Plans Change

From about the time JiggleyBaby was about 6 months old, I started to dream of the day he turned one and was no longer almost always attached to my boob. Breastfeeding him hasn't always been the most enjoyable experience; he was a sleepy 36 weeker who needed to be reminded to eat, he was tongue tied which resulted in a painful latch, which in return resulted in me having vasospasms anytime he got the least bit lazy with his latch. I've had blisters and sores, and many many many nights of nursing practically around the clock. But through the pain and the sleep deprivation fog, I knew that breast was best for my little man. I knew that as tough as it was, I was able to provide him with something absolutely no one else could, so I'd stick it out... for the year.
I had big plans for the little man's first birthday. Cake smash, balloons, finger painting birthday party... and to wean him off the breast and onto whole milk. I wanted to have my body back, I wanted cute bras without trap doors. I wanted to plan an outfit for the way it looks or the way it makes me feel... not for the ease in which I could discreetly pop out a boob. I wanted to diet - My body holds onto extra jiggle when I breastfeed. I wanted my breasts to be sexy again. I wanted to get my groove back... my husband wants me to get my groove back - my sex drive slows down a LOT while I'm breastfeeding. I just wanted to be the one in control of my body again.
Well, weeks after JiggleBaby's first birthday; is he still nursing? Yep. Has he weaned at all? Nope. He still nurses 4-5 times during the day and 3-4 times a night. Do I hate it? No, not usually. Do I love it? Nope, not all the time.
I've confused myself, and probably anyone who I've talked to about it in the last couple of months. I want to wean, but I don't. I'm not completely happy or content with our breastfeeding relationship, yet I continue. I feel shackled to this small human, yet I don't try very hard to undo the 'shackles'. I want to be done, but I don't.
JiggleyBaby is our last (planned) baby. All of his firsts, are my last firsts. This is the last time that I will rock a warm squishy sleepy babe and nurse him to sleep. This is the last time that I will sit in a dark room and tuck and re-tuck that one piece of hair that sticks right out from the side of his head. This is the last time that I will be the only one that can calm him and put him back to sleep.
So I guess this means, for a little while longer, my body is still not completely mine. For a little while longer I will carry around the extra squish and bras with extra clasps. For a little while longer I will shackle myself to my sweet little boy, who only wants me for comfort. And I guess that's ok.

Why Didn't I Know This Before: Milk Donation

When my oldest was born, he was unable to nurse. He was so teenie-tiny and had to be fed by tube (He was just over 2 months premature). So I pumped and he was fed my milk. I pumped and I pumped and I pumped. For 2 months I exclusively pumped to feed my baby. Eventually he got big enough and strong enough to slowly get him on the breast and I didn't need to pump as much. When he was released from the hospital, he was at the breast for all but 1-2 feedings per day. I started to feel more like a mum and less like a dairy cow. I continued to pump at least once a day so that I could keep my supply up and stockpile - I had grand dreams of filling my deep freeze with those little baggies of liquid gold. I had a pretty good stash, I started using it for his baby cereal and baby food when he was old enough. I gave it to him in bottles and in sippy cups. And then before I knew it, my baby preferred cold cows milk in his sippy cup and he was only nursing a couple times a day (at 18 months). I had stopped pumping at a year, because I had more than enough milk stored up. The next thing I knew was my baby had turned into a little boy and I had a freezer full of expired breast milk - we're talking like 1000oz of the stuff! Sadness. I had to toss it. A piece of my heart broke the day I let those little bags thaw and run down my kitchen drain. Hours and HOURS being hooked up to a breast pump so I could give my little the very best and it was trickling away. Sadness.
With my second, we've had our share of breastfeeding woes, but all he's taken is the breast.  I knew I didn't want to be chained to my pump again, but as soon as my milk came in I started to pump off a little extra here and a little extra there. I wanted to have a little stash so I could go out or to use when he started eating baby cereal and baby food... But like almost everything, with this little dude, I make a plan and he says "ohhhh no, Mummy - it's not going to be like that!" He refuses a bottle, whether I'm feeding him or his dad or gramma. I've tried half a dozen different bottles and nipples and NOPE! Once I finally succumbed to the fact that boob is best, I thought maybe I'd get a little freedom once he started eating food. You know, even if he won't take a bottle maybe a baby sitter or that daddy-man could tied him over with a couple tablespoons of mush and he'd be good until I got him. NOPE! He refuses to eat anything puréed. So babyled weaing is where we're at - but he doesn't really eat enough of anything for me to feel like it'll tied him over.
So here I am with about 70oz of breastmilk in my freezer that makes me oh-so-sad to see it just sitting there. Then I see that a friend has posted to a group called Human Milk 4 Human Babies. And I'm curious, and I get a bit click happy on facebook, so I go to check it out. CLICK! It's a page dedicated to informed MILK SHARING! You mean, other mum's may want MY milk? You see, there is no milk bank in Red Deer - but there is ALWAYS a breast milk need. I found a mum who lives in town and had requested a donor and BAM! My milk is no longer sitting in my freezer making me sad, but going to feed a beautiful new baby! YAY! Why the heck did I not know about this before?!?! Since as of right now, my supply is good (really good - have you seen the size of my little chunker who doesn't like to eat anything?!) I'm going to try to pump once a day and continue to donate my milk. I feel pretty darn good that I am able to help another mum out with my boobs!

