Tag: new mom

7 Tips For Nursing With Large Breasts

hollymilkowski February 14, 2018

Women with large breasts (and those who are also heavier all around) may face special challenges when it comes to breastfeeding.

Plus-sized women are less likely to breastfeed than normal-weight mothers, a study found. This may begin soon after birth as plus-sized mothers’ milk is often delayed to come in, causing these mothers to abandon it. Even if a mother is not curvy all around but simply has very large (DD-cup or bigger) breasts, she may struggle with unique problems that are typically not discussed in breastfeeding classes.

Unless you believe you might have gigantomastia (read about it in the links below), here are a few tips that can help.*

*Please note, I’m not plus-sized or large breasted. These tips were compiled from other sources that attest to their reliability, not from my own personal experience.

If I Could Give Only 5 Pieces of Breastfeeding Advice To a New Mom

hollymilkowski January 6, 2017

If you could give only five pieces of breastfeeding advice to a new mother, what would you say? Here’s what I’d tell her.

D.I.Y. Postpartum Padsicles

hollymilkowski April 20, 2016

Postpartum Padsicles bring soothing relief to sore, swollen, tender tissues after childbirth. Even if you didn’t tear or didn’t have an episiotomy, your (strong yet) sensitive passageway of life will thank you for looking out!

They fit nicely into those postpartum diapers or mesh panties you’ll be wearing for a while, too.

You’ll need about 18-24. I made 30 — just to cover my butt (ha).

Colic in the Breastfed Baby

hollymilkowski March 12, 2016

Via mybabyneedthis.com

Preparing Big Sibling For a Baby

hollymilkowski March 3, 2016

Not too many weeks after the positive pregnancy test, we told MaiTai he was going to be a big brother.

We wondered if he even knew what it meant to be a brother… to have a brother or sister… or even the differences between himself at not quite three years old and a newborn baby, much less one in a womb. He knows what a womb is, right?

We had a lot of work to do! Or so I thought.

It’s OK to Love Your Pregnant Body

hollymilkowski February 29, 2016

You are interesting. You carry a mystery, an unexplained power, a blessing that gets bigger every day. Do you not see the way you evoke turned heads with that package of life centered right on your body, one that might feel fragile to you, or burdensome with its new demand for constant responsibility and attention?

Have you forgotten (or have you ever really considered what it means) that “a woman’s body is the first environment”?

I tell myself this now…

But almost four years ago as a first-time mother, I couldn’t appreciate the changes in my body during three trimesters’ worth of pregnancy and the fourth trimester postpartum.

(Lyrics Parody) My Bump, My Bump, My Lovely Baby Bump

hollymilkowski December 30, 2015

Black Eyed Peas (singer Fergie, left, pregnant with first baby). Via Hello Magazine.

Just what the world was waiting for: An updated baby bumpin’ version of Black Eyed Peas’ “My Humps”!

I spent way too much time on this admittedly frivolous post so I hope you enjoy it. 🙂

Here are the words to the original song “My Humps” performed by Black Eyed Peas.

And now my maternity-inspired lyrics rewrite….

Are You an Expert at Guessing An Unborn Baby’s Sex? (Plus 28 Old Wives’ Tales)

hollymilkowski November 7, 2015

There are quite a few ways to guess a baby’s sex. As far as concluding whether to expect a boy or girl, you could try the Nub Theory, Ramzi Method, over-the-counter gender test kits, Harmony test or chorionic villus sampling or amniocentesis done at a medical facility, and probably some other things I’ve yet to discover.

Old wives’ tales aren’t rooted in any kind of fancy science, but they can be fun to test out. Who wants to get all technical with fun anyways?!

Think you can accurately predict an unborn baby’s sex? Here’s a rundown of many common old wives’ tales that claim to know the secret behind your baby’s sex. You can use these clues along with the comparisons between my first pregnancy with a boy and my second/current pregnancy with a… well, you make the guess and let me know what you think 🙂

I’ll reveal the answer in an upcoming post!

(FYI, it’s the sex not the gender we find out by noting what type of gonads a baby has… though I get how the term “Gender Reveal Party” caught on whereas the potentially confusing “Sex Reveal Party” never will. And another side wondering: why don’t any of these tests account for potential intersex babies?).

