My Breastfeeding Journey (Part 3)

This time, this is definitely gonna be the part that most parent dislike the most, but definitely no way of avoiding this. I mean, everybody does this no matter the age. POOP. Yes, everybody dislikes this part, same goes to me. But you still gotta clean up that mess your kids made. 

Normally people would think that it naturally stinks. But believe me, breastfed babies stools smell differently. Not badly stinky smelly type, but more like stinging maybe like sickly sweet smell. That's how I would describe it. Most parents would not be sure how it would look like or smell like or even how many times a baby would poop a day or within a week. Questions like that arises all the time because, this is definitely how you'd monitor your babies health.

Source: https://www.facebook.com/groups/TheBreastfeedingAdvocatesNetwork/

This picture above says it all. Follow the guides and it will tell you perfectly how a baby roughly should be although most people would say, different babies different thing. More or less true that. But, generally, it should follow as per the picture. This way you do not need to worry if they are well fed or not. 

Another part related to poop is that, most mothers raise their concerns that when their babies reach 2 months and above, some babies just don't poop for more than 3-4 days. Now, reverted from my pediatrician, some babies just don't poop for up to 7 days. But once over the 7th day, you better bring the baby to go check up. I mean, you don't want to get bloated belly and not knowing what's going on inside. Bad stuff.

Again, different babies different thing. Once a mother even shared that her baby did not poop near to a month, either you send the baby to check up or some would revert that if the baby is fully breastfed, they can even go up to 40 days no poop. So long the baby is healthy, good appetite, clear urine, no fatigue or temperature, then all is good. You'd be worrying for no pooping, but some mothers worry bout pooping almost every feeding, THAT is normal too. 

Poop colors may change from time to time due to mommies diet, for instance, that greenish poop could be from moderate to heavy fruits and vegetables intake or more foremilk than hindmilk. Differences in poop color, you may refer to this useful bunch of information here: Diaper Decoder. There's nothing to be worried about usually when it comes to poop and pee. 

Source: https://www.facebook.com/groups/TheBreastfeedingAdvocatesNetwork

This wonderful network really shared a tremendous lot of information that a breastfeeding mother would need and thanks to this great bunch of mothers inside, even with bumps here and there, I manage to breastfeed my baby girl up to 8 months now heading to my second milestone which is the BIG 1 year old. Yay to me !

Of course, as the baby grows, their intakes consist of solids and let's not forget the scariest part, teething. These two condition do affect the stools. For instance, intakes of solid, depending on the diets, babies MAY or MAY NOT poop that often and their stools gradually loses that sickly sweet smell to just plain nasty smell but not as bad as fully solid like your own poop smell. REALLY.  The color may also change to be a little blackish, or brownish maybe. When it comes to teething, it would be stickier and looks ... seedy but not seedy. There might even be slightly hard stools. This is where the parents would have to remember that each time you feed your babies with solid, you'd have to feed them equal amount of water. Of course the mother would have to drink more water as well. 

So you see, there is no way one can really avoid doing this part of the job when you're a parent! 

My Breastfeeding Journey (Part 2)

I know it's been a delay for quite sometime since I've last posted. Taking care of a baby is not easy and it is definitely tiring. My salute to other parents out there who have more than 3 kids. I do not know how you guys did it but it was simply awesome that you did.

Source: www.hlntv.com

On to breastfeeding part two, there is so much information and stuff to talk and teach about breastfeeding that I just don't know what to say now.

Okay, some simple ideas that you'd need when you need to stock up before going back to work, milks stored in deep freezers (below zero celcius) can last you up to 6 months at max. Milks stored in normal two door freezers lasts you up to 3 months at max. Milks at chiller can last you 3-4 days whereas milk outside at room temperature can last you up to 4-5 hours. Now, besides storing the milks, note that most time we'd have to smell the milks especially those stored outside on room temperature so that it does not have sour smell, if it does, discard immediately or make milk spa for baby. When you take out the frozen milk for feeding, you gotta thaw it by taking it out from freezer and put into chiller. Once it's thawed, it have to be consumed within 24 hours and if it's not finished, THROW THEM AWAY. Once you warmed up (NOT BOILING HOT cuz you're gonna kill the good bacteria inside) the thawed milk, it have to be consumed within one hour and again, not finished THEN THROW IT AWAY ! or save for baby milk spa, which I always do.