5 Months of Ouchie Nipples

Sawyer's been here for 5 months now. It's amazing to see all the little changes that five short months can bring. He laughs, he rolls, he scoochies on his belly a teeny bit, he grabs toys, he's starting to sit on his own for very short periods of time, he drools A LOT, and he's still nursing like a champ. Well, if a champ were super distractible, pretty demanding and kinda picky about where he takes his meals, then yeah, he's a champ.

In the beginning I had fears that I wouldn't be able to nurse Sawyer for the long term. It hurt. A LOT. Between a bad latch, a sleepy jaundice baby, a tongue tie, nipple damage and then **vasospasms, I thought we'd be lucky to reach 6 months. We're only a month away from that.
About a month and a half ago, I noticed that I didn't flinch when Sawyer latched on. I noticed that I was no longer deep breathing for the first two minutes of nursing. I noticed that I didn't immediately curl up into myself and want to wrap my boobs in a heated blanket when we were done nursing. SUCCESS! Finally! He resolved his latch issues, which gave my poor nipples some time to heal, which, with time, calmed the vasospasms. When I realized that it didn't hurt anymore, I turned into the breastfeeding queen! I walked through the Calgary airport nursing, while pushing my stroller full of carry on crap AND corralling my spazzy 4 year old. WIN! I walked through most of the Vancouver Aquarium while nursing while pointing out interesting marine animals to my son and his cousins. I was confidant enough to really pull an old boob out whenever to feed my little meatball; at a party, at the mall, in a parking lot waiting to pick up Trent from preschool.
And then something happened. I'm not sure exactly what it was. Sawyer started to get up more at night again (I'm sure it was the 4 month wonder week); like every hour and a half, get up more at night again. He was fussy, he wasn't napping well because (as any mum knows) bad day sleep leads to bad night sleep which leads to bad day sleep which leads to you being screwed. Well with this sudden influx if night waking and wanting some comfort, I developed a painful blister. I soaked it with an Epsom salts wash, I applied heat, I nursed and pumped hoping to get rid of it. By the third day it was painful enough that I had to carefully pop it. A little relief. I nursed as normal and thought we should be good. WRONG. Welcome back vasospasm! With the nipple trauma comes the vasospasms. They are so painful and take F-O-R-E-V-E-R to heal. And this time, I think they are worse.
I am back to flinching every time he latches onto my left side. I am back to deep breathing to get through the initial minutes of nursing. And if that wasn't enough, now they are almost always painful. They are always spasming, starting about 10 minutes after I finish feeding him, lasting about 3-5 minutes, every half hour or so. Ouch ouch ouchhhhhie!
I know these will eventually heal, again, but in the meantime it's so discouraging. We had finally got to a point in our nursing relationship, that I didn't feel as tied down by the boobs anymore and really enjoyed our quiet little cuddles every few hours. Le sigh! Well let's all cross our fingers that these clear up soon so I can be a breastfeeding champ again.

**Vasospasm: is a sudden constriction/narrowing of a blood vessel (in the nipple) that is extremely painful. You can see a blanching of the nipple and sometimes, as blood flow resumes, the nipple will go from white to blue to red. Check out this great article on Vasospasms, at Kelly Mom.com

5 Things You May Not Know About New Babies

1. Babies produce an alarming amount of ear wax. Yes it's normal, but it's still pretty gross (and weirdly satisfying) to pick out a raisin sized chunk of ear wax from your infants ear.
2. Babies are born with a special sensor, which I refer to as luke-warm-beveragosa. This heat seeking sensor alerts the baby every.single.time you are about to enjoy a warm beverage, thus waking him from a sound sleep, turning his giggles to cries, and/or expelling an explosive poop that travels all the way up his back to settle in his armpits.
3. There are certain baby cries that operate on a frequency meant to induce insanity to it's mother. They are cries that you can FEEL right in the marrow of your bones and make your eyeballs shake in your skull. You are completely powerless to these cries and will drop whatever you are doing to check on your little one.  
4. Baby fingernails are the next closest thing to Wolverine's claws. They are one of the sharpest and fastest growing substances on this planet. Those itty bitty, paper thin nails are deceiving - you can cut them every other day and still look like a wild cat attacked your chest and/or face.
5. Babies are wired to change things up, and often. As soon as you think your baby has started to "sleep through the night", he'll start waking up half a dozen times again. As soon as you think you've got some sort of routine or pattern to your day, he'll start wanting to nap longer or shorter which will shift everything by a couple hours and will result in a flustered mum and a baby who doesn't really know what it wants. As soon as you believe he's started to eat well, he'll go on a nursing strike, or hit a growth spurt and want to eat all.day.long again. As soon as you think to yourself "ok, so this is the way it's going to be..." he's going to change it up on you. THAT is the only thing predictable about babies.

