catching up

I feel like I'm always so behind on blogging and that every time I blog I apologize for not doing it often enough. I hope that's a given. Anyway.....Angus is almost 8 months old and he's changed SO much! 1) He's crawling! 2) He has 5 teeth and a 6th arriving any day! He is SO much fun. It's just amazing to let him crawl and decide where he wants to go and what he wants to do. He has his own little mind and personality. It keeps us on our toes - it's a while new ballgame! Gone are the days of us putting him somewhere and having him stay there! He is constantly on the go. We're going to have to get in shape and do a lot of working out in order to keep up with him.

Otherwise - we're doing well - I'm still managing to exclusively breastfeed (he's eating baby food of course). I pump 3X a day at work and my supply has been pretty consistent and I haven't had to unfreeze any bags in a while.

Angus had his first night without me or Johnny last night. Johnny went to Toronto for the film festival and I had to be at a wedding in Vermont, so I dropped him off with the in-laws on Saturday morning. It was very lonely without the both of them and while I enjoyed the thought of sleeping in, and uninterrupted sleep, I was uncomfortable for some reason and I woke bright and early anyway. It was a quiet trip. Driving alone up and down to VT was nice and peaceful. Pre-baby, I spent a fair amount of time alone - walking in the city, or just vegging out. It was nice to have a little taste of that, but the niceness didn't make he miss the boys any less. Angus survived his stay and was happy to see me and seems unscathed! We did have to use a bunch of my frozen milk stash, and that is what's it's for. I still have a few bags left in the freezer, and I pumped a ton this weekend - probably about 6 bottles worth. I actually ran out of medela bottles to put the milk in, so I emptied out an unopened water bottle. It was so funny to see that bottle half full of milk - my milk that I made! I travelled with a big cooler and cooling supplies so that I could pump on the way. I pumped milk on the highway! I was really dreading leaving him with the in-laws, but I am glad it went well and I knew they would take great care of him, but of course I'm going to worry. I'm glad it's over!

executive decision

For the past few months, I have been setting an alarm and getting up to pump in he middle of the night. This was not a problem when Angus was sleeping 10 hours straight, as I would go to bed at 10, wake up around 1 or 2 to pump and go back to bed and still get 3 hours of sleep. Unfortunately for about a month + he has been waking up anywhere between 1 and 4. Most days it seems that I get up to pump, and he either wakes up while I'm still pumping, or a short time after I go back to bed. I'm exhausted. It's really catching up with me. I have made an executive decision to not set an alarm to do this while he's not sleeping through the night. I will probably start again once he starts sleeping better, but right now it's not worth the sleep loss. So... I'm going to stop torturing myself!

efficiency

I've been doing a TON of research on pumping and Angus's eating. Thing is, the kid normally takes about an hour to eat. I think that's too long - I mean some babies take that long, and I don't really mind, but I think if he becomes a more efficient eater, I will become a more efficient pumper. What I am now doing, is going back to the method of switching sides. I stopped doing that a while ago when I thought he was having a foremilk/hindmilk imbalance (which he wasn't) and kept doing that. Now I am switching and it's helped a bit. It's only been a couple of days, but I think he's down to 40/45 minutes. I think it's helping me make more milk too. It makes sense, right? I had a day or 2 of soreness, so something is working! I've also learned that I need to do breast impressions, which had indeed helped. I've also been taking fenugreek, but I've now switched to something called more milk plus. Yuck. It tastes like medicine. Either way, I have noticed an improvement aready. I'm still now where I'd like to be in terms of output, but 2 letdowns is actually a good thing! I'm also setting an alarm and getting up to pump, which is what I am doing now at 3am - yikes! Sadly this is really affecting my mornings. I am feeling SO much more tired. I hope my body gets used to it. I'm fine when I get to work, but when Angus wakes up at 5:30 or 6:30 I feel like quite a zombie! Here's to adjusting!

back at work :(

I am back at work now - day three. It seems like 4 months just flew by. My emotional state is ok during the day, but when I get home I get super sad. It really sucks that if I'm lucky I get 3 hours a day with him, and much of that time is spend by him nursing. I am trying to arrange leaving work 30 minutes early so I can leave at 6, which will help us stick to getting him to bed at 8pm.

I am pumping during the day and that REALLY stinks. I'm just not getting much out of the pump. Day 2 was better than day 1, ie: more milk, but it's still not enough....plus I need to pump 4 times a day, 5 would be awesome - and for a 20 minute session each time + set up, it's nearly 2 hours out of my day. I feel guilty about that - which I need to get over. It's just a lot of time when I am trying to catch up on work and get up to speed. I really hope I get more mik soon. I bought fenugreek drops and mother's milk tea, so hopefully I will see a result from that. Thing is, I only have 2 letdowns during a 20 minute session...and my son normally breastfeeds for an hour! I feel like I might need to call a lactation consultant to try to gt him to eat more efficiently before I will pump more efficiently, but who knows. Either way, I'm trying not to stress about it since that would cause me to make even less milk! Any tips?

back to work soon

I go back to work soon...after Memorial Day. I'm pretty bummed about it, but there is no avoiding it. I already scored an extra month off, so I feel lucky that I've had 4 months. Although in Canada, they get a year. In fact in many other countries they get a ton more time. Our system is son antiquated. Oh well. I have been pumping to try to get a stockpile of milk in the freezer, and every couple of days I can freeze some. Only every couple of days because I keep using it! Whenever I go out with him for an extended period of time, I bring along milk "just to be safe", and he usually wants it. I feel like I might need to check in with a lactaction consultant soon. He still takes about an hour to eat, and it seems like he wants to eat every 2 hours or so....sometimes 3, and I'm talking about the beginning of one feeding to the beginning of the next, so sometimes that's only an hour in between. Hmmm. I hope I'm not having a milk issue. I don't think I am since when I pump early am, I can often get 3-4 oz from the one breast that he didn't feed on. I wish it was more though. I'm a little nervous about what will happen when I am back at work and I hope I can get enough with pumping. I'd like to ideally pump what he needs the next day if not more. I am going to do my best to enjoy the next 9 days since I can't imagine how sad I'm going to be when it's over. I know I have his whole lifetime ahead of me, but he's just so tiny!