breastfeeding – Page 7 – Keeping up with the Hoffmans

Baby Theo, breastfeeding, friends & family, health & body, monthly updates

Six months old.

November 25, 2013 Keeping up with the Hoffmans

What a fun age. Everyone says that about six months, but it’s so true. Theo has become less cranky and whiny almost overnight, smiles and laughs all the time, and is almost CRAWLING. Dear God, help us. I am so not ready for a mobile baby.

Stats: I’d guess around 17 lbs. I dropped the ball on making his six-month appointment and wasn’t able to get him in until next week and he’ll be almost seven months old by then. But when we took him in for an ear infection a few weeks ago and they weighed him, he was around 16 lbs.

Sleeping: Sleeping is finally getting better. I finally broke down and we started sleep training a little over a week ago (“Ferberizing”). I read two sleep books with opposing views: one – the Ferber method – is more traditional on letting them cry it out a bit, and the other one bills itself the “no cry sleep solution,” which is more in-line with attachment parenting style. I consider my parenting style to be somewhere in the middle. Since I was morally conflicted about how I felt about letting him cry (I didn’t want him to feel abandoned), I tried the no sleep version first. As I mentioned last month, I picked up some good pointers, but in the end, I wasn’t seeing the results we needed. So as painful as it was to listen to him cry, we embarked on a stricter sleep plan. At the end of the day, it’s important for his health to get more sleep.

We had two primary issues to deal with: teaching him to self-soothe, and getting him to eat less during the night. He’s old enough now that he shouldn’t have a physical need to eat during the night, but he had gotten used to it and so it was hard to break that. To teach self-soothing, Ferber recommends responding to his cries at increasing intervals of time, without picking him up. The idea is to let him know you’re there (shush him, pat his back, talk to him, etc.), but he should ultimately soothe himself without you and fall asleep on his own. So the first night you go in after 3 minutes, then 5 minutes, then every 10 minutes until he falls asleep. The second night starts at 5 minutes, then 10 minutes, then 12 minutes… and so on. Simultaneously, to reduce night nursing, we made him wait at least 2 hours before nursing the first night, 2 1/2 the second night, 3 hours the third night, and so on. So according to our sleep plan, if he woke and it had been enough time to nurse, I would. If not, we’d do the waiting intervals. Most nights he falls asleep again after only crying for 10-20 minutes, so we usually only have to go in once before he puts himself back to sleep. By the time he wakes the second time, it’s usually been enough time that I can nurse him. So we’ve been averaging two wakeups per night — one where we let him cry and put himself back to sleep, and one where I feed him. Oh, and did I mention we decided to put him in his own room/crib when we started this process? We figured it would be easiest to make the transition all at once.

We still have a ways to go before he’s sleeping through the night, but at just two wakeups per night, we’re in a much better place than we were just a couple weeks ago, and it really is nice to have our room back to ourselves.

Eating: Theo is really enjoying “solid” food (read: mush). We’ve been introducing one new food per week in order to keep an eye out for allergies or sensitivities. So far he’s had baby oatmeal cereal, avocado, carrots, sweet potato and peas. We may break our “one food per week” rule this Thursday on Thanksgiving and let him sample a few of the softer things from our plates. We’ve also introduced a sippy cup of water, just for practice. He still gets the hydration he needs from breastmilk, but the sippy cup is fun for him to learn on now, even if he’s not getting a lot out of it. He really loves it though! Nursing is still going well, though now that we’re trying to shift some of his caloric intake from the night to the daytime and sending him with more in his daycare bottles, I’m finding I’m having a harder time keeping up with demand when I’m pumping. I’m working to try to increase my supply, but in the meantime, I’m thankful I’ve been able to rebuild my freezer stash so we can dip into that as needed.

Likes/Dislikes: He is quite the social butterfly and loves anything where people are paying attention to him. Trips to the grocery store are essentially giant flirt-fests for him. He’ll stare at people until they look at him, and then crack a huge smile, which usually gets people cooing at him. He just eats it up. What a ham. Not crazy about his car seat or going on car rides these days. I don’t think he likes not being able to see us. Unfortunately, he’ll be rear-facing for quite a while longer, due to car safety guidelines. He fusses a lot when we first get in the car, but then he usually calms down after a while.

