Tuesday, March 30, 2010

Till the cows come home

Any mom who has ever breastfed has heard all the usual advice about keeping up her supply and successfully nourishing her baby.


All that business about offering both sides, and don't sleep on your belly, and so on and so on.


Well let me tell you, sometimes, in some things, following "all the usual advice" is not such a good thing.


I have learned (the hard way, I might add) that following the usual advice leaves me with way to much milk and my baby miserable.


Moo.


I'm not complaining about this tendency toward abundant lactation.  No sirree.  


It turned out to be an incredible blessing when I didn't nurse for almost two weeks (and only pumped a few times for relief) when Alan had his transplant at 13 months.  Once he was well enough to nurse again, we picked right up where we had left off.


And then there was the Virus-that-almost-killed-me from Mother's Day '08.  All manner of unfortuante virus-y things, a couple of bags of iv fluids in the ER, and around 5 days of not nursing my 18 month old.  The first day we were reunited he tried to nurse and the well had run dry.  He shrugged and went about his business and I cried.  I couldn't believe it was over.  But when bedtime came around he was ready to nurse again, and with a day or two it was like we'd never been apart.


However.... there is a flip-side to that coin. 


That body that staunchly overcomes adversity to keep on makin' its milk doesn't seem to get the memo in times of .... not adversity.  Hello!  A couple of bee-hives in the backyard and we'd be living in the land of milk and honey.  With yours truly being the sole supplier of the milk.


Moo.


And let me tell you - from experience - babies aren't such big fans of Too Much Milk.


Eating times are stressful.  And then their tummies hurt.  And they cry.  And want to eat again all too soon.  And eating times are stressful.  And then their tummies hurt.  And so on and so forth.


Tyler and I had some rough going from around 2-8 weeks.


And I strongly considered The Bottle.  


But after a little research online, we changed a few things in our methods and routines.  And prayed.  And within two weeks I had a whole new baby.  


I'm so glad I stuck with it.  


Even if it does mean I could change my name to "Daisy" and wear a bell around my neck!

7 comments:

Kristin said...

If you're Daisy and Mom is Elsie, what does that make me?

Michelle said...

Must run in the family...I always joked that I could feed my baby & a third world country! When Lauren weaned herself, there was still enough milk for another MONTH in the freezer! God really blessed us!

Anonymous said...

You are so lucky...Judah is my first breastfeeding success. Too much milk has NEVER been a problem.

Glad you stuck it out, glad Tyler is feeling better.

LOVE the new blog look.

Kathi

Linda Jacobs said...

Oh, Amy, he's so darn cute!

Arkansas Grandma said...

Loved the story, and loved the pictures ALOT! Thanks I needed a fix.

*Mirage* said...

Awww! Adorable little baby! :) I too had "too much" milk with my first. It was nice not to have to worry that she was starving. But waking up in the middle of the night drenched in milk with the feeling of two boulders strapped to my chest was not fun. Thankfully I seemed to have just the right amount with my second. :)

Jennifer said...

Goodness - he is too cute for words!!