The evenings there I still struggled to sleep - apparently a woman's hormones keeps one awake to fight of predators that might attack during the night, or so they say. I saw 1:30 and 14:00 in the mornings and I think I was eventually able to sleep about 4 hours each evening. When I did sleep though, I got terrible, evil-type dreams and wasn't restful at all. Liam on the other hand was fairly quiet and still needed to be woken up for feeds. He did seem to also have these 'screams' while he was sleeping, which scared me quite a bit!
With breastfeeding I was really struggling - as he was such a sleepy baby, waking him up and getting him to latch, etc just didn't come easy. It is a skill one needs to aquire and it didn't come naturally, well, not to me at least.
Different midwifes had different methods to wake him up and getting him to latch on. Almost all of them would just pop him on my breast to feed and didn't teach me how to do it. The worst for me was the one midwife that roughly stripped him naked and talked to him in a stern, scolding voice. You could see that really traumatised Liam... it even traumatised me! Other midwifes will tickle his feet and hand, and use calmer tones. This was still effective and far less traumatising... but all latched him on for me!
Well, needless to say, some midwives got a little irritated with me that I would ring the bell for assistance every time I need to feed him. Some said that I can just go to the reception desk to ask and don't always need to ring the bell... well the times I did this, help was even less forthcoming! I do understand that they are understaffed, but I am a clueless new mother and they are the only ones that are in a position to help me.
The next evening Gavin and I was so desperate and Gavin pleaded with the one midwife to please spend time with me and show me how to hold him and latch him on myself instead of just popping him on to feed and rush out the room. A midwife named Kate who happen to be a Lactation consultant was on duty and took pity on us. She spent about an half hour, showed me what positions works for my body and how to hold Liam. The next feed she spent about 15 minutes to show me on the other side how to hold him... that's all it took and from there on I managed to take leaps forward and do it myself! Good thing though, as being able to breastfeed is a prerequisite before they allow you to check out!