Mama: Not a lot is new with me. Doing well with my weight, but still soft around the middle. I have a crazy appetite these days. I’m way hungrier breastfeeding than I was pregnant. Thankfully breastfeeding burns so many calories. I’ll really miss being able to eat whatever I want once we wean! Still hoping to make it to a year breastfeeding, though if I can keep up my freezer supply, I’d love to give up pumping if my stash could carry me to the year mark and just nurse in the evenings and on weekends. I really do enjoy nursing for the most part, but would like to take my pump out into a field somewhere and beat it, Office Space style.

Here are some photos from the past month, including some professional family photos we had taken last weekend.

Trying to feed himself with a spoon. Needs practice... — Trying to feed himself with a spoon. Needs practice…

Baby Theo, breastfeeding, friends & family, monthly updates

Five months old.

November 1, 2013 Keeping up with the Hoffmans

(Make that, 5.5 months old)

I can’t believe we almost have a six month-old. It sounds so old! But I am loving watching this little guy become his own person. Every day is something new. It’s funny how I used to think we had an easy baby. I definitely do NOT think he is an easy baby anymore. To the contrary, he is proving himself to be quite the little handful, but I still love him just the same. I think he is going to be very smart, inquisitive, and will probably be the type to test his boundaries, if I had to guess from his personality. He will be keeping us on our toes, for sure!

Stats: Somewhere around 16 lbs. It will be interesting to find out for sure in a few weeks when he has his 6 month checkup.

Sleeping: Ugh. Just… ugh. It’s getting progressively worse. I read a book last month called The No Cry Sleep Solution, as I had hoped to help him develop better sleep habits without letting him “cry it out.” I picked up a few good pointers in the book, but I think I’m moving on to a more aggressive approach, and I just downloaded Solve Your Child’s Sleep Programs by Richard Ferber on my Kindle. “Ferberizing,” as it’s commonly known, does require some crying, but I think it’s for the best, as it’ll teach him to self-soothe. I’m learning through reading, though, that it’s not quite as brutal as I initially thought. You don’t just ignore them and let them cry alone for hours on end. You go in at longer and longer intervals to assure them you’re there, without just resorting to picking up and nursing, which is the one surefire way to instantly calm him.

That’s the hardest part about this whole thing. It’s like, would I rather just give into him so I can get some sleep tonight? Or should I be strong, so I can get more sleep in the long run? I know the latter sounds like a no-brainer, but when it’s 3 a.m. and I’m exhausted and I’m up with him for the third time that night, and I have to get up in two and a half hours to put in a full day at work, it’s just so much easier to pull him onto the boob so I (and he) can fall back asleep.

One thing we did start doing a few nights ago, is we got rid of the Magic Sleep Suit. It was super helpful for the transition from the swaddle, but I think we reached a point where it was keeping him from putting himself back to sleep when he would stir, as it kept him in one position on his back. Think about it: when you wake up in the middle of the night, you probably change positions, roll over, and fall back asleep. Since he couldn’t get into any other position than starfish flat on his back, I think it made him fussier. I’ve noticed a slight difference since we got rid of the sleep suit … though I’m afraid to even type that out, for fear of jinxing it! But I’ll occasionally hear him whimper through the baby monitor and if I wait it out instead of going to him immediately, sometimes he’ll roll over and then fall asleep on his own.

Eating: Oh, one thing I forgot to mention in my previous paragraph, that I think may be affecting sleep, is the fact that he is definitely eating a lot at night. I previously thought he was nursing just for comfort, but I went out of town for a couple nights two weeks ago and D was on his own with Theo for the first time overnight, and Theo drank EIGHT bottles between 7 p.m. and 4 a.m.!! So clearly he is taking in a lot more calories at night than we previously thought (reverse cycling). To help this, I’ve been slowly increasing the amount I’m sending him in his bottles to daycare, in hopes of getting him a little more full during the day.

We also tried solid food for the first time last weekend! I was originally going to wait until he officially reached 6 months, but I figure any extra calories I can get into him during the day can only help. And he’s also been totally eyeballing our food whenever we eat, so he was ready. We’re starting with just one feeding per day of baby oatmeal cereal, and this coming weekend we’ll move on to pureed veggies. I picked up some carrots and avocado this weekend, and I’m planning to start making my own baby food. I’ve heard from some people that it’s better to start with veggies instead of fruit, so they don’t learn to only like sweets… and I’ve heard from other people that you should start with fruit instead of veggies because it’s an easier transition and is sweet like breastmilk. As with all things baby, there is SOOO much conflicting advice out there! So I figured carrots and avocados were a good compromise. They’re veggies, but they’re on the sweeter side of things (unlike broccoli, which can be a little bitter). We’ll see. So far he loves oatmeal, although more food ends up all over him, the floor, the dogs, etc. than in his mouth. But he’ll figure it out.

