All About the Wean

It’s World Breastfeeding Week and I’m thinking about weaning.

Not because I just want to be done with and don’t want to pump. I got over that when I started pumping much less, which made it seem like much less of a burden. And I know why I breastfeed — this is why — it’s because my supply has dwindled. And when I say dwindled I mean in the 20 minutes I pumped at work today I got 3 oz TOTAL. Which is not much. At all. And isn’t exactly the equivalent of the 20 oz Bella probably had today. Oddly enough I wrote a similar post in November 2007 when I was breastfeeding Bear.

Luckily, when I had an abundance of supply I froze a lot of milk so we’ve been working off of frozen for a few weeks now in addition to the little I’m creating. When I’m home I try to always nurse her. And she’s swallowing so she must be getting something, right? She gets bored quickly and tries to move onto better things when I’m feeding her, but I think that’s also in part due to the fact that she’s 10 months old now and always on the go.

My doctor gave us the okay to go to cows milk at 11 months instead of formula if I’m out of milk. I’m just hoping I can even get that far with what I’ve got. I even got my period back. First time since December 2009 Aunt Flo visited me and I was quite unprepared. I was at work in a white skirt at the time. Luckily, I had an emergency tampon so it was okay. What wasn’t okay was the next day when I was at the beach with my family and the Art Teacher in Chicago and I realized that there was a lot of very peach waterly liquid running down my legs. Since I had just gotten out of the water it was quite bleached out and I was able to wrap myself in a towel and make a beeline to the restroom. Not pleasant, but I macguyvered it together.

That was a long tangent away from weaning.

While I may physically be prepared to wean and my body is already creating much less supply Bella has no idea this is coming. How do you start to prepare them? Just give her less and less in her bottles? Give her less bottles? Switch a bottle with whole milk and hope she doesn’t see through my trickery?

You’d think having a 4 year old would mean I knew what I was doing but let me tell you a secret: you forget. Your brain gets filled with preschool facts and you’ve forgotten what in the world to do with an infant. Pretty sure I can’t use a sticker chart with Bella to help her wean. Or promise her a bakugan if she stops nursing.

This is Why

This weeks Breastfeeding Blog Hop is about Bonding. I have to say that I haven’t been too keen on this whole concept of the moment your baby nurses you’ve feel this unbelievable connection blah blah blah. Maybe that’s because with Bear the first time he nursed I felt unbelievable pain. It was torturous. I spent that time sobbing and hoping I wouldn’t have to do it again. I hated to be around him because I knew that he would inevitably need to do that to me again. So for me breastfeeding was unbonding with Bear. It took awhile of Exclusively Pumping for Bear and I to warm up to each other. For me to see him as more than just this entity that caused me pain and him to see me more as this person that sobbed whenever he was near.

I’ve been unbelievably lucky that Bella nurses like a champ. I love seeing her face light up when I get the boppy ready. I love how her mouth opens SO WIDE to take it all in. I love how she smacks me with her tiny little hand. How she grabs at my nose. How she looks at me, looks all around, takes a break, flips over, goes upside and then comes back to her snack shop. I love how nursing her now is just a comical exercise in what position is she going to try next. I no longer have my iphone poised to catch up on twitter when I feed her because she eats too quickly and moves too much for such shenanigans. Mostly I love when she sleeps. A sleeping baby while nursing is the best. I just try to take in every aspect of her little face and memorize the feel of her little hands. I just love it.

That said I nurse her not to bond because I know we could have that relationship without it, I nurse her for the sustenance that she needs. Bonding that’s just the icing on the cake.

#bfing and your body

Written for the breastfeeding blog hop:

I’ve been breastfeeding Bella for a little over nine months now and plan to continue until her one year birthday. Though my supply has started to dwindle (as has my desire to pump) so we’ve been cracking into the frozen stash quite a few times and I’m a little worried we won’t make it to the 12 month mark. My pediatrician gave us the okay to supplement with cows milk at 11 months so right now I’m just trying to get to that point.

1. Monthly Visitor: The main changes I’ve noticed is that well I haven’t had a period since December 2009. Yes, I know you’re all extremely jealous. Its really quite amazing. Though I am kind of always wondering when I’m going to get it so it sort of sucks to have that uncertainty.

2. Weight Loss: I haven’t remotely noticed this supposed weight loss that I hear about, apparently that doesn’t work for me. Clearly, I’m consuming enough excess calories to make up the difference for the extra ones I’m burning producing milk.

3. Extra Endowment: I’ve always been proud of what I’ve got up top, but my oh my is that the biggest change. My husband absolutely loves it, too bad he can’t touch them because Bella’s got them on loan! With Ben I went from a B/C to a full D. Now with Bella I was already a C and now I’m just a C/D. Not quite as big as with Bear but I was happy that they didn’t completely go away either. That was always what I was most disappointed about. You get to try out this great rack for awhile and then they take it away!

4. Mental Association: I joke that Bella has them on loan, but mentally that’s where the biggest change is. I associate my breasts in a completely unsexual way. They exists primarily to provide sustenance and nutrition to my daughter. This Babble article pretty much sums up what I think about breastfeeding and a sex life.

Despite all the changes rather physical, mental, imagined or otherwise I will definitely continue to breastfeed when I hopefully have more children. Now I just need to get the H on board with the latter! I’ll lure him in with the promiose of large breasts he can’t touch!

