More Breastmilk Woes/Worries

It's freaky for me to realize I only have about 5 weeks left before I go back to work. That means only five weeks to establish a good stash of breastmilk to feed Story during the day while she's in daycare. I'm pumping as much as I can get in, when she's not eating like a crazy monster...

But there's a problem. I still have low supply. I've done everything I've felt I can to increase my supply and, though I definitely have enough to feed Story every few hours, I still only get about 4oz tops at a time when I pump. And that is only at peak pumping/supply times. I usually get about 1-2 ounces on average.

I feel like I've tried everything to get to the level that other gals I read about are at. Women on my baby boards talk about getting 8 oz or so per pumping session and I just feel so worthless. I know, it's crazy to feel worthless because I make less milk, but there ya go. I do. And I've tried so desperately to raise my output- drinking Mother's Milk teas, taking multivitamins, pumping more, anything I can do to up the ante. And though I saw some rise, I seem to have hit my plateau.

Which leaves me conflicted. If I keep on pumping religiously before I go back to work, I'll probably have enough of a stash to get Story through the first couple of weeks, up to the first month at most. I wanted to continue to exclusively breastfeed her, but I'm worried I just won't have enough stashed to be able to do that.

I've resolved myself to try as hard as I can and, if I can't make enough milk to keep up, I may consider supplimenting with formula. I don't think there's any shame in supplimenting with formula, nor do I have issues with moms that exclusively use formula. I just feel like a failure, again, for not producing as much as other women. I want so badly to only breastfeed Story, it just hurts to think I won't be able to keep it up when I go back to work.

Sigh.. off to pump again. In the meantime, I still have more wacky home remedies to try out to increase milk supply... oatmeal, anyone?

speaking of nursing covers... BRILLIANT GIZMO

I was just searching etsy for nursing covers when I found this:



nursing clips from modestmilk. turns any blanket you own into a nursing cover! And it's uber affordable!

mom = mark?

Since becoming a mom, I've discovered a lot of great inventions that have made my life easier. I've also discovered a ton of "must have" items that are total scams. I get so annoyed at what are, to me, over-priced items created to make money off of flustered, nervous new moms.

Case-in-point, nursing covers. I'm in the market for one because I find there are times I want to breastfeed Story in public and block out stimuli so she can chill out. I just checked out a brand name one and they want $45 for what amounts to no more than a cheapo rectangle of fabric with a couple of ties for your neck to keep it on. Literally, like five bucks or so worth of fabric and minimal sewing skills.

Yeah, I get that you pay for convenience, but come on! That kind of mark-up is crazy. And I see it all the time: baby wraps, nursing clothes/bras, diaper bags... And there's this odd undertone that if you don't buy these things, you're a bad mom. RIIIIIIIIGHT.

Well, all I can say is thanks for etsy.com. I've found all these items on there for half the price or less. And just as good if not better quality.

But seriously...I'm a mom, not a mark!

baby soothing is weird

I spoke too soon yesterday, as the rest of my day took a bad u-turn into fussy babyville. Story was nursing what felt like 24-7, with only maybe half an hour to an hour between feedings. Every time I put her down for a nap, she started wailing and was generally pissed. Even when I tried to put her down so I could take a moment to myself, to try and do a little yoga or hell, eat once in a while, she started bawling and screaming bloody murder.

I found myself breaking down and crying at multiple moments yesterday, begging Story to stop crying and pleading her at the end of each nursing to chill out and let me please please please get something to eat. Nope, she was not having it. This made me even more exhausted, upset and, at times, angry. Though the very real, adult part of my brain said, "she can't help it, she's a baby," there was the emotionally and physically drained part of me that found myself getting so annoyed with her and angry at myself for not being able to soothe her. At these times, I put her in her pack n play and did some deep breathing for a moment or two until I felt better.

I will again reiterate that I think parenting an infant is an amazing strength and character builder, it makes you a superparent. I've had to meet so many challenges with very little sleep and complete ignorance of how to solve the problem and, though at times I've felt like I can't do this, that I'm the worst parent on the planet, I've found that Story and I can figure this stuff out in the end. All I've needed to do was take a step back, breathe and allow myself to break down once in a while. I don't have to be perfect, I don't have to know how to solve everything off the bat. It feels like I should be perfect, but I'm allowed to feel defeated once in a while, as long as I collect myself and jump back into the fray.

Now, in retrospect I think there were a few possible reasons for why Story was in such a terrible mood yesterday.

1) She's hit the 6 week growth spurt and is eating like crazy in order to grow.
2) I ate REALLY spicy tuna sushi for the first time in a long time and it went through my milk and upset her tummy and tastebuds (I already had a day like yesterday a week or so ago because I ate really spicy salsa.)
3) I was trying to do too much on my first day alone. I kept trying to constantly pump between feedings to increase my supply more, clean up the house a bit and do some knitting.

Whatever reason she was upset, today seems to be going better. She's still been ravenous, but she's also been happy and fun to deal with. I already resolved myself to get very little done today, besides some grocery shopping as a mental health outing (new moms NEED to get out once a day if they can, in my opinion. It helps you break free of your mommy-bubble of a house and interact with actual speaking humans...), but besides that I plan on being lazy and feeding Story as much as she needs it, no worries about pumping or anything else.

Now, to address the title of this post...

In order to feed S and continue to pump, I tried out the wacky idea of feeding her on one breast and pumping the other at the same time. What resulted was the most amusing thing I've seen in a long time.