Want to Get Real-Life Defriended by a Mother? Say These 12 Things

hollymilkowski October 13, 2015

Anyone who follows this site will understand this post is *OBVIOUSLY SATIRICAL.*

Newcomers, take a moment to think about what the above picture symbolizes to you. The mother, naked and vulnerable, preserves a bubble of peace with her baby, in seemingly necessary quarantine from the bold, harsh words that hope to infiltrate their haven with little concern for the affect it might have upon them.

Here are not-so-uncommon perspectives (inspired by actual commentary I’ve seen or heard) that demonstrate how to upset and further isolate yourself from the not-so-uncommon kind of woman described above.

1). Let him cry… it’s good for his lungs.

Then try to convince her that dropping him on his head is good for his brain.

2). You’ll spoil her.

A baby spoils by being carried just like an apple spoils simply by being carried. That’s how it works.

3). She’ll never learn to walk.

Then you can explain how it’s better for both of them if the child is forced to walk everywhere. It’s not like it’d inhibit the mother from moving about in a timely manner or result in the child feeling abandoned. Read More

What Babies Aren’t

hollymilkowski September 21, 2015

Babies aren’t pizzas.

They’re not delivered… They’re born.

Babies aren’t punches on a time card.

They don’t come “too early” or “too late.” They meet us when they’re meant to.

Babies aren’t dolls.

Their noises have meaning. They can’t be “put away.” Their bodies are worth respecting.

If You Never See Breastfeeding…

hollymilkowski July 14, 2015

If you never see breastfeeding, you’re missing awareness of a few things, or a true understanding of the whole thing — just like I was before I eventually saw it.

This way of child nurturing is so natural it can easily blend in with everything else we attend to in our domestic, professional, and social lives. But blending in is not equal to disappearing.

If you never see it, you may not know it’s how many women learn to become mothers. You may not know it’s how they continue to learn about who they are as mothers. So we must make a point to not let the image and act of breastfeeding disappear.

Coming Out From Under the Covers

hollymilkowski January 23, 2015

I was waiting on my dinner at a restaurant, newly pregnant with my first child. Though I sat at the table preparing to nourish myself and, by default, my unborn baby, I wasn’t too familiar with the feeding of an infant outside the womb. After all, I’d only ever fed myself, my dogs, and my goldfish (and a few plants, but that never ended well).

I was ignorant to the issues moms face when feeding babies outside of their wombs. I knew nothing of a “formula versus breast milk” controversy. I knew nothing of the media-fueled “Mommy Wars.” I knew nothing of how women are harassed for feeding their babies however they choose to do so. I had a lot of assumptions, but you see, assumptions are like opinions, and you know what they say about those.

6 “Helpful” Things You Should Stop Saying to Moms Who are Nursing in Public

hollymilkowski October 28, 2014

We all know the deserved reaction to harsh comments about breastfeeding in public. Someone who says “That’s gross!” might benefit from being handed a therapist’s business card. Someone who insists “No one wants to SEE that!” could use a reminder that it takes only 30 degrees of movement to make a publicly breastfeeding pair disappear from peripheral view, if so necessary. Whoever snidely laughs, “Stop trying so hard to prove a point!” may be appropriately received with literature on biology and survival (preferably a hardback cover straight to the face), the “point” of ensuring that our children stay alive and happy.

What concerns me more than the pitifully ignorant and sadly classless ones are the well-intentioned ones who occasionally say the wrong thing too, and risk causing as much harm as the jerks. For especially sensitive women (read: virtually all postpartum mothers), certain phrases, questions, statements can be taken the wrong way.

The 7 Grossest Breastfeeding Ads

hollymilkowski October 15, 2014

It’s Great That Baby Likes to Suck, but Breastfeeding Straight-Up SUCKS!

hollymilkowski September 1, 2014

If breastfeeding had remained static in all the physically burdensome, emotionally draining, and psychologically-testing aspects as it were in the first six weeks or so, then would I still be nursing?

Well, yes!

But I say that only because I grew a whole other heart for breastfeeding as time progressed. Breastfeeding may have helped shrink my uterus back into its petite pre-partum shape, but it created something else entirely to take its place. Something knitted of emotions, and big enough to house a whole growing child.

Of course, the answer that makes more sense is… No.