Source: http://blog.medelabreastfeedingus.com/

For different mothers, there are different types of food that boosts the milk supply and food that decreases the milk supply. Here are some samples:

Source from: http://healthfulmama.com

It's just some as listed on the picture. But, it's all about trial and error. For my case, nothing i eat increases my supply, it does help a little while, but after that, it doesn't help anymore. It's only of late that I stopped trying that my milk supply is a normal 4-5oz at every pump. Speaking of pumping for working mothers, I don't look at the schedule. I look at the last time I fed my baby, then every three hour gap at max four, I'd pump once. You MUST pump or feed your baby at midnight especially between 2-5AM as these are the hours when a certain body condition works the hardest to supply more milk. This ensures your milk supply is there and not dropping, which is equally important for all mothers.

Back to the foods that boosts or decreases milk supply. There are herbs that does the same. On early research for all mothers, the most common you'd hear about is fenugreek to help increase milk supply. But what about Alfalfa? Let's not forget that too. Herbs like mints, parsley, rosemary and a few more as per picture below, decreases the milk supply, so beware.

Source: www.pharmacologyweekly.com

If you're not sure on what to eat or not, go download this app called LactMed on your smartphone. It has most details on what to eat or not and side effects (if any). Visit http://kellymom.com/bf/got-milk/herbs_to_avoid/ for more information or ask Mr.Google, your best friend or call your paed.

My Breastfeeding Journey (Part 1)

It's kinda long to be writing about it down now. But heck, here goes. Before that, credit goes to a good friend, Jenny, and the great group The Breastfeeding Advocates Network (TBAN) for support !

As some of you probably noted, I'm a new mother of a wonderfully adorable daughter, Elanor Wong ! 

I know, she looks like a boy and she's bald. She looks exactly like her father, thus, the boyish looks... By the way, this is her at 4 months old.

While I was pregnant with her at my first trimester, Jenny recommended me to join this group at Facebook. She shared quite a number of great details before I joined them. Surfing the web on how to take care of myself while pregnant is one thing, getting into labor is another thing... the hardest part, the most wonderful part, breastfeeding her. 

The moment she was born, I regretted not telling the nurse and the doctor that I wanted to breastfeed her immediately, skin-to-skin contact to get the bonding started. I know a lot of mothers complained that they do not have a lot of milk or it doesn't kick in immediately. Rest assured that by latching the baby on, the colostrum (the first phase of the yellowish milk that is darned good for the baby for them to build the antibody) will come in and not much. Why? Bear in mind that newborns do not have a big stomach. 

So, please don't worry about supply not being enough until after 2nd month.  After finding out about how much newborns feed, I proceed to think bout am I latching her on correctly or not. This is where the government clinics nurse comes in to the picture. They came to visit, checking on my dear daughter see if she is healthy or not and teaches me how to latch correctly, how to hold her, how to pump the milk using the hand (this technique is called marmet) and so on. 

Apart from that, in the first few days after I'm discharged from the hospital, I got badly blocked milk ducts. This could lead to a situation called mastitis. One could get fever and probably discouraged from keep breastfeeding the baby. Thankfully, my mother was being supportive of me and went checking with other experienced moms on how to handle it. She made fish head soup with raw papaya (green ones), rice paper pith and red dates for me to drink. The night itself, the milk came leaking out and the relief comes as getting engorged with no release really hurts and I can barely sleep. Besides helping with the relief, it apparently boosted my milk supply and I have to pump my milk out as my daughter can barely keep up with the supply. 

Here she is as a newborn !

Of course, she was not spared of the jaundice. Her readings was over 200 and she had to be admitted to the hospital for phototherapy for one night. My heart broke and I can't stop myself to tearing when I heard that she had to be admitted for that. Thankfully, with breastfeeding, although it took almost a month, her jaundice reading decreases and she's fully healed. All I need to avoid during her jaundice was to eat lesser or totally avoid ginger and wine. Oh, I forgot to mention that there's a confinement session for Asians (not sure bout how other race does it) and being a Chinese, there's a lot of rules of what to do/eat and what's not to do/eat. 

She gradually healed and as a normal healthy baby, she gained good weights throughout the journey. She was born at 2.7kg and now at 4 months old, she's weighing a good 6.5kg. Tripled the weight and I feel the pain in my arm whenever I feed her. Not that I'm complaining. Happy but exhausting but in the end, it's all totally worth it.

At this age, the cheeky-ness becomes her trademark already... Speechless but hilarious!

She really had me laughing all the time and nothing else matters when she is around me. She is all that I can see now, well, of course hubs is jealous at that but he also does the same, so all is fair ! I already foresee myself spoiling her badly and despite what people says, I always wished that she is stuck at this age, never growing up so I can keep her like this forever. But of course it's impossible. 

On my next post on breastfeeding, I will share out foods to eat/avoid to boost/that decreases milk supply and other details ! It's definitely a good learning moment as she grows and despite being exhausted, it's terribly fun and the bonding is the most precious moment ever.