Being Thankful - Day 17

Today I am thankful for my milk supply. 

Huh?  Whatever do I mean?  Let me explain...

When I was pregnant with Jayna, I read books, went to classes, everything just to make sure that I did it all the right way.  One of the classes that I attended was for breastfeeding.  They taught us about positions, timing, etc.  When it came to pumping, they said to wait 2-3 weeks to make sure that the milk supply is well established.  So that is what I did.  I didn't know much about having a good pump, so I used an older model.  I don't know that these were the reasons that I wasn't successful in pumping, but it never worked for me.  I breastfed Jayna for 4 months and she was a very healthy baby, but when she hit a growth spurt at 4 months old and wanted to eat every 2 hours again, I couldn't do it.  And since I wasn't able to pump any extra for her, we switched to formula. 

Looking back, I should have pumped longer, I should have had a better pump to begin with, I should have pumped after each feeding.  I felt like at the time, I had exhausted all of my resources... I called the La Leche League for advice, I drank way too much water, I took supplements and nothing helped...

When I was pregnant with Barrett, I took another class as a refresher.  In this class, they gave some different advice.  They said to start pumping immediately to help get a strong start.  They also said to pump right after each feeding to empty out.  This tells your body that it needed all of the milk it made.  If you don't express it, the body thinks "I don't need this, so I won't make as much next time".  I was a lot more successful in pumping that time around.  I used a different pump that my friend, Bobbie Jo let me borrow.  I nursed Barrett for 5 months and I had enough milk stored in the freezer to get him through another 3 weeks.  When I stopped nursing, I thought that the milk would last a lot longer... I didn't know!

So this go round... my goal was 6 months!  I decided not to take any classes and I wasn't going to stress about it.  I was just going to give it my best!  My sister-in-law gave me a book about breastfeeding.  I will admit, I didn't read the whole book, but I did hit on some things that I wanted to know more about.  I also started following some FB pages about breastfeeding to get information on common questions and problems that breastfeeding moms encounter. 

When I was in the hospital after having George, one of the nursery nurses gave me some additional tips and encouragement.  It made me think that I could nurse for a whole year.  Women do it all the time, right?  Also, with each delivery you are supposed to produce more milk.  I honestly can't remember where I heard or read that, so it might not be true.  It seems like it though... I am so thankful for the milk production that I have right now!  I have been able to feed George and pump an additional 12-24 ounces a day!  I can't believe it myself!  I was happy with an extra 6 ounces and then it went to 8 and then quickly to 12.  In the past few weeks, I started pumping 18 extra on a regular basis.  In the last week, I have had several days of pumping 24 ounces.  I completely expect this production to drop since returning to work, but I feel very confident in being able to nurse for 6 months at this point and I even think I might be able to go a year... yep!   :)

We bought this small freezer before George was born and now it's almost full....

I might need to buy another freezer soon! 

 We thought that organizing it in boxes would be easier, but it actually takes up too much room, so we need to come up with another way of organizing it to make sure we use the oldest stuff first.  This means constant circulating.

 

 

Got milk? 

 

haha