I'm sitting here attached to a machine, plastic parts held up with a hands free device, the pump whirring away sounding like it's saying "le pump, le pump" over and over to my ears, and I just can't stop thinking about how OVER this I am! I'm so tired of toting the bag, having my husband clean the supplies, being locked away for 30-60 minutes a day, not having lunch with my co-workers, and the whole deal with pumping. It is one of the most unnatural and isolating things I've ever done and I'm ready to be done with it. Continuing to nurse my son is very, very important to me, but as I draw closer to his birthday, my time at the pump is becoming more and more of a hated activity. I think it's time to wean, after all, the pump has no feelings!
In the beginning I didn't love pumping, but I loved knowing that I was continuing to provide that magical food that is breast milk to my son while I was away at work. I happily strapped myself to it and played games and caught up on Facebook on my phone while the machine thoughtlessly and coldly did it's thing. The pump and I actually had a very successful relationship in the beginning. I actually came home with more milk at the end of the week than at the beginning of the week. Often 2-3 oz more! But it quickly became a love-hate relationship as I soon discovered this abundance of milk was causing upset for my dude-y pie. When I cut back on pumping, I started getting plugs! Oh so fun! There was no easy way for me to taper off since I only ever pumped twice while I was at work. The best I could do was pump until I hit a certain amount between my two sessions and cut them early. Thankfully after 6 months, my hormones calmed down and the plugs were mostly a thing of the past.
But now, with less than 2 months to my dear baby's first birthday, I'm contemplating when to throw in the towel on pumping. Once a day is my current practice unless things seem to be dipping too much. I know I can go a whole work day without pumping. I often do on Fridays when I'm busy and/or don't feel like it. My freezer stash is almost gone now. I think there are 4 bags in my mom's freezer and that's it. I can build it back up in a heartbeat if need be. The other thing is my dear son just isn't taking milk during the day as much. He loves his food and lets you know when he wants food and not milk! He left at least 3 oz of the 7 oz I sent yesterday. He prefers his milk from mom when I return home, through the night, and during the weekends at nap time. As much as I hate the pump, I am conflicted and want to make sure I'm providing properly for him. Formula during the day just isn't an option with his sensitivity to milk products and I probably won't be introducing cow's milk after his first birthday. What's a girl to do?!?!
Anyone else have some BTDT experience? If you did pump, when did you stop pumping while at work?
Showing posts with label breast feeding. Show all posts
Showing posts with label breast feeding. Show all posts
Thursday, June 7, 2012
Wednesday, May 16, 2012
Breastfeeding - What No One Tells You
What could be more loving and nurturing than the image of a breastfeeding mama? Not much.
What did everyone forget to tell you? That about 60-75% of the time breastfeeding will NOT be that lovely, soft focused image of mother gently gazing at baby while he contentedly and gently suckles at his mother's breast!
Don't get me wrong, I love breastfeeding my son. It's often warm and loving and fills me with pride, joy, and wonderment at the fact that I can feed, nurture, and comfort my child in such a unique and intimate way. We are bonded! But so much of our journey has been up and down. I am one of the lucky ones who has enough (too much at times) milk and a babe that has nursed like a champ from day one. While our journey has been relatively easy, it's still been gruelingly hard at times.
My milk didn't come in till day 5 and at that point he had lost more than 10% and was jaundiced, so the doctors prescribed formula. I bawled my eyes out! Thankfully I had a nurse who was extremely experienced with nursing and setup a makeshift supplemental nursing system with a syringe and a long, thin tube so my son could get formula while continuing to nurse. My milk came in 4-5 hours after returning home the next day, but not before another sob fest.
Breastfeeding is also physically, mentally, and emotionally exhausting and draining. "What? You want to nurse again? It's only been 15 minutes." "It's 3 am! Why oh why can't you just go to sleep?!?!" I remember many a night crying from sheer exhaustion and vowing that I was going to quit. Beyond stubbornness, a cheap streak, an inability for my son to digest dairy protein without wailing, nursing, sleeping, and repeating every two hours or less, and god knows what, I'm not sure what kept me going. But I stayed the course and do not see an end in our near future.
