If I don’t hurry through this, I’m going to be catching up Henri’s first few weeks while planning his Bar Mitzvah!

We’ve covered week 1, right?  Week 2 was more of the same- well, no throwing up, THAT was a relief!  But we still had latch issues and breastfeeding was non-existant.  I was pumping 8 times/day and supplementing with formula.  We saw a doctor who is also a lactation consultant (the same woman I’d seen towards the end of my nursing Jakob, when I’d had mastitis) and finally we had answers- she diagnosed Henri with a level 4 posterior tongue tie.  Unlike the usual tongue tie that can be clipped in a pediatrician’s office, the level 4 posterior is a deep, almost embedded frenulum that is so tight the tongue appears heart-shaped, and severely restricts movement.  It also requires a specialist to clip, of which there are only 4 in Montreal.  It usually takes 2-3 weeks for an appointment, but we were extremely lucky and got in about 4 days later. 

Henri had his frenulum clipped on Wed, Jan 21st, just before the end of his 2nd week. 

 Mommy with Henri at 2 weeks old.

Two days later (we gave him some time to heal) we met with a lactation consultant.  Our stubborn little guy still wouldn’t latch, so as a final measure we had to resort to using a nipple shield.  (Have fun, internet search pervs!)  I HATED using it.  He would get so frantic trying to feed that his own arms would knock it off, and it requires 2 hands to flip it and put it back on, and balancing him on my lap, and not easy to do in public, and…it sucked.  Royally.  But once it was on, and he was on, it worked.  He fed.  If I recall correctly, we had a number of nights where he wanted to feed all the time and I needed Yannick to give him a bottle or two to give me a little break, but by the end of the third week we were primarily bfeeding, albeit with the stupid shield.

Mommy with Henri at 3 weeks old.

p.s. I was just flipping channels and see that Much Music is airing Paris Hilton’s NEW search- this time for a British best friend.  I’m SO not getting sucked in again!!!