Likes/Dislikes: As I mentioned earlier, he is developing quite a personality, and is not shy about telling us what he likes and doesn’t like. Still loves bath time. Seriously, I’ve never seen him so happy as when he’s in the tub. It’s incredibly cute. He goes bonkers in his Jumparoo, and is starting to like tummy time a lot more, now that he can move. He isn’t crawling yet, but that’s coming very soon. He does pushups, rolls, inchworms and scoots around in circles. He’s also starting to get better about sitting up. I can balance him and he’ll stay for a few seconds before toppling over. He loves looking at any kind of screen, so we’re trying to be more careful about not letting him “watch” too much TV. This screen fascination has made middle of the night nursing a bit more difficult since looking at Facebook or playing Candy Crush on my phone was previously the only way I could stay awake. Now it’s often way too distracting for him, though, since he’ll pull off and crane his neck to look at my phone instead of nursing.

Mama: I’m down below my pre-baby weight. Hooray! I actually weigh less than I have in years, though my midsection still needs some work. I’ve had to give up running for the time being, simply because I haven’t had the time. I’m hoping to pick that up again soon. I’m still pumping at work, though I’ve had a few days where things have gotten busy and I either haven’t had time to do it as often as I should, or I just simply forget. I almost never get that “full” feeling anymore when I need to empty, like I used to. So it’s way too easy to go longer than I should between pumping if I’m not watching the clock. I’m trying to be better about this since I don’t want my supply to start dropping. I’m almost halfway to my goal of breastfeeding for a year.

Okay, that’s about it for now. Here are some pictures from the past month:

This is what happens when Daddy dresses him. Yes, that is a nightgown he is wearing as a shirt.

Baby Theo, breastfeeding, monthly updates

Three months old.

August 15, 2013 Keeping up with the Hoffmans

True to form, I’m late on the monthly update. But this time I’m only six days late, so it’s getting better. At least the photo was taken on the exact day:

I can’t believe how big he is getting! And I think he is starting to look more and more like D. I am going to try to find some baby pictures of D for comparison.

Okay, here’s what’s happening at three months…

Stats: 13ish lbs. I weighed him in a very unscientific way of stepping on the scale with and without him and subtracting the numbers and I got about 13 lbs. I would have thought he would have been bigger by now, but I know the scale may not be that precise. Will be interesting to see how much he weighs next time he goes to the doctor, which I think should be around four months.

Sleeping: He actually gave us two nights in a row of sleeping through the night a couple weeks ago! And then just when I got my hopes up that this was going to be the new normal, he totally regressed. He’s now back to waking up every 3-4 hours, and we’re having some issues with the swaddle. He fusses and can’t fall asleep unless his arms are immobilized, yet he wakes himself (and consequently, us) up a few hours later, grunting and busting his arms out. It’s sort of a lose-lose situation. If I don’t swaddle him, he can’t fall asleep. If I swaddle him, he won’t stay asleep. I did some searching online and found a few recommendations for a product called the Magic Sleepsuit. It kind of reminds me of the snowsuit Randy wears in A Christmas Story. Supposedly it partially immobilizes their arms so they don’t flail around so much or wake themselves up with their reflexes. It’s $40, though, which would be worth it if it works (sleep is a glorious thing), but I’d be afraid of wasting my money if it didn’t help. I may check Craigslist, Ebay and consignment stores and see if I can find one used – less risk that way!

Eating: I’ve documented our breastfeeding struggles here and here. Thankfully, we seem to be getting into a better groove now! Theo is eating 4 to 5, 3-ounce bottles while I’m at work — usually four at daycare and one D feeds him before I get home. He’s taking a bottle great now, and I’m finally pumping enough to get him through the next day, and even usually have a couple surplus ounces I can scald and freeze. I’ll be going to a friend’s wedding in LA in October and leaving Theo home with D, so my goal is to have at least 90 ounces in my freezer stash before then. Shouldn’t be a problem at the rate I’m going now, which is a relief! T is still nursing every 2-3 hours when we’re home together, though I’ve noticed he sometimes gets a little fussy at the boob now. Hopefully he isn’t starting to get frustrated with the slower flow. Bottles tend to have a faster flow than the breast, so sometimes babies can get too used to bottles and frustrate easily when they can’t get the milk as fast from the boob. That would be just our luck! First he prefers the boob and doesn’t take a bottle, and then he prefers the bottle and won’t take a boob?! Knock on wood that’s not the direction we’re headed!

