on going and prayed to get better.

(Rae's face after eating - she's quite content!)

After my mom mentioned something about changing Reagan's position while feeding to see if that helped, I began watching her latch.  I paid special attention to how she was latching on, and realized she was getting lazy.  Her latch had become incorrect, therefore causing me much more pain.  It happened to slowly, I hadn't realized - taking for granted that she knew the correct way initially.  I say she got "lazy" because the way she began feeding is "easier" for her, but essentially not as efficient and also extremely painful for me. 

The only way to fix her latch, is to continually remove her while feeding, and put her back on, helping her do it the correct way.  I realized that when I fixed her latch for her, it didn't hurt near as much.  This became motivation for me.  I felt myself slowly healing, as I was actually re-teaching her how to breastfeed.  I have been taking her off the breast six to ten times a feeding.  I sometimes forget that just because sucking is an instinct for babies, breastfeeding is not - it needs to be taught.

So we've been having a little hiccup in the breastfeeding, but are on the up and up now!  I am very happy to not be in too much pain anymore, obviously, and am excited to get back to painless feeding - no matter how much sleep I'm losing!