Which brings me to the next point; allergy and other intolerance! Apparently many babies have trouble digesting milk proteins at first. Guess what? Yup, mine was one of them! This was not a problem with lactose, but with the proteins! If it was my baby would have been unable to digest my milk as human milk also contains lactose. Let me repeat, this is a problem with the PROTEINS in milk and NOT the lactose. Thus began my journey into dairy free eating. What a nightmare!!! Do you know that milk is EVERYWHERE? Yes, it is. I've been a label reader for a long time, but this was a whole new level!!! Eating out was fraught with terror and danger since trying to get straight, knowledgeable answers was near impossible. I scoured the web for chains that disclosed their ingredients and mainly ate out at a handful of places. It became worse when he started reacting to soy (I was grateful as my intestines were none too pleased with the so called wonder bean either) and began bleeding. Not much is scarier than a bloody diaper. Thankfully as he grew, he became better able to handle dairy in my diet and can eat some now. Not too much, though and certain things are worse than others.
Remember how I mentioned having a lot of milk? Yeah...that causes problems too. The obvious ones like leaking, engorged breasts, and becoming soaked every time baby feeds since he can't handle the flow and either letting the milk dribble or popping off and letting the milk spray. The not so obvious ones like plugged ducts (OUCH!) and so much foremilk that baby is even gassier and spits up more.
Now that he's older, I get to deal with what some refer to as gym-nurse-tics. As the name implies, it means that baby decides that he wants to nurse in any position imaginable (and some that could never be fathomed without having witnessed them)! Downward dog, sitting, sitting bent over, standing, upside down, side ways, backwards, in the shower or tub, off and on and off and on again, up and down and up again, etc. Plus, since this is gym-nurse-tics, the frequent changing of positions is mandatory! I secretly think this is the bigger reason most women don't nurse their older babies and toddlers in public. It's just too damn hard to keep from flashing everyone your nip (because once most babies have control of their arms, they will NOT accept having a blanket or cover over their heads) and it's frustrating wrestling your increasingly bigger and bigger baby!
This list doesn't even cover ALL of the issues a mother may have with breastfeeding, but just the bumps I've encountered. There are bleeding nipples, mastitis, and thrush. There are women who no matter what they do, can't make enough milk. There are women who are survivors of abuse and can't tolerate this level of intimacy. There are breast cancer survivors who lost their breasts. There are also babies who are tongue tied or have facial deformities. There are babies who bite a lot. There are so many reasons breastfeeding may be difficult for someone, but no one ever seems to discuss them.
I often wonder if some of my friends who had trouble had known some of these things may have had a longer breastfeeding relationship. I wonder if they got bad advice from ill informed doctors. I wonder if it's just that they didn't have the support in place to work through the tough spots and continue on. I don't know. I would be happy if this post helped just one mom reach her breastfeeding goals or help just one mom realize that she is a wonderful mom even if she had difficulty breastfeeding and had to feed her baby another way.
Please let me know your experiences with this. Let me know something you wish someone had shared with you before you had your baby.
What did everyone forget to tell you? That about 60-75% of the time breastfeeding will NOT be that lovely, soft focused image of mother gently gazing at baby while he contentedly and gently suckles at his mother's breast!
Don't get me wrong, I love breastfeeding my son. It's often warm and loving and fills me with pride, joy, and wonderment at the fact that I can feed, nurture, and comfort my child in such a unique and intimate way. We are bonded! But so much of our journey has been up and down. I am one of the lucky ones who has enough (too much at times) milk and a babe that has nursed like a champ from day one. While our journey has been relatively easy, it's still been gruelingly hard at times.
My milk didn't come in till day 5 and at that point he had lost more than 10% and was jaundiced, so the doctors prescribed formula. I bawled my eyes out! Thankfully I had a nurse who was extremely experienced with nursing and setup a makeshift supplemental nursing system with a syringe and a long, thin tube so my son could get formula while continuing to nurse. My milk came in 4-5 hours after returning home the next day, but not before another sob fest.
Breastfeeding is also physically, mentally, and emotionally exhausting and draining. "What? You want to nurse again? It's only been 15 minutes." "It's 3 am! Why oh why can't you just go to sleep?!?!" I remember many a night crying from sheer exhaustion and vowing that I was going to quit. Beyond stubbornness, a cheap streak, an inability for my son to digest dairy protein without wailing, nursing, sleeping, and repeating every two hours or less, and god knows what, I'm not sure what kept me going. But I stayed the course and do not see an end in our near future.