There’s No Daddy Milk #bfing

When Bear was a baby it was super easy to divide up feeding duties with the H because I was exclusively pumping. In fact, I’ll admit I’m lucky enough that I didn’t get up for most of the nighttime feedings. In the beginning I would get up and pump while the H fed Bear just to keep my supply up I would pump whenever he ate. As he grew older I pumped less and less during the night because he slept more and more and then finally I stopped night pumping, but the H would still tend to Bear if he were to wake up and I would blissfully sleep with a pillow over my head.

With Bella its been very different since I’m actually nursing her. In fact its often kind of frustrating because I seem to always be the one to feed her since I’m the one with Mommy’s Milk. Why is there no Daddy’s milk? Whenever she would cry the H would essentially hand over and be like “feed her.” His solution to any problem seemed to be stick a boob in it, but specifically mine. Which was annoying. Especially when we were trying to teach her to sleep through the night and he always wanted me to just feed her because she was crying. Or if he’d want me to feed her and it had been less than 2 hour since she ate — she’s not hungry! Luckily now she’s been sleeping through the night for quite sometime which is wonderful and since she loves to eat her milk consumption has gone way down.

The H has always been extremely supportive of me nursing (or stopping if I had wanted to). In the beginning when I was engorged beyond belief I wanted to quit so many times because of the pain, but I couldn’t because of the guilt and I felt like he really would have supported me and not judged me if I had chosen to stop. I just knew that I would judge myself and I couldn’t give up. So I didn’t, I held on past the two week point when everyone says it will get better and it did. I’m glad that I had him there to support me, though I have to say that I get really irritated nowadays when he makes comments like “this is it?” and “what a poor showing” when I hand him my lately paltry amounts of milk that I pump during the day at work. My pumping has gone way down and I can’t get nearly as much as I used to be able to which is depressing. She seems to be much better at getting it out than my pump and seems satiated whenever I feed her. I’ll be out of town for a weekend without her this weekend so we’ll see how that goes! Hopefully I can get to the pump 3-4 a day so I don’t completely shrivel up while I’m away — I still got three months to go!

This post is a part of the Breastfeeding Blog Hop, hope you take the time to check out the other posts or link yours up!

#Bfing and the Working Mom

As part of the Breastfeeding Blog Hop, here’s been my experience working while pumping otherwise known as Ode to the Pump:

Most importantly see also my pump song.

I exclusively pumped with Bear for the whole first year because of the difficulty we had actually nursing. So me and the pump got to be quite good friends. With Bella I was luckily enough that nursing her was quite easy, but while I was on maternity leave with her I still pumped once every morning to build up a frozen stash for times I knew I would be away. I wish I had known the glory of the pump with Bear. I was so afraid to pump in those first few weeks because I didn’t want to be engorged anymore than I already was so I didn’t want to send a mixed message that there was more demand than actually existed. However, I was in so.much.pain. and the pump was able to give me the much needed relief.

When I got back to work I still had enough supply and Bella was still eating frequently enough that I felt like I was activating on a constant basis. Layering was very important. So were nursing pads. I went with the cotton ones (less expensive, more environmentally friendly) with Bear but I wised up and went with the disposable ones that absorb WAY more and never leak through this time around. Since I work 10 hour shifts and Bella’s been sleeping through the night for months I pump first thing in the morning when I wake up, twice at work and then once before going to bed. Lately, I’ve dropped the last pump before bed depending how late it was when I last pumped. And sometimes I only pump once at work depending on meetings or if I feel like it. And twice at all day conferences I only pumped before and after work and not once the whole day. Those reasons and the fact that at 8.5 months Bella eats a lot more solid foods and sleeps through the night (she takes 25 oz of milk during the daycare day) are why my supply has fallen quite sharply. This morning when I pumped at work I only got an ounce in 15 minutes. ABSURD. I used to pump 4-5 oz in that long of a session. Now to get any reasonable quantity I have to pump for at least 30 minutes, a privilege I don’t have during the work day.

It was easier when she was younger to pump more often. I had more milk. She drank more milk. I was fresh back from leave. Now, at almost nine months I feel strange slipping away from work 2x a day to pump. I feel a slight air of you’re still doing that?  from co-workers. Plus, even in my own head its sort of like do I still have to do this? I have enough supply frozen that I could get by awhile, but not 3 months awhile and I don’t want to give her formula when I can produce milk.

Its hard to schedule pumping around meetings and impromptu pop ins at work. I’m lucky enough that my work has a dedicated mothering room for this purpose. Equipped with a cozy chair, bookcase of magazines and books, extra nursing pads, breastmilk storage bags, a mirror, the whole she-bang.

The hardest for me was those all day offsite training sessions. Plus, I have no adapter for my pump to pump in my car awkwardly in the parking lot. So I uncomfortably went without. In July, I’ll be in Orlando for a week long conference and I know I’ll have to sneak back to my hotel room between sessions or during meal breaks to pump and that sort of sucks. With Bear I pumped once in an airport bathroom, it just had to be done. In fact at the same conference 4 years ago I was pumping. However then Bear was only 5.5 months old so I had much more milk and demand to keep up. It was hard not being able to go to the after conference parties because I need to go pump.

 

In general, its hard to have to excuse yourself from professional situations for very personal reasons. I still haven’t thought of a good way to tell male co-workers that I can’t talk right now because I have to go to THE Room. I feel like if you really want it though you can make it work. Even if means pumping on a toilet stall or in your car, or hand pumping just to relieve the pressure (an awful thing I had to do once, talk about crying over spilled milk!) It’s doable.

If I CAN do it it, You CAN do it and we all CAN do it.