2 weeks Post Partum: Jaundice & Breastfeeding Journey

Today marks 14 days of newborn life with Audria.
Her jaundice has dropped from 256 to 220 to 203 to 206 then 160 today.
She was discharged from MAH at 145.
So it peaked from day 5 onwards.
BF and confinement food (ginger, red dates, the likes) contributes to it.
So staying away from the above ingredients helped a great deal.
With the help from morning sun from 8-10am daily.

What a great test of faith the past 2 weeks!
Next saturday is the review, am confident it will fall below 100 this time.
I don't like her to be pricked all the time =/

We are using Huggies Just Born sizing for diapering.
Realised Huggies Newborn is too big and Goo.N (small) is extraordinary huge.

Huggies have smaller cutting, extra back leak guard for poop explosion, urine indicator turns blue, holds pee/poop well and more importantly, its thin and therefore breathable.
We use an average of 8 diapers a day.
Rather change once its soiled than to risk her getting skin allergies and going to the PD.

I am an exclusive breastfeeding mum.
The first 2 days at hospital with FM and just suckling on my breasts but i doubt my milk has come in yet.
Her stay at KKH was a mixture of FM and breastmilk.
After which, when i came home, i was battling with getting the correct latch and also with my engorgement thus we shuffled between cup feeding and bottle feeding her.
With bottle feeding, i used my SpeCtra S1 pump, yielded about 100-120ml by Day 6.
Right now, I'm not too sure how much I'm producing but i alternate between right and left, 15mins each.

About the engorgement, we hired a lactation expert to help me at home.
She charged about $140 for 90mins.
She taught me how to use my pump, correct latch, how to massage my breasts and how to clear engorgement.
I benefitted greatly from the 2 hours session.
But i still struggled a bit the day after.
From week 2 onwards, the BF journey was way easier when my engorgement cleared.
No more hot compress and all those jazz.

Now i have soft and nice breasts for feeding (:
Gotta maintain it though.
If you need her contacts, please feel free to reach out to me.
She is God-sent!

With my nursing cover, i can easily nurse her anytime, anywhere.
No need to wash bottles, pump parts, sterilise, warm up frozen milk.
Audria have fresh milk on demand!

Am currently nursing her 2-3hourly.
Sometimes i accidentally oversleep and she doesn't wake up crying for milk either haha.
Will decrease the hours, or demand-latch when she is completely cleared from jaundice.
For now, i need her to feed regularly so she can pass out the bilirubin through her urine/stools.

Those days when my breasts was engorged and my milk supply was miserably low, i was super upset and depressed.
I had to hand express the milk and i was afraid she wasn't getting enough cause she is used to having FM during her hospital stays.
Ultra panic mode for me. I nearly caved in to FM on so many occasions.
But the moment i decided to relax and command my brain/body to produce milk for her, the milk flow just multiplied that very day.
God is so so good!!

We do not use pacifier to soothe her.
She is a pretty good baby.
Once she had sufficient milk, she either falls asleep or plays by herself in her CocoonAbaby.

Sorry for the lengthy post, my breastfeeding journey wasn't exactly that straightforward for me.
It was nothing like what i imagined it to be.
Hope this post will encourage you guys to do BF for as long as you can because the benefits are way bigger than all our obstacles and lack of quality sleep right now.

You got this!