Which brings me to the next point; allergy and other intolerance! Apparently many babies have trouble digesting milk proteins at first. Guess what? Yup, mine was one of them! This was not a problem with lactose, but with the proteins! If it was my baby would have been unable to digest my milk as human milk also contains lactose. Let me repeat, this is a problem with the PROTEINS in milk and NOT the lactose. Thus began my journey into dairy free eating. What a nightmare!!! Do you know that milk is EVERYWHERE? Yes, it is. I've been a label reader for a long time, but this was a whole new level!!! Eating out was fraught with terror and danger since trying to get straight, knowledgeable answers was near impossible. I scoured the web for chains that disclosed their ingredients and mainly ate out at a handful of places. It became worse when he started reacting to soy (I was grateful as my intestines were none too pleased with the so called wonder bean either) and began bleeding. Not much is scarier than a bloody diaper. Thankfully as he grew, he became better able to handle dairy in my diet and can eat some now. Not too much, though and certain things are worse than others.
Remember how I mentioned having a lot of milk? Yeah...that causes problems too. The obvious ones like leaking, engorged breasts, and becoming soaked every time baby feeds since he can't handle the flow and either letting the milk dribble or popping off and letting the milk spray. The not so obvious ones like plugged ducts (OUCH!) and so much foremilk that baby is even gassier and spits up more.
Now that he's older, I get to deal with what some refer to as gym-nurse-tics. As the name implies, it means that baby decides that he wants to nurse in any position imaginable (and some that could never be fathomed without having witnessed them)! Downward dog, sitting, sitting bent over, standing, upside down, side ways, backwards, in the shower or tub, off and on and off and on again, up and down and up again, etc. Plus, since this is gym-nurse-tics, the frequent changing of positions is mandatory! I secretly think this is the bigger reason most women don't nurse their older babies and toddlers in public. It's just too damn hard to keep from flashing everyone your nip (because once most babies have control of their arms, they will NOT accept having a blanket or cover over their heads) and it's frustrating wrestling your increasingly bigger and bigger baby!
This list doesn't even cover ALL of the issues a mother may have with breastfeeding, but just the bumps I've encountered. There are bleeding nipples, mastitis, and thrush. There are women who no matter what they do, can't make enough milk. There are women who are survivors of abuse and can't tolerate this level of intimacy. There are breast cancer survivors who lost their breasts. There are also babies who are tongue tied or have facial deformities. There are babies who bite a lot. There are so many reasons breastfeeding may be difficult for someone, but no one ever seems to discuss them.
I often wonder if some of my friends who had trouble had known some of these things may have had a longer breastfeeding relationship. I wonder if they got bad advice from ill informed doctors. I wonder if it's just that they didn't have the support in place to work through the tough spots and continue on. I don't know. I would be happy if this post helped just one mom reach her breastfeeding goals or help just one mom realize that she is a wonderful mom even if she had difficulty breastfeeding and had to feed her baby another way.
Please let me know your experiences with this. Let me know something you wish someone had shared with you before you had your baby.
Saturday, May 12, 2012
Extremism - Where's the Balance?
So I've been mulling over and discussing the recent TIME cover photo and article (Here's a link in case you've been hiding under a rock the past few days and missed it.) and have been struggling to figure out exactly what I want to say about this. I have had many people ask me about this and say that they've thought about me when they heard about it as I'm fairly open about my crunchy, hippy mama style of parenting. I'm fairly open in general about my life, so this is nothing new.
I often proudly admit to being a bleeding heart liberal whose passionate about women's rights (and now children's rights), but I find this picture uncomfortable, demeaning, and exploitative. It's not that the child is 3 years old. It's not that the woman's breast is partially visible. It's that the pose seems slightly suggestive and clearly sensationalist. It's that the mother seems so detached. It's that the title implies that mothers who don't do this are not up to the challenge of being a mother. And I think most importantly, it's that the balance that helps create happy, healthy attached families is completely missing from this sensationalist piece of journalism designed to sell magazines and stir controversy.
I plan on discussing this more, but I just need more time to process. Please check out the links below for information from Attachment Parenting International on their eight principles. And please, let me know your thoughts.
API's Eight Principles
API's Blog Post About the Principles
I often proudly admit to being a bleeding heart liberal whose passionate about women's rights (and now children's rights), but I find this picture uncomfortable, demeaning, and exploitative. It's not that the child is 3 years old. It's not that the woman's breast is partially visible. It's that the pose seems slightly suggestive and clearly sensationalist. It's that the mother seems so detached. It's that the title implies that mothers who don't do this are not up to the challenge of being a mother. And I think most importantly, it's that the balance that helps create happy, healthy attached families is completely missing from this sensationalist piece of journalism designed to sell magazines and stir controversy.
I plan on discussing this more, but I just need more time to process. Please check out the links below for information from Attachment Parenting International on their eight principles. And please, let me know your thoughts.
API's Eight Principles
API's Blog Post About the Principles
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