As soon as the pump starts going, S goes from being awake and engaged to heavy-lidded, lethargic and sleepy. The sound of the pump put her to sleep! No kidding! She completely conked out! She then woke up when I turned it off, so I put her on her boppy and turned it on again. The result? You got it, totally sleepy baby!

She is currently in her pack-n-play and taking a nap, which is AMAZING. It's so funny what works at soothing babies. Seriously, they are the BEST science experiment ever!

Ok, off to do Yoga while she's still sleeping :)

too much fun

Story spent about 1/2 hour this morning just cooing and smiling at me. I put her on her Boppy pillow (which she usually hates) and she just smiled and smiled at me, interjecting "hunh"s and "aaah"s of joy. It was AMAZING. She was so happy and animated, like I've never seen before. She started it when Daddy came down to leave for work and just kept on going until she got hungry. Just fabulous.

It's like every day she gets more and more of a personality. It's just so awesome! Yay for fabulous baby!

Today is my first full day on my own since Tim went back to work. Though he went back last Wednesday, I spent all the days he was at work with family for the holidays, so I had tons of help and support. But today, I am all on my own for the first full, straight day.

I plan to spend the day lazing about, making some important phone calls regarding medical bills and such and POSSIBLY getting some knitting done, we'll see. After the last few people-filled days, I think both Story and I need a quiet day at home.

Story's First Thanksgiving

Thanksgiving is literally a family rock-block for us. We start off with Tim's family coming in a day or two before, and thus begins all day visits with his large family and our Thanksgiving day fun with mine. Thanksgiving is probably my favorite holiday to spend with our families, as it's almost like an festival concert or something. And it's gluttony-tastic, with Thanksgiving day, Chinese food night, Seafood day and then leftover time.

I was a bit worried about Story and how she'd handle this kind of intense, people-ladened time. She's spent most of her existence in our tiny home, hanging out with Tim and I, kind of secluded from other humans. It's not that we're trying to coddle her, but it's freakin' cold out (and holiday shopping season, which means it's hell to get around and go to malls where we could do some indoor walking...) I was worried that she'd get really overstimulated and be a crying mess the whole time.

Wednesday was the first day I went over to Tim's parent's house, which just happened to coincide with his first day back at work. I went over early because I was nervous about my first day handling Story all by myself, so I felt like it would be great to hang out around family. And it was! Tim's family are totally cool about me breastfeeding, so I had lots of company while S ate up a storm. And everyone was so wonderful about wanting to hold her and help me get some downtime.

It was similarly laid-back at my sister's house, though they weren't as cool with breastfeeding (well, my sister was... but mom told me to be more modest, which kind of ticked me off. oh well, we all have our different comfort zones.) It was so cute to see my niece caring for S and feeding her, too. It was just awesome to have so much love and help from family. It's not that I expected less, but it was still so wonderful.

However, S did get REALLY overstimulated. I found that at about 3pm each day she would get really fussy and angry at all the stimulation. Tim's mom had a great solution for this, which was to throw a blanket over her to shield out the light and some noise. I called this the "parrot effect" and it worked pretty well. However, Tim found the surefire solution, which was to put her in our Premaxx Sling Carrier and close the drawstrings all the way, which shut out the light and noise as well as gave her a nice rocking motion when Tim walked her around. This put her out lickety split! I just love how parenting makes us discover all of these amazing toys and contraptions!

Today is Family Home Thanksgiving with Amy, La, Josh and possibly Katie/Dingo. Even though the last few days were fun, I'm so glad to have one to ourselves at home and then a relaxing dinner with a few friends. I think S needs a day to wind down.

Cloth Diapering is easy... really!

I will humbly admit that we used regular old, environment-harming diapers for the first month of Story's existence. I had bought a bunch of cloth diapering supplies and was sure I'd be good to go by the time she got here, but then she was so small at birth that none of them would fit. That, combined with all the stress and lack of sleep from the first few weeks of us adjusting to her in our lives meant we figured it was worth it to use disposable diapers for the first few weeks or so.

I also must admit that a little bit of why we didn't start it up was because we were scared. No matter how many tutorials I'd read online or people I'd talked to about their experiences, I was really anxious about actually using cloth diapers. I kept imagining all these leaks and gross, soppy prefolds. So, there you have it... I can dance with giant, flaming fans without a second thought, but cloth diapers freaked me the heck out.

One good facet of my personality is that I definitely know myself well enough to know how to get around my own bullshit. So, I woke up one morning and decided it was time to jump in. I got up, changed her out of her disposable diaper and put on a cloth diaper and cover. I resolved myself and put the hubby on notice that we would be cloth diapering from now on, with the occasional disposable if need be. And we haven't looked back since.

And yes, as you can tell by the post title, it's WAY easier than I thought. I totally don't know why I was so scared in the first place, to be honest. The hardest part about prefolds is getting down how to fold them, of which there are several methods. Once I got down the fold I preferred, it got easier and easier each time to change Story in no time flat. The only other challenge was figuring out which covers fit and worked best, but in the end I found that most covers are fabulous at containment. They're also darned cute.

So far, I'm a huge fan of indian prefolds with Bummis SuperBrite covers or Mimas PUL covers (an awesome chick who sells her stuff on Etsy.) We've also used a BumGenius diaper, which was great, too, but I like the fact that I can reuse covers with multiple prefolds, whereas the BumGenius is a single use n wash diaper.

Man, look at me, I sound smart :)

But seriously, I feel like I'm becoming a diaper genius. And really, it's not any big deal, because it's much easier than it seems.

OH and Amy La, I finally got to use the wool soaker you knitted for her! I put it on her today so she could have some extra protection without wearing a full crawler onesie and it was SO CUTE. I'll have to take a picture :)