Personality: He is sooo much fun. Smiles all the time and just loves to look at everyone. He’s getting really interactive. If you smile, he’ll smile back. If you talk to him, he’ll babble back. Sometimes he’ll babble up at me while he’s breastfeeding, and it’s just the cutest thing. I tell him not to talk with his mouth full (never too early for manners!). Just the other day he scratched his head and it was the funniest. He’s been dealing with cradle cap and it must be itchy. I can’t explain it, but it’s just so cool to see little him do the most ordinary things. He gets more and more “human” every day!

Likes/Dislikes: Still loves being changed, and loves bath time too. He prefers to look around and be upright most of the time. We put him in his Bumbo chair for the first time a couple weeks ago, and he loved it! He used to love his swing, but he seems to be falling out of love with it, and I think it’s because he’s too reclined to really look around. He’ll still nap in it when he’s really tired, but forget about using it to calm him when he’s fussy. The swinging motion used to calm him right down, but now putting him in the swing while he’s fussing will make him quickly escalate from fussing to screaming. He is starting to like his crib more, even though he still doesn’t sleep in it. He likes to look up at his mobile, though, and sometimes I’ll put him in there while I hang clothes or tidy up his room. Lately he’s been going through a phase where he just wants to be held most of the time (upright, of course). He’ll fuss if you set him down, or even sit down while holding him, but if you’re standing and he’s able to look over your shoulder, he’s happy as a clam. I’ve been watching a lot of TV while standing up lately…

Mama: I’m feeling pretty much back to normal now, though I’m still nowhere near bikini ready and my weight loss seems to have stalled out at around 4-5 lbs over my pre-pregnancy weight. I haven’t really done much exercise, though, and hope to change that soon. It’s just so hard to find time since my workdays are long and when I’m home, I just want to spend time with my baby. I think I may start up a “Couch to 5k” program next week, though, and take Stewie running with me in the mornings on the days I work from home. I think the dogs have been feeling a little neglected lately!

That’s about all for now. I’ll wrap this up with some recent favorite photos:

Theo and his daddy in matching swim trunks.

2013-07-14 18.47.49 — “Is that my foot?”

2013-07-17 20.30.12 — Talking to his great grandma.

2013-07-19 15.18.24 — Business casual, pants optional.

2013-07-20 15.02.48 — Sitting in his Bumbo seat.

2013-07-21 08.49.47 — Sleeping like an angel.

2013-07-21 12.44.58 — “Watching” the Mariners in his Bumbo seat.

2013-07-22 13.15.24 — Like father, like son.

2013-07-31 19.07.44 — Nomming on his toy.

2013-08-04 20.31.35 — Trying out the Jumparoo.

Baby Theo, breastfeeding

Moo, part two.

August 5, 2013 Keeping up with the Hoffmans

As I mentioned in a previous post, I recently ran into a pretty big hurdle with breastfeeding: the discovery that my milk contains too much lipase, an enzyme that breaks down fats, causing the milk to go bad quickly. Well, I’m happy to say that despite having to start my freezer stash over from scratch, I’ve gotten in a pretty good routine of scalding my milk, and it’s only slightly more inconvenient than normal pumping.

Unfortunately, after going back to work last week I came to the realization that I’m not pumping as much as Theo is eating while away from me. As I mentioned earlier, he ate everything I sent him with on day two by 2 p.m. I had sent him with the entire 14 ounces I had pumped the day before. Since I had pumped three times the first day (9 a.m, noon and 3 p.m.), I decided to up my pumping sessions on day two (9 a.m., 11:30 a.m., 2 p.m. and 4 p.m.). Still got 14 ounces. On top of T eating those 14 ounces at daycare, D fed him about 6 more ounces from my meager freezer stash before I got home. So it appears I need to be pumping about 20 ounces per day to keep up with his demand while I’m away.

Well, crap.