What are some things that surprised you about your new baby? Was it the crazy amount that they sleep or don't sleep? Or just how much one little person can throw up in a day?

Mommy and the Milk

I breastfed my first son until he was 18 months. I plan on doing the same with my second. In my many months of boobie milk production, I have learned a couple things. Here's what I know:

• Making milk is hard work. Your body needs extra fuel to produce quality nomnoms for your little, at the exact same time as your mind is screaming at you to get back into those pre-pregnancy jeans. 
• It really doesn't matter if you exclusively nurse, exclusively pump, exclusively formula feed or any combination of the aforementioned. As long as you and baby are healthy, thriving and HAPPY - don't let anyone bully or guilt you into thinking one method is any better or worse than another. 
• Exclusively pumping is not just hard, it's more work - so be prepared. If you're nursing, you can pretty much just pop a boob out whenever you hear a hungry little squeak. If you're formula feeding, you make up bottle and voila. When you are exclusively pumping you need to not only heat up and feed babe a bottle, but then you have to pump as often as if you were nursing (can be anywhere between 8-100000000 times a day). 
• Nothing kills your milk supply like stressing over your milk supply. In my previous experience, whenever I started to get really worried over my supply, my milk production would slow down. So relax, take your cues from baby - he/she will be the best indicator if they are getting enough and if you have enough milk. If you are worried that baby isn't getting enough, get him weighed once a week for a few weeks (you can do this at breast feeding groups, in RD) and see how much he is gaining.
• A crappy latch hurts, a good latch is uncomfortable in the beginning, but gets better.
• It's ok to sometimes feel like all you do is nurse... because some days that is ALL.YOU.DO.
• You will feel guilt (comes with mommyhood); guilt about what you eat that upsets baby's belly, guilt about giving a bottle, guilt about being pissed off at having to get up for the 74th time that night to feed the demanding little creature, guilt about wanting to stop nursing, guilt about having a drink, guilt guilt guilt. Remember; You are a good mom and you are always doing what you think is best for your baby (happy mommy = happy baby, so have that glass of wine!)  
• water, water, water! Stay hydrated. Make sure you are drinking at least your daily minimum of 8 glasses a day. 

Need to increase your supply (naturally)? Here are some things that definitely helped me:

• A bowl of oatmeal a day -  I found that eating a bowl of 'real' oatmeal worked better than eating the sugary instant variety. There is no scientific proof that oatmeal will increase your supply, but it's often recommended. I believe that part of the reason it works for many women is because oats are filling and long burning in our bodies which helps fuel milk production.
• A cup of warm tea (just be careful with your caffeine consumption) before you nurse. A cup of tea relaxes you and can help with your let-down. Similarly, a warm/hot shower or bath can also do the trick.
• pump after every feed for 15 minutes - even if you aren't getting much of anything. Sometimes (most times) babies don't completely empty your breast, by pumping afterwards you are emptying your breast which signals your body to produce more milk. Even if you aren't getting anything, the stimulation of pumping will tell your body to make more milk.
• double pump - this can fool your body into thinking you have TWO babies who are demanding more milk. Just be careful of this if you are just establishing your supply in the first couple months or if you just want to pump the occasional bottle, because if you do this often enough you can give yourself an over supply. This is great if you want to stock up your freezer with milk to use later though.
• pump/nurse at night - even if your baby is sleeping for longer stretches at night, it's helpful to at least pump during the night. The hormone that signals milk production is higher at night; stimulating that hormone by removing milk from the breast, coupled with the supply/demand aspect of nursing can help increase your supply. This is why you will normally notice babies doing cluster feeds at night when they are going through a growth spurt.
• offer the breast throughout the day, often, for comfort sucks - the sucking stimulates your letdown. Also, if you are offering the breast more often, then baby is most likely going to drink more which will signal to your body to produce more.
• take a 'nursing vacation' - this only worked for me with my first when I didn't really have anything else to do or anywhere to be: basically you lay in bed (or on the couch) with your shirt off and put your boob in baby's mouth whenever they'll let you, for a couple days. This is supposed to be (a) a relaxing time to rest after giving birth (b) bonding time for you and baby and (c) supply and demand - all of which are supposed to be good for increasing your supply. I only did this once since I felt it was too limiting and I felt trapped with my baby (which made it neither relaxing or a  good bonding experience), but it did boost my supply a bit.