Friday, February 10, 2012

Baby Breast Feeding 1 2 3~~~

This post is specially dedicated to one of my readers who have asked me some questions on my previous blog post. 

P.S. Don't worry and don't feel sorry for asking so many questions. 
If one don't have any questions then it will be weird coz as a mommy myself I do have lots of questions. Hehe... All thanks to my mom, my sister, my mommy friends and forums who have guided me through this journey. 

Ever since I got this mother instinct, I have already decided to breast feed my baby. All this I have to thanks to my mother who have encourage and talk to us all about breast feeding. 

So what that my nipple will become ugly, my breast will be saggy, but the benefits of breastfeeding outweigh the bad stuff. I believe your child's health is much more important then physical appearance right. 

Of course, some mother will face some difficulties like no milk supply, baby doesn't latch on etc. No matter what difficulties you have face, best to seek help and support from professional and family members espcially your husband. If you are facing difficulties and not able to breast feed and end up with formula feeding, don't blame yourself and you are not a bad mother. I rather you have a less stressful, healthy physical and mental body to take care of your baby. Having a stress state of mind doesn't help to have a healthy growing baby. 

When I got pregnant, my sister recommended me this breast gel from Pigeon. It helps to prepare your breast and nipple for breast feeding by doing the massage on the instruction manual. As it's make from natural plant oils so its save for you and ur baby. 
How much does it aid in lactation, I'm not very sure, but I did have colostrum leaking during my third trimester. Maybe the gel and the massage does really helps?
Details here


For mother's who have successfully latched on but realise that the breast milk is not enough. How to boost the milk supply? From the start you may feel that you have not enough milk but fret not because the milk supply will naturally increase few weeks later as our body is trying to work out the milk supply. Because initially I thought I don't have enough milk supply, but after few days, I have abundance of supply! So during my confinement period, besides latching on, I also pumping out breast milk so I can feed her during night time, as bottle feed she will drink more and sleep slightly longer. 
Both latching on and expressing also increase milk supply. 

Coz our body works in this way >
demand = supply
.
.
so


high demand = high supply
.
.
less demand = less supply

Because i latch on and pump at the same time, so my body thought that my baby need more milk thus will produce more milk. 

Ok, after my confinement over, I moved back to my own place. As I'm alone at my own place, no more confinement lady helping me to cook and do all the washing, I have to do it myself.
Not only that, even though I have confinement lady for the first month, the care for baby is still under me, she only bathe her or pat her to sleep in the afternoon if I need a nap. So naturally my baby is quite attached to me and have a tendency to just latch on for comfort.

So when she latch on she will drink the fore milk, which is easily digested as its lower in fats. This cause baby to get hungry very fast and also get colic easily. And when she's uncomfortable she will tend to latch and the cycle just continue. So end up she's on my breast most of the time. And because I need to cook to get will nutrients so slowly I'm getting a bit drained, I didn't pump at all and slowly my supply decrease. 

Getting upset because I don't want to give up breast feeding. I forced myself to pump at least once a day and I do my pumping during midnight, timing is 12mn to 6am. According to some articles prolactin is at their highest around 2am. Because of both latching and pumping you are telling your body to produce more milk. But still, I'm anxious to produce even more milk, because I only pump less then 150mls each time at that point of time. 


I went online to bought this malunggay tea. Is approved by HSA so is safe to drink and well known in Philippines to increase milk supply. Not only in can increase milk supply, this tea also contains a lot of vitamins like A, B, C and E etc.. But results varies from individual.. Nevertheless, I decided to give it a try. 


So I do latching, pumping and drinking tea to increase my supply. Surprisingly my supply did increase. Of coz I'm very happy!! Haha.. 


Of coz there is hard work behind it. 


I started pumping almost every 3-4 hrly, no matter whether I have latched on a not or whether I how many mls I have pump out. I did this for few weeks. Finally this is where I see an increase of my milk supply. Yes you must be consistent.. 


And when my supply increases slowly I stretch out the pumping timing to suits my schedule when I go back to work. And to achieve this, the few weeks you must really pump at those timing you have set, otherwise your milk supply will decrease. It takes a lot of hard work, planning and your beauty sleep, but trust me, when u see your fridge is full of milk and ur baby smile after a full milk drink, you will feel that all this worth while. 



As for how I keep my milk when my supply is low which means i can't fill up the bottles full, I will top up with my next pump. I will only top up full maximum 2 days, not more then that. Depends on individual some ppl prefer not to, for me its ok, and my baby reacts fine with it. After finishing topping up the bottles, i will then freeze it.  Up to today even though I have high supply, I also do the same thing. Currently I'm using glass bottles(100/120mls) and Avent VIA cups (180mls) to store my breast milk. Of coz I wouldn't pump so accurate, definitely one bottle or cups will be either more or less, so I will just top up one bottle or cup to full, and the other which is not filled will wait for the next pump to top it up. :)


Coz it's wasted to throw away and also waste the bottle/fridge space. Of coz your hands must be clean when handling all the bottles while pouring or transferring.





