| Dear Mammalicious,
I think that you maybe aren’t getting the full story from your sister-in-law about what happened. I don’t mean to imply that she is keeping things from you but I know from personal experience when things go wrong with one of your babies it is difficult to remember all the details afterwards.
There are a number of points in the story that aren’t cause and effect.
1) If a baby is failing to thrive because the mother doesn’t have enough milk this is very apparent to medical professionals long before five months. The big danger signs that are looked for are babies that haven’t regained their birth weight by three weeks and babies that continuously put on less than one pound a month.
2) There are lots of reasons why a baby or child might become dehydrated which are nothing to do with milk supply. It is usually because of illness, especially fevers and diarrhoea which use up the body’s natural fluids. A baby couldn’t live for five months if it was dehydrated the whole time.
3) If a mother can pump milk then the mother has a supply of milk. The same can’t be said of the opposite because often mothers have milk but find it hard to pump the milk out.
There are five things to look for to know if your baby is getting enough milk:
1) At least six wet nappies/diapers in 24 hours
2) At least two dirty nappies/diaper in 24 hours for babies under six weeks – over six weeks it is normal for babies to produce dirty nappies between a few a day or only once every 10 days.
3) Baby should be putting weight on over a period of time. I would be looking for an average of one and a half pounds a month.
4) Baby has good skin tone
5) Baby is feeding between 8 and 14 times in 24 hours.
Some babies are more fussy than others. If your baby is have lots of wet nappies, is putting on weight, looks healthy and is feeding a lot then your baby is getting enough milk. I would suggest reading the book, The Fussy Baby by Dr William Sears. I found it a great help when I was worried about my eldest daughter wanting to be held all the time. The big lesson I learnt from the book was that my baby needed me to hold her just as much as she needed my milk. Once I was able to accept this and stopped trying to push her away all the time we both became a lot happier.
Best wishes,
Barb  |