the breastfeeding blog.

after almost exactly one year, i am happy to report that my boobs have officially retired.  i wish i could send them on a vacation to hawaii to recover and get back to their jolly little selves.  they have served us well, and are not too much worse for the wear.  good job, boobs.

i decided to write down some thoughts on our personal experience with breastfeeding, for my own reflection purposes, and perhaps to be of some use to other moms or moms to be.  if you are not interested in breastfeeding, the thought of bodily fluids grosses you out, or you are my dad, then you should probably skip this one.  it's also a little wordy, so i apologize.  i was trying to be informative.

before i get into my personal experience, i would like to preface this by saying that i resist the idea that by breastfeeding for a certain amount of time you get a big "good mom" badge and the right to walk around like a war hero.  if you breastfeed for too short of time then we think you're a bad mom, if you breastfeed for too long of time then we think you're a bad mom... and a weirdo hippie.  i wish we wouldn't put these labels on ourselves or others.  i think breastfeeding is a very special way to bond with your baby, and it can be very cost effective, convenient, healthy, and enjoyable.  but let's be honest, most of us were raised on formula, and formula babies are just as happy and healthy as the next one.  even though finn was breastfed and isn't in daycare, he still got a ton of ear infections and as many colds as the next kid.  if you are breastfeeding or hoping to breastfeed, be gentle with yourself.  no mother should feel guilty because she has to supplement with formula or can't breastfeed as long as she originally intended.  on the flip side of that, don't feel guilty if you're still nursing your healthy one year old.  who the shit cares?  do what's best for your family and be proud of it.

ok, now that i got that off my chest (pun intended) i will tell you about our experience with breastfeeding:

finn took to the boob like a champ straight out of the gate.  we were very fortunate in that respect.  i never had any problems with getting him to latch on.  i look at this as a little bonus prize for being pregnant for 42 weeks. we were in the hospital for four days because of my c-section, and during those four days i nursed him constantly.  like 45 minutes on 45 minutes off.  that little sucker liked to suck.  i just let him go for it.  they give you a hard time in the hospital about the baby having enough pee diapers and having a bowel movement, and they threatened me a couple of times saying if he didn't have x number of diapers wet by x amount of time then we would have to give him formula.  i just ignored them and kept at it and all was well.  my milk came in on day five, after we got home.  it felt like my boobs had the flu.  they were achy and hot.  that only lasted a few days for me.  i didn't have any scary problems like cracked nipples or bleeding or anything like that.  some nurses told me that the best thing for sore boobs in the beginning is air, so that's pretty much what i did.  free boobin'.  none of the goopy stuff.  but those lansinoh soothies patches are handy in the beginning, they feel cool and i used them a couple of times.

i went back to work three days a week when finn was just four weeks old.  i meant to go back when he was six weeks old, but i started my time off on my due date, and since finn was two weeks late... you get the idea.  so because of going back so soon, i had to think about pumping really early on.  some people love pumping, some people hate pumping.  i hated it in the beginning, and then i learned to love it.  the hardest part is getting enough milk for that first day at work.  you're trying to juggle feeding your baby regularly plus you have to magically produce a whole extra day's worth of bottles.  it took about a week for me to get enough together for one day.  it was trying.  i found that pumping in the late evening or even the middle of the night was the most productive time for me.  i really had to focus on relaxing.  looking at pictures of finn on my phone and imagining running water helped a lot.  i also highly recommend using a double pump.

billy gave finn a bottle of pumped milk for the first time when he was three weeks old.  this is a bit earlier than most professionals recommend giving a breastfed baby a bottle because of the potential problem of nipple confusion, but since i was going back to work at four weeks i wanted to make sure he had some time to get the hang of it.  he took to it no problem, and i had no trouble getting him to nurse as usual despite having had a bottle.  it was fine.  don't let the nipple confusion people freak you out.  babies are smart.

after getting started, our breastfeeding routine went something like this:  i nursed finn 100% of the time sundays through wednesdays.  on thursdays, fridays, and saturdays while i was at work i would send finn to his babysitter's (or home with billy) with enough pumped milk to last him the day.  he would have bottles with the babysitter and then when i picked him up he would return to the regular breastfeeding routine.  while i was at work i had to pump every 2.5 or 3 hours.  luckily i had someone with me helping at the store often, so i could jump back into the fitting room and pump real quick.  when there wasn't someone there working with me sometimes i had to lock the shop door and put a "back in 5 minutes" sign up.  and honestly, i know some people have to spend a long time pumping, but once i got the hang of it it only took me exactly 7 minutes to pump a full bottle for finn.  (you have to really play with the settings on your pump for a bit so it feels most like your baby.  it's tough at first but stick with it.)  all the milk i pumped on a thursday at work would end up being enough to send with finn on friday, and so forth.  it worked out perfectly.

