breast

Breast Feeding Journal: Week One

March 29, 2012 By Rebecca 2 Comments

When I had Little Man 17 months ago I tried to breast feed and it was a miserable experience. I ended up pumping as much as possible for about 4 months until my bleeding nipples got the best of me and I quit. This time I was determined to make it work.

After the c-section I asked if we could have Baby Dos brought into recovery to try as soon as possible. She didn’t come in, but I only stayed in there for one hour so we tried quite quickly and it worked almost immediately. She latched on and the first couple sessions were good, even though there was no milk, only collostrum so they lasted just a few minutes.

Then the initial bilirubin test results came back. Baby Dos was Coombs Positive and had a blood incompatibility with me. She was whisked away from us and put under the lamps for three hours at a time. We only saw her for an hour for feeding and were recommended (sternly) to supplement with formula so she would poop out all the bad stuff. After the first 36 hours, our time was brought down to half an hour as her levels shot up.

Luckily she recovered enough to come home, but the breastfeeding was already tougher. Here’s what I’ve learned so far:

Every time I give her a bottle it makes it harder to get her to latch on for the next feeding. She will eventually, so I’m not believing that nipple confusion ruins breastfeeding (neither did the hospital lactation consultants), but I will admit that it makes it tougher.
According to everybody I know that has breastfed successfully, your nipples are crazy sore for the first few weeks regardless of how perfect your latch is.
You have to relax. That’s the only reason I can see why it’s working this time and didn’t last time. It won’t be perfect every time, but beating yourself up, getting frustrated and annoyed will screw it all up.
Along with the latch, the perfect hold, the position (you’re supposed to sit back) and everything else you hear, the lactation consultants recommended a glass of wine. It helps you to relax.
When she/ he first latches, take a deep breath and relax your shoulders. It hurts and the breath will help.

Adorable bookshelf

March 19, 2010 By Rebecca Leave a Comment

How cute is this bookcase? It’s handmade and stackable, so you can buy as many as you need and stack them all. The wood is natural but they will paint it for you before shipping out. It’s so reasonable too: $22.00 for each shelf.

Check out jnmnt53′s store for this and other stuff.

Filed Under: Uncategorized Tagged With: baby, bookcase, bookshelf, breast, child, children, fertility, kid's, maternity, mother, motherhood, Nursery, nursing, pregnancy, pregnant, prenatal, room, unborn, work

Cheese from breast milk?

March 18, 2010 By Rebecca Leave a Comment

The following is taken from the Seattle Weekly Blogs:
Pretty much the minute that New York City chef Daniel Angerer decided that he was going to make cheese from his wife’s leftover breast milk, the internets have been going nutsy-cuckoo for the story. There have been wild rumors (like the one about him selling the cheese at his restaurant, Klee Brasserie, which isn’t true at all), rampant speculation (mostly about whether or not doing such a thing is a good idea in the first place, some about why chefs haven’t thought of this before, a lot about other people’s experiences with making things–like pancakes and ice cream–out of breast milk, and even a question of whether breast milk cheese–because it is considered parve, neither dairy or meat for kosher purposes–could be used to make kosher cheeseburgers), calls from the health department (which was chasing the rumor that he was selling human cheese on the menu) informing him that he could not serve mommy brie to the public. And Angerer (along with his wife, Lori Mason, who supplied the raw materials) has all of a sudden found himself in the middle of a food-media firestorm–all because he made a food product out of something biologically made to be food.

To read the rest:

http://blogs.seattleweekly.com/voracious/2010/03/human_breastmilk_cheese_worst.php