I had no prior indication that I might have an issue with supply. Theo eats like a champ when he’s getting it straight from the boob. And he’s gaining weight beautifully, according to our pediatrician. Also, ever since he was about 4 weeks old I’ve been doing one extra pumping session per day for the purpose of building a freezer stash, and I would regularly get 5-6 ounces out of that session, which felt like a good amount to me. Unfortunately, what I discovered after going back to work and pumping 3-4 times per day is that my pumping output gets progressively smaller throughout the day. In order to continue feeling him breastmilk exclusively while I’m away from him, I need to be consistently getting 5-6 ounces from each and every session. And ideally I’d be getting more than that, so I can continue to stash some extra in the freezer for backup.

So, over the weekend I went on a mission to increase my supply. Here’s how:

Nurse, nurse, nurse. Best way to increase supply is to empty frequently. And the baby is the most efficient way to empty. So I’m trying to feed Theo as much as possible and am letting him eat for as long as he wants. (And now that I’ve returned to work, he’s been eating more frequently and averaging about 45 minutes per session, versus his usual 15-20 minutes)
Pump after nursing. After T finishes, I hook up to the pump for an additional 10 minutes or so. Most of the time I get less than a half ounce total, proving that the baby really is pretty efficient. But I’m combining the milk from all these bonus pumps and by the end of the day I have about 2-3 ounces that I can add to my freezer stash. Plus, even if I’m not getting much, the idea is that the pump will stimulate me to make more. Here’s hoping it pays off, because it’s super annoying. Have I mentioned how much I really hate pumping? Not to mention, once I finish one of T’s marathon nursing sessions, pump, and then clean pump parts and store my milk, it’s almost time to nurse again.
Lactation cookies. I got this recipe from the lactation consultant at the hospital after T was born, so I went ahead and made them on Saturday. They contain oatmeal, brewers yeast and flaxseed, which are all supposed to boost lactation. And they taste pretty good! Don’t have to twist my arm to get me to eat cookies!
Beer. Another piece of advice from the hospital’s lactation nurse was to drink a beer per day. Again, don’t need to twist my arm! I’ve been doing this almost every day since T was born, and now I’m definitely making sure I do.
Fenugreek. This is an herbal supplement that’s known to boost milk supply. Supposedly the side effect is that it makes your pee and sweat smell like maple syrup. I haven’t noticed anything yet, but it’s only been two days.
Water. I’ve been trying to up my water intake, as that’s supposed to help with supply. I’ve never been very good about drinking the recommended 8 glasses per day.
Oatmeal. Along with the oats in the lactation cookies, I’m eating oatmeal for breakfast every morning.
Longer pumping sessions. I was pumping for 15 minutes per session, but I’m stretching that to 20 minutes, in hopes of squeezing just a little more out. I’m thankful that I have a hands free setup and my own office with a door so I can keep working while doing so.

Unfortunately, I haven’t noticed a difference just yet, but at least I’ve had the weekend to get a few bonus pumps in so I had enough milk to send with him to daycare this morning. I just hope today’s output is enough to feed him Tuesday, or we may need to start thinking about supplementing with formula. It’s really something I had wanted to avoid, but I need to remember that formula is not the devil. Feeding your baby is feeding your baby. I just wish my body would cooperate so I could feed my baby the way I want.

Baby Theo, breastfeeding

Back to reality…

August 4, 2013 Keeping up with the Hoffmans

Last Thursday I went back to work. There were many tears involved; mostly mine.

I knew it would be hard to leave Theo, but I actually was proud of myself for only shedding a few tears when I dropped him off the first day. It was nice to see coworkers again and I was actually feeling pretty good about getting back into the swing of things, until I got an email from D, letting me know our daycare provider had called to tell him Theo was refusing the bottle. Suddenly, all the emotions I had been doing a good job at holding back came pouring out. I had to close my door and have a good cry. Why did I have to come back to work? Why do we have to live in such a high cost of living area where we need my income? Why couldn’t I have been born in a different decade where moms were expected to stay home? And since I had no control over any of those things, I blamed myself: why couldn’t we have done a better job getting Theo used to a bottle before starting daycare?

