What I didn't know about breastfeeding

Breastfeeding is not All or Nothing. I had to EP for the first 7 weeks. My baby had a small mouth, too small for my large breasts. I just had to be patient and let his mouth grow I guess. The first time he latched was in the middle of the night, in complete darkness, while we were both relaxed and it was a total accident on my part. He didn't do it well during the day for a while after that so it wasn't like a switch flipped and it started working 100% of the time.

For the first few months, I pumped every 3 hours, but fed on demand. We alternated formula and pumped breastmilk for the first 3 weeks. It was very confusing to me and I felt like a failure because BFing didn't work right away. It was complicated and felt like I was still in the hospital hooked up to a bunch of tubes and wires, but pumping did help me establish my milk supply. 

My baby also started sleeping 12 hours through the night pretty early on so I kept up with MOTN pumping for 3 months *after* BFing was established. I finally quit MOTN pumping when I had a 280 oz freezer stash (which we ended up dumping because it tasted like crap and now LO won't take a bottle, but that's another story). Also I was still engorged until 14 weeks which was alarming because everything I read said that supply should regulate at 12 weeks. "Facts" are based on averages and no individual is exactly average, we're all unique.

BFing has pros and cons. If I had an accurate knowledge of the pros and cons, I might not have been willing to work at it. It's taking up so much of my autonomy, I had no idea. My mom fed us formula so I didn't really get any advice from her on that. My motivation to BF was strictly the convenience of not having to wash bottles. And I heard that BF poops were better for cloth diapers. And those seem like just about the silliest reasons now. But those were the motivations that kept me working towards it.

Emily Oster's book Cribsheet articulates that there is no overwhelming scientific evidence either way (formula or breastmilk). So I guess it's up to the individual's motivation. I felt like my husband missed out on a lot when we stopped using bottles. He was less able to help me and is only now regaining his ability to calm and comfort LO by cosleeping during daytime naps. 

DH's increase in help is necessitated by me going back to work part time, DH has to supervise LO for a few hours per day. We try to line up LO's nap times with my office hours and classes. Luckily we started purees at 5 months so DH can feed LO that way. 

Just say, it's complicated. You'll figure out what's best for your family.

35 week check-in

I am 8 months post partum and I feel good enough to shuffle-run at Stroller Strides. On a good night, baby only wakes 3x. We're having lots of good nights lately. We got a hiking backpack carrier and a jogging stroller. We gifted some baby items to our neighbors to make room for the new items. Sad to see those items go, but also ready for my little boo boo to keep growing and becoming his own person. He is already playing more independently on the foam mat.

I have started taking collagen in my coffee. My husband calls it "antler juice." I feel hopelessly behind in my school work, but I feel I am pretty successfully managing the household. Sent my husband a grocery list from Mashup Mom and he loved it. So maybe we'll become ALDI fans and I can offload the task of meal planning.

We are planning two hikes in the next week and I am terrified of falling or just simply not being able to keep up. Hope we have good weather. Need to make a packing list.

Sent out Secret Santa gifts. Got my mom's gift all boxed and ready. Want to take some dorky holiday photos. Got out all holiday decorations including fake snow, fake candle, music box with ice skating penguin, tree skirt, snow globe, ornaments from the '80s and '90s. It feels nice to start some holiday traditions with the baby.

30 week check-in

This morning I feel okay. My sister had her baby over the weekend, which was exciting and terrifying. It brought back memories of my hospital stay, which weren't welcome to say the least. Everything I read says that it can help you process your trauma if you re-tell your birth story over and over. Since the entire country went into lockdown right after my son was born, I feel like I didn't re-tell my story very often. In fact I think I only told one person. 

I've been watching The Handmaid's Tale on Hulu and it's cathartic. Seeing a severe dystopia where women's work is devalued in the extreme for some reason makes me feel better about the present reality.

Albert is having 3 meals a day of purees. Breakfast is rice cereal with vitamin D drops. Lunch is some kind of fruit or vegetable puree, we tried lentils once so far. Dinner is always avocado since he likes it and it's high fat content helps him sleep better at night with fewer wake-ups.

It's really hard to balance working and caring for this tiny human. At the beginning of the semester, I had an infant insert on top of the pack and play. I would feed him and get him to fall asleep on the Boppy then transfer him to the PnP, which had a mattress on top. That would get me 30-40 minutes uninterrupted work time. But somehow, when my mom came to visit, we ended up regressing on that progress. We kind of went back to being held all the time.