Operation sleep through the night for my wife lasted only a few days. As the baby’s milk consumption picked up, my wife’s milk production could not keep up. With no excess milk stored in the fridge, my wife was back to waking up a few times overnight to feed the baby.
Last night, it came to a point where I could see both my wife and confinement nanny being exhausted by the baby. Neither was getting sufficient rest. We all came together to discuss how to resolve this issue. It was possible to wait and try to encourage my wife’s milk production to increase naturally with foods and more electric pumping.
However, without sufficient rest, my wife’s milk production might actually decrease. It was affecting her mood negatively and she was upset and frustrated by the situation. This is where I come in. While I’m not as involved in the feeding cycles, I help out where I can and offer my support on the decisions my wife make.
Which is why I know there was going to be a big decision to be made when the confinement nanny suggested supplementing with formula. I was prepared for how serious this was to my wife. Because to a mother of a newborn baby, it is a significant point in her feeding journey. Sensitive and emotional for all sorts of reasons.
My wife doesn’t need the confinement nanny and my permission to supplement with formula. She just needs us to support her on this decision. So we made the call together. 3 weeks in since his birth, it’s time to supplement his feeding with formula.
We already had 1 container of formula on standby so it was just a matter of following the instructions and testing 1 small feed with the baby. Just to see how he took to it. Once he seems okay with it, we alternated between the milk and formula feeds overnight to allow my wife more time to rest in between the feeds.
I took the morning off work today to see if it works. And I could see all 3 of them were better off with this arrangement. The baby is more satisfied with each feed, cries less and falls asleep longer. Both my wife and the confinement nanny get to sleep more as they take turns to rest between the milk and formula feeds.
By the time I got back home from work at night, I was glad to see them playing with the baby in the bedroom. Everyone is happier and the mood at home has lightened considerably. It may only have been 2 days since my last post but a lot has happened since then.
This is why all of us have to pull our weight at home. As a working dad, I have to continually find ways to support my wife as a working mum. It can come in every form and changes all the time. Process improvement to make things more convenient for my wife, buying whatever she needs and wants. And just being tuned into what she needs can make a big difference to the quality of her life.
Every time we have adjusted to a change in the baby’s behaviour and things stabilise, there is a small window before the next change happens and we have to adjust again. During this small window, I take the time to focus on the bigger issues we face. Like now when all 3 of them are sleeping and here I am typing away.
I know we need to redesign the way we approach our jobs. Which should be the subject of my next post. The kind of jobs we are in and their future, the level of responsibilities we take versus our pay and the tradeoff, the amount of time we spend at work and what we get out of it.
On a brighter note, the CDA First Step of $3,000 has been credited into the baby’s CDA. We now have enough inside ($6,000 when you add the cash gift of $3,000 that we transferred into it) to pay for the remaining cordlining and cordblood banking costs. Like I have mentioned before, we are doing 1 lump sum payment for everything upfront. The first $3,000 plus had already been charged to my credit card.
We are still waiting for the dollar-for-dollar matching of $3,000. While our cash outflow have spiked these 2 months, our cash inflow has also increased significantly to compensate for the higher expenses. We will keep monitoring our financial situation and continue to find ways to improve it.
I have a friend who fed both her kids with 100% formula milk (she has low milk production). She was initially depressed about it but thankfully got over it, and both kids had no issues with mental or physical developments, rarely fell sick, cheerful dispositions. Both are in lower Pri now & doing well.
Yup it’s anecdotal & a data point of one, but hey, almost all kids in SG who were born in the late-60s to early-80s grew up on formula milk (massive marketing & collaboration with govts then). And this generation still did OK lah. 🙂
Haha, totally agree with you. My siblings and I were 100% formula milk fed because our mum had low milk production too. And we are doing okay physically and mentally. While I reckon the benefits of breast milk still outweigh that of formula milk, it should not be at the expense of the mother’s health.
I am actually thinking to donate the cord blood to Singapore cord blood bank. if my kid needs the cord blood in future we can get the priority to use our own cord blood if not it is free to find the healthy donor in the public cord blood bank whereas a non-donor who needs a withdrawal would need to pay up to $27,000.. As study has shown that most cord blood stored in private cord blood bank is discarded, cord blood stored in the public bank has a much higher chance of being used for good. And most importantly it is free.
Yup, that works as well. It’s up to each family to decide their preference on this. All the best!