I managed to pull myself together long enough to get through a call, and then I closed my door again and called our daycare provider to check in. She said Theo was doing a little better with the bottle, but I could hear him crying in the background. It broke my heart and I had to have another good cry in my office. Thankfully D was able to leave work early to go get him, and said he gulped down a bottle once he got T home. Who knows why he resisted the bottle so much at daycare – maybe it was just the unfamiliarity of it all – but I was finally able to relax, knowing he was at home with his dad and at least wasn’t hungry anymore. When I got home that night, he nursed for a really long time, and then wanted to eat again about an hour later and got in another long nursing session. He also woke up twice that night to nurse. I’ve heard of babies “reverse cycling” when they start daycare, and I think that might be what he’s doing. So, just when I really need to start getting more sleep, it looks like I may be getting less until T gets used to his new routine.

Thankfully D has a flexible schedule, because he ended up having to pick T up early again the next day. This time, instead of refusing the bottle, he had downed everything I had sent him with by 2 p.m. So we’re still figuring things out, and I need to make sure I’m pumping enough (more about that later). The good news is, dropping him off the second day was ten times easier than it was the first day.

So, yeah… about pumping. Pumping at work will definitely take some getting used to. Aside from carving out time in my day to do this 3-4 times, it’s just plain weird. I texted D on my first day and told him I was topless in my office. His reply: “A raise is a raise. The glass ceiling isn’t going to move itself.” (LOL). I will say, on that first day I was especially thankful to have an office with a door where I can cry and/or go topless as needed. Now there’s an odd sentence!

The good news is that I’ve set some boundaries with work that I think will make being back at work more manageable. While I used to regularly stay past 6 p.m. and not get home until 7:30 or later, I told them I would be leaving at 5 p.m. every day, and would log on again from home if I needed to finish anything up. I’m also going to work from home two days per week. Prior to maternity leave I was already working from home on Tuesdays, so I’ll continue that, and will also have a floating WFH day that I’ll determine on a week-to-week basis, depending on meetings. We’ll still have T in fulltime childcare since I can’t watch a baby and get work done at the same time, but at least I can get 3 hours back in my day by eliminating my long commute.

So, while the first day was pretty rough, I must say I’m feeling much more confident about maintaining a work-life balance. I think I can actually do this whole working mom thing!

Theo on his first day of "school." — Theo on his first day of “school.”

Baby Theo, breastfeeding, health & body, musings

I am woman, hear me moo!

July 20, 2013July 20, 2013 Keeping up with the Hoffmans

Long before I was pregnant, I knew I wanted to breastfeed. It’s just one of those things that I knew would be important to me for numerous reasons: the health of the baby and increased immunity, the cost (formula is expensive, yo!), helping me get back in shape (can’t argue with burning an extra 500 calories a day while sitting on the couch!), and just the overall emotional bond. Not that women who bottle feed don’t bond with their babies – I’m not trying to start a mommy war here – but there is just something about holding the baby skin to skin, knowing you are providing him with all the sustenance he needs to grow… it just felt like a right of passage to me as a mother. It’s a personal choice, but my goal was to do this for one year and try to avoid formula altogether.

I wasn’t naive to think breastfeeding would be all puppies and rainbows, though. I suppose one of the benefits of being some of the last of our friends to have a baby is that I’ve been able to learn a lot through everyone else’s experiences. I can’t think of one friend who didn’t have at least a couple hurdles to get over in her breastfeeding journey. From poor latch, to engorgement, to cracked and bleeding nipples, to mastitis, to diminishing supply, I had heard it all, and so I read up on everything I could get my hands on. I went into this feeling like I was pretty well-prepared. So it’s ironic that the one issue I didn’t study ahead of time would prove to be my biggest challenge.

As I mentioned previously, we had a couple small hurdles to get over at the beginning of our breastfeeding journey, including a bad latch and falling asleep at the boob. Once we got over these issues, though, we were able to settle into a good groove and I actually began to enjoy breastfeeding. I counted myself lucky for the relative ease of it. I didn’t even leak. I was comfortable feeding whenever and wherever, thanks to my nursing cover, which I love. So much easier that packing bottles, since I can’t accidentally leave my boobs at home.

When Theo was about four weeks old, I started pumping once a day. I needed to start building a freezer stash that we could use when he went to daycare, or if we wanted a night out. We gave him his first bottle, and he did okay on it. The flow was a little faster than the real deal, so I ordered some slower flow bottle nipples, and he seemed to do great. For the next few weeks, we gave him one bottle per week, to keep him in practice. Meanwhile, I dutifully pumped every day, and even though I really hate pumping, I had built up quite an impressive freezer stash, and I recently estimated I had about 300 ounces squirreled away.

