Where I talk about breastfeeding
June 19, 2009 – 12:19 amI gave you fair warning with the title so move along if you’d like or read on if you’re that interested.
So with babyM I was going to let her do it for however long it is she wanted to breastfeed. As painful as it can be at times, it’s a nice bond that me and her can have together, JUST US.
I breastfed N for 17 months and then we went on a trip with my mom and she only wanted to sleep with my mom, which cut her off on the midnight snacking. It was hard in the hotel, thankfully no one was sleeping in the room next to us. I slept on a separate bed from them and that was that. Sure the first night was hard as hell, but then it was only at nights that she needed me. We cut out day feedings awhile ago. And it seems the same with babyM.
She will nap with my mom at the drop of a hat. My mom just pats and sways and she’s out. With me, she fights me tooth and nail, and this is only for a mid-day nap. Of course I don’t give in to her tugs and pulls at my shirt and lots of sweat, tears, and screams later she falls asleep but it’s such a tiring process that I end up wanting to take a nap with her but can’t b/c that’s the time I get to do dishes, finish laundry, cook dinner, or do workbooks with N.
So as I’ve said, we’ve cut out the day feedings and she gets the breast at bedtime and at around 5AM in the morning when she needs to be lulled back to sleep. Last night, I realized I think I’m finally going dry. She kept latching on and off in frustration so I squeezed to see what the problem was… and barely a drop emerged and that was after lots of pinching. As bad as it is, I went to the kitchen and warmed up some milk and put it in a sippy cup in the hopes that it would sooth and help her. No such luck, she drank some and then threw the cup across the bed and then she tossed and turned and tossed some more. I can’t even remember how long it took her to fall asleep.
Tonight was a completely different story. She fell asleep without her nightcap. AT. ALL! And hasn’t needed it thus far.
I know that the less feeding is done, the less milk is made. I always felt, from the beginning, that I wasn’t producing much milk to begin with. I never pumped this time around so I never really knew how much to “gage” what I was producing. And then her being on the itty bitty side made it all the more apparent that maybe I just wasn’t producing much. I took Fenugreek, Mother’s Milk tea, ampalaya pills, and did every “hokie” Pilipino superstition my mom has in the book for milk production.
Looks like I might just get my boobs back sooner than I thought. I was planning on just having her sleep with my mom when we head back to Hawaii next month. We’ll see if tonight was just a fluke. *sigh*