How I schedule feed her.... 


When my baby Yi He starting to go infant care as I'm going back to work soon. I decided to pump fully, so that she can have schedule feed which allow me to rest more when I'm back to work. 


So one day I decided to feed her on schedule. I'm not sure whether it works a not but I just give it a try. When I started the first feed it was 530pm, but clueless on how many mls I should give her (the school have been feeding her 60mls 2hrly, but when I feed her at home she drink between 80mls to 120mls), I start her with 120mls, but that feed she drink only 100mls. So I time 4 hrs later will be 930pm. 


"Why 4hrly, because after each feeding, normally she will cry for hunger 4hrs later. That's when you have to take note when ur baby cry for milk, don't just follow my schedule. I have searched online a lot on schedule feeds, some feed 5hrly with 120mls up to 180mls etc.. so most importantly schedule based on your baby cues and need."


True and luckily enough 4hrs later she cry for milk. I was quite worried what happen if she doesn't and my schedule will be mess up. So at 930pm she drink another 100mls. After 930pm feed, will be 130am feed. So I patiently wait (yes no sleeping) until 130am for her to wake up but to my dismay SHE DIDN'T WAKE UP FOR MILK!! Alamak! Just nice I was whatsapp-ing with my sister so I ask her how ah? Should I wake her up for milk, she said since she's sleeping better not. I was thinking about the same thing also, because once you start this habit of waking her up to drink, when she grow up, she will have this habit also. But on the other hand I also scared my schedule will be in a mess. T.T


About 515am ~ Started her sucking action. Time for her milk! That's 8hrs straight! Woohoo.. And the rest of the days is the usual 4hrly feeding. I told the infant care regarding her schedule feed, I ask them to follow but in case she's not comfortable with it, she need not follow it. Most importantly is make sure my baby needs are satisfied rather then satisfying my own schedule. I can reschedule it if she can't follow. 


Luckily she manage well. 


So far she has been coping well to the schedule. :D If u ask when to increase her feed or when to lengthen her feeding time schedule when she's older, I got no clue, most importantly is to look out for her cues. That's how I plan her schedule. 


Currently her schedule feed is at follow (u can use it as a guideline, do not force or wake ur child up to force feed)





All the best to those who are breast feeding, trying to breast feeding and or thinking about breast feeding. 


Hopefully my article is useful to all mommy out there. 








*All recommendation and tips are serve as a guideline for you. Products mention has been bought and used by me, not from any source of sponsorship , unless mention. So please use at your own discretion. Before trying out any new product please check your medical condition ok, I do welcome any feedback from the products I have use and recommend so that me and other mommies out there can benefit :D* 







2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Thank u for sharing ur post here. I m a mother to b n am still in my 1st trimester althou it's will b the 2nd in 2wks time. I don't know how you cope it althou u din say much about ur morning sickness but from ur blog it seems like u n ur sis r enjoying pregnancy! All along I thought there will only b 1 pain during pregnancy n that is during labour but havin experiencing this myself I realised I feel terrible even from e start. The morning sickness only started after 1 mth into my pregnancy n I have been throwing our every single meal. Nothing seems to fit me n all I eat now is plain porridge, bread n milo. Every smell puts me off too.

M I alone? I can't even bring myself to drink plain water cos it got a metal bitter taste. I definitely not

Anonymous said...

This is Anonymous 2 :)

Ur post on breastfeeding has been extremely helpful. Really appreciate you dedicating a post on this topic that has been on my mind for the past 2 weeks, making me very stressed up. Has been reading up on online resources but sometimes the more u read, the more confused u get. The constant worry is that my baby is not getting enough milk. He is currently waking up ard 2-3 hours for his milk feed (direct latching), but the amount of milk that I pump out after each milk feed is rather depressing (for instance, this morning after i nurse him, i only manage to pump out 20ml combined. The most so far is only 50ml :( ). To me, it seems that he is drinking very little since i m producing so little. Has been crying for the first few days that I brought him home, cos I feel that I m depriving him of a full feed that I could otherwise easily monitor if he is drinking FM. Somemore, the constant latching on is making me very tired, especially during night feeds. I am thinking to try to feed him with EBM for night feeds as wad u have done after 6 weeks so my baby can sleep slightly better (or rather I can feel more assured he is getting enough milk)

I m really impressed at what you have done for ur baby Yi He and I will be trying to pump for every 3 hours from this morning onwards and try to maintain the cycle to pump dilligently. Hopefully, I can see an increase in my milk supply. To me now, the ability to pump out 150ml per session is like mission impossible to me (especially the 20ml that I have just pumped out). I will also try to store whatever milk i can pump out so I can use it for backup when the need really arises.

Really appreciate your advice on all this. It really feels good to hear from someone who has been successful in doing so. Currently, I am the only one who is still trying to TBF amongst the pple i know. Hopefully I can press on with this breastfeeding journey for my baby.

Thks Qiqi!