But after a few weeks, we got lax on giving him his weekly bottle, and when I dipped into the frozen stuff for the first time last week to have D give him a bottle, he outright refused it. In fact, he was screaming, he was so hungry, but just wouldn’t take the bottle. I think I got my first dose of what’s known to working moms as “mommy guilt.” As I sat there listening to him cry, hooked up to my cold, noisy, mechanical pump, tears streaming down my face, all I wanted to do was comfort my baby. And if it weren’t for the fact that I’m returning to work in two weeks, it wouldn’t be so important to get him to take a bottle. I had these visions of him on his first day of daycare, scared, hungry and wanting his mommy. It was too much for me to handle, and I unhooked from the pump, snatched him out of D’s arms and put him to my breast. He immediately calmed down. It was one of the most emotional moments I’ve had since he was born. I can’t describe it, but as a mother, there’s just something so primal about the need to feed your baby. Listening to him scream from hunger pains broke my heart into a million pieces.

At first we thought the bottle itself was the problem, since we hadn’t given him one in a couple weeks. So D and I vowed to start giving him bottles more often to get him used to them again. We had a few different kinds, so we experimented with different bottles. We weren’t having much luck. After a few frustrating attempts, I wondered if maybe it was the milk, since the problem seemed to have started at the same time we started feeding the frozen stuff. I gave it a sniff and – wow – it smelled terrible! Sour, metallic, and slightly soapy. Dipped a finger in and tasted it – yuck. No wonder Theo was refusing. But, since I had never made a point to smell or taste my milk before, I had nothing to compare it to. So I quickly pumped a small amount and smelled it – no odor at all. Dipped a finger in and tasted it – it tasted sweet. Clearly something was wrong with the frozen stuff. I vaguely recalled reading about this in one of my books, so off to the internet I went. From everything I read, it sounded like I had found my problem. Essentially, some women have too much lipase in their milk, an enzyme that breaks down fat, causing the milk to take on a bad flavor in a short period of time. It varies in extremes – for some women, this happens mere minutes after expressing. Others can store their milk in the refrigerator for a few days before it starts to go bad. But in all cases, freezing doesn’t do anything to slow this breakdown, so while most women can freeze their milk and store it for months, the only way to freeze milk when you have excess lipase is to scald it first. This involves bringing the milk to almost but not quite boiling, and then cooling it quickly.

Sound like a lot of work? It is. So in addition to my anxiety about leaving my baby, going back to work and pumping 3-4 times per day, and missing the special time T and I have breastfeeding throughout the day, now I have an extra step to take in storing my milk. Not to mention, those 300 ounces of liquid gold I’ve worked so hard to pump are now useless. That part was especially devastating. Anyone who’s breastfed knows how valuable that milk is. I’ve cried before over accidentally spilling 6 ounces while transferring it to a freezer bag. And now I have to throw out 300 ounces? Kill me now. If only I had tested my freezer stash sooner, I might have been able to prevent all this waste. I have heard that milk banks will take milk with excess lipase, as it’s not harmful; it just tastes bad. Milk banks use it to tube-feed babies in the NICU, so it doesn’t matter what it tastes like. It’s also combined with other milk, so the lipase is diluted anyway. It’s something I need to look into more, but I would feel better about donating my stash than just throwing it all away. What a waste.

So, over the past few days I’ve been defrosting milk from various dates just to make sure it’s all bad (it is), and conducting a series of experiments to find out just how much of a grace period I have after pumping. If my milk will stay good until the next day, then I can essentially just pump each day at work for the following day, and on Fridays scald my milk for Monday. And any excess that I pump that is more than he’ll need the next day at daycare, I can scald for rebuilding my freezer stash, and hopefully D and I can have a date night someday. However, if my milk goes bad within less than 24 hours, then I’ll have to scald nightly. And if my milk goes bad shortly after pumping, I’ll have to find a way to scald at work, or possibly use formula while he’s at daycare. The problem with supplementing with formula, though, is that without pumping for every feed, my supply will drop, or possibly dry up altogether.

So this morning after pumping, I did my first scalding. I hope I did it right. I’ll need to pump and scald a couple times per day between now and August 1, when I go back to work, so I have enough milk for his first day and a little extra for “insurance.” It’s not going to be an easy road, and switching to formula would probably be the easier route, but this is something that’s important to me, and it’s the path I’ve chosen to take.

Moo.