when finn was about 9 1/2 months old he started showing signs of weaning.  this was around christmas time.  he had just recovered from his ear tube surgery and he was finally feeling great and really starting to get moving.  now when i sat down to nurse him he would push me away, crane his neck around to look and see everything, etc.  he was starting to get more mobile and became less interested in the boob.  this was very frustrating to me, because there's no real "turning off" the boob faucet once it gets going.  finn would start to nurse, then decide he wasn't interested and i would be left feeling highly uncomfortable and drenched down to my waist.  often times when this would happen i would have to pump to relieve myself.  then, when finn would decide he actually wanted to pay attention and eat 30 minutes later, i wouldn't have any milk left because i had just pumped, and i would give him the pumped milk in a bottle.  this is how the whole breast to bottle transition happened for us. finn seemed to prefer having a bottle during the day time at this age, i guess because he wanted more freedom to explore.  he still liked nursing before bed and when he woke up from naps... in other words, when he was more sleepy and subdued and less busy with discovering.

finn's pediatrician told us that we could start introducing organic whole milk at ten months of age. i did this slowly, first mixing it with his food, and then eventually giving him a bottle of milk.  he had digestive troubles right off the bat.  it made him very gassy and uncomfortable.  we tried goat's milk and that was a lot easier for him to digest, but still not great.  it is also very expensive around here.  while we were going through this milk process my body kind of slowed down on the production side.  things also started getting busier at work and i had less time to go to the back to pump.  i eventually went from pumping 2 or 3 times a shift to once a shift.  at ten months old i bought my first can of formula (earth's best organic) and started supplementing with that.  finn does really well on this formula and it doesn't bother him at all the way the straight cow's or even goat's milk did. this transition felt natural to both finn and i, and i am certain it was the right time and right decision for both of us.  it was a little step down from the dependency on each other that came with breastfeeding. 

over the next two months the weaning process would be slow and gradual and this was very helpful to me especially, and the adjustment my body had to make.  we started using formula half the time and then nursing the other half of the time. finn would have a bottle before both naps and at bedtime, and nurse occasionally upon waking up from naps and around 11:30 at night.   i am convinced that these little nursing sessions were more for me than for him.  wednesday night, march 7th, was the last time i nursed finn.  over the past couple of days he has taken a little bit bigger bottles during the day (8 oz instead of his usual 6) and has slept through the night.  my job here is done!  finn is officially weaned.

last week i tried to switch him to milk again (organic 2% this time) but he still is having some trouble, although not as bad as with the whole milk. so we are sticking with the formula a while longer. formula is expensive, and for this reason i am very grateful that we had success with breastfeeding for as long as we did.  i'm thinking that in the next couple of months we can scale back on the bottles and switch back to milk, but i'm going to give him a little bit more time. 

so those are the specifics of our experience.

i know, this is already so long winded, but for the sake of my own mental clarity i have some more reflections:

in the beginning of breastfeeding, whenever finn made a whimper or a cry i pretty much assumed he was hungry and tried to nurse him.  in hindsight, i believe this was an error on my part.  i feel like if i had attempted other things first, like swaddling or rocking or a change in position, or even waiting a few minutes to see if he would settle back in on his own, that getting on more of a predictable feeding schedule would have happened more naturally and easily.  it's very easy to solve every problem with a boob when you're breastfeeding.  easy, but not necessarily best.

in general, i don't think that breastfeeding is necessarily easier or harder than formula feeding.  it has it's own challenges and perks.  it can also be costly to breastfeed if you buy a brand new $250 breast pump, a bunch of fancy nursing covers, nursing bras, disposable breast pads, etc.  luckily, i was lent a pump by a friend, i never wore a nursing bra (i don't think they're really necessary), and i used reusable cotton breast pads. i do think that breastfeeding was more personally gratifying than formula feeding, and it helped me bond with finn.  it also helped me lose all of my baby weight in the first three months, but that is not true for everyone.  a lot of people hold on to ten extra pounds just because of breastfeeding. 

in the beginning i heard a lot of people say that it was hard or even silly to breastfeed because then billy couldn't help with night feedings and i would have to bear the brunt of these on my own.  i found this to be extremely untrue.  billy was my biggest supporter with breastfeeding and he was always a tremendous help.  for night feedings i always stayed in bed and billy would go get the baby, bring him to me, and then bring him back to bed when he was done eating.  i did almost nothing.  thanks, honey!

i hope that some of you found some of this to be helpful or somewhat informative, and not just extremely long and wordy.  thanks for bearing with me as i looked back on the past year of nursing finn.  it was a wonderful experience for me, and i feel very happy and blessed that we had such success.  i also hope that if you are a mom or mom to be, that you feel proud of yourself no matter what your baby feeding journey is like.