Leaky boobs are more of an imposition upon convenience rather than a condition needing a “cure.” If your faucets just don’t seem to turn off, know that although your shirts will get damp, it shouldn’t put a damper on your breastfeeding success. Read More
Tag: baby
Beautiful Quotes in Celebration of Mothers
“A mother is she who can take the place of all others but whose place no one else can take.” ― Cardinal Mermillod Read More
No More Babies: How I Really Feel (Last Child Grief)
Thoughts at 4 Months Postpartum
I only have two children, and two will be my only. We always planned to have two kids for the usual reasons: financial resources, practicality, health reasons, familiarity, and so on.
This pregnancy and postpartum were much different than the first. I suspect it has much to do with knowing they’ll be my last.
I feel the postpartum slipping away. My youngest is now four months old, which means a little more than a trimester ago he was playing, breathing, wriggling, and listening in my womb.
For these past months I’ve watched my body turn into something blooming and abundant to swollen and rumpling to deflated and limp, stressed from constant demands upon it and weak from the the endless drill of late nights and early mornings. I’ve felt unmotivated to move into a new chapter, for I know once that happens, I won’t get to call myself ‘newly postpartum.’ In my case, not ever again.
This is now the body I’m left with. Rather, this is the body I get to keep. I’ve got more skin than I had before, a herniated navel, and my hair seems to be grieving with me as it sheds like a willow in the fall.
I think I’ll say I’m no longer ‘postpartum’ when my linea nigra disappears. The first time it took a year. I think that’s when I’ll stop telling people “I just had a baby…”
Right now my body is a signpost of declarations that say this shop is closed, be back soon. I know better because my intentions are steps ahead; I know the shop is closed indefinitely. Read More
Breastfeeding With a Weaned One Watching
I wrote a post a while back about wondering whether 3.5 year old MaiTai would tandem nurse with his baby brother, Julep. MaiTai was still nursing regularly then, and it wasn’t until my eighth month of pregnancy that he stopped altogether (minus a few ‘test tries’ to see if the milk had changed its taste yet).
Between then and now, he’d accumulated a host of new bigger-kid needs and the long-standing breastfeeding one got booted to the back of his priority list.
Engorgement: Just Keep Cool (Cabbage Leaves On Hand)
It’s pretty sucky when you’re up to your armpits in swollen milk machinery, none of your clothes fit, and your boobs suddenly feel like they might actually burst open as if they, too, overindulged in too much Easter feasting the day prior (ugh, when will they start making nursing bras out of stretchy pants?).
I had oversupply, and would wake up many mornings for months so engorged that I could see my milk ducts rippling through the taut skin, totally horror flick style. The problem was exacerbated during my four months -long pumping stint, which tricked my body into scrambling to provide for MaiTai’s nonexistent twin, or so it felt convinced. And so, every day it made sure my milk-makers were stretched out to wazoo. It defied the laws of physics, really.
Maternity in Photos & Words
“The life of a mother is the life of a child: you are two blossoms on a single branch.”
– Karen Maezen Miller
What Breastfeeding Isn’t
Often I see this normal form of infant feeding and child comforting compared to farting, losing one’s bowel functions in public, pedophilia, a cry for attention, or a number of other things that are definitely not breastfeeding. So here’s a little reminder for those of you who are still confused about what breastfeeding actually is.
Infant Feeding Today Pt. 1: Why Isn’t Every Baby Breastfed?
In this series you’ll find information about formula and other milks commonly given to young children, presented as may be relevant to breastfeeding mothers and their babies. This is, after all, a site speaking mainly to mothers who wish to learn about breastfeeding.
I hope I don’t come across as a breastfeeding snob, as this is not a formula-user bashing blog. No one can guarantee that I won’t be a formula feeder myself one day, or that I wasn’t one in a past life… And I myself was a 100% formula baby. I was made from the stuff.
We’ve all heard “breast is best,” but some of us would still be hard-pressed to name all the benefits of breast milk over artificial milk if randomly questioned. Many women admit they didn’t breastfeed simply because they weren’t aware of much difference between human milk and artificial milk, and many say they wish they had tried — if only they’d known.
According to the most recent numbers, lots of mothers do supplement with formula or cow milk or at some point switch to them entirely. As such, a discussion about these alternatives as used by breastfeeding mothers is an unavoidable one.
Don’t Let a Breast Lump Turn You Into a Grump!
I know, an extra bump in the lady lumps can be annoying! And confusing. Or worrisome. Painful even!
But before jumping to conclusions (and the medicine cabinet), it’s important to first determine what the lump truly is. An abscess? A plugged duct? Something more serious? Your health provider can give you a diagnosis and treatment options, but most of the time lumps found during breastfeeding can be resolved without a trip to the doctor.
Read on to find out more…
Taming the Thrush Monster
Once you’ve heard of thrush, trust me — you’ll know it when it finds you.
Feeling the drag of what must be broken glass shards from the top of your breast, downward and heavy through the bottom to the release of letdown? That’s thrush.
The experience of seeming white-hot razor blades slicing round and round your areola in sickening circular motion as baby nurses? That also can be thrush.
Seizing up with dread before every feed, knowing (and sweating bullets over) the least pain that might come, and imagining the worst that could, and that sometimes does come? Well, that too is a hand-walker with thrush.
Are We Going To Tandem Nurse? That Is The Question, Isn’t It…
And The Answer Is…
As with everything experienced in our breastfeeding journey, there’s no predicting what direction this nursing relationship will take with MaiTai once his little womb-dwelling brother needs sustenance ‘on the outside.’ MaiTai is currently older than three years old and will turn three-and-a-half when his baby brother is born.
And he’s still nursing… technically.