Recently Trevor and I have entered an exciting new phase of our breastfeeding relationship. He is 6 1/2 months old now, loves to eat, but seems to love to watch his brothers play even more. He starts to nurse, then the second he hears his brothers or any noises at all, he whips his head around till he can see what it is. Then he has a really hard time getting back to eating. I tried hiding out in my room while I fed him, but then the time it would take him to get a full feeding would be about 30-45 minutes (he is a very slow eater, this is nothing new). So after hiding out feeding him for a few weeks, Chase started acting up more and more all of the time. He would scream at my door, run around the house crying, he seemed like he was having more and more issues going to sleep at night, etc. Basically, he was needing more attention and didn't like me being locked away half the day, unavailable when he needed something. Owen was being pretty good through all of this, but I could tell he was getting frustrated with not having my help too.
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| Love the cuddle time! |
So I tried nursing with a cover on next to Chase, but Trevor wasn't fooled. He could still hear his brother next to me and couldn't wait to lift the cover off of his face and start throwing silly grins Chase's way. I even tried letting Trevor go until he got REALLY hungry, but that kept backfiring. Because by the time he'd eat, he was so tired that he'd fall asleep eating and wouldn't get a full reading and then would be fussy and hungry and tired the entire day.
I was really at my wits end with cranky kids, a hungry baby, etc. I was thinking I needed to be done nursing altogether. But the more I thought about it, it didn't make sense to stop when it's not an issue of having milk, plus I'm home and should be able to make this work! I realized there is a lot of help/options and plenty of mom's out there that go through the same thing. I knew that when Trevor takes a bottle, he is much less distractible, and eats quickly. And I've pumped my milk several times and let Brad feed him when I've been out and needed him to.
I thought I would try pumping for a day and giving it to Trevor in a bottle to see how that would go. I pumped a bottle the night before we started so I'd always be one bottle up on the feeding times. I decided to nurse him first thing in the morning, then the rest of the day pump within an hour after feeding him his bottle. Then I'd end with nursing him at night before bed-time.
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| Love his chubby cheeks! |
It's actually been helping a lot. it's been good to see how much he's eating, and it's cut the feeding time WAY down. Before pumping, he was nursing 30-45 minutes. Now it takes about 8 minutes to pump and he drinks his bottle in about 5 minutes. It's been really helpful to have more time with Chase and Owen too. Chase can sit by me now while he eats, and he even like helping me hold Trevor's bottle.
I also feel like I am still getting the two most rewarding nursing times of the day, morning when he's all happy but really hungry and night-time when he's sleepy and extra cuddly. So for now, I feel like this is a great solution. Hopefully things will just keep getting better too!
Also, since Trevor has been starting to sleep so long at night, my milk supply seemed lower than normal, and I found some thing that really helped me and thought I'd share...
Mother's milk tea (drink before bed)
1-2 tablespoons of unrefined coconut oil (in oatmeal, on toast, etc.)
3 capsules a day of fenugreek seed
This has helped me a lot!
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