Life With Baby

Some may say this is not "school" related, but in our household life skills are part of our required education. And while it's not likely that my children will ever be nursing a baby (men *are* capable--survival of the species), their experiences here and now will likely benefit their own family down the road. I hope.

I feel a need to expound upon my first-ever Six Word Saturday post...probably because I like to hear myself think, and I suspect that I'll need to reread it when I get frustrated.

The human body is a marvelous thing on so many levels--a mother's body is nothing short of miraculous! I won't gush over all the reasons why right now (maybe I should so I can counteract every time I look in the mirror *lol*), but it's fascinating to contemplate mothers' milk. We make what we need, when we need it due to supply and demand. If baby demands it, we'll inevitably make it. If baby doesn't demand it, we inevitably won't make it.

With this in mind, I was waiting to start pumping until baby settled into his own rhythm or schedule so I could then determine when to pump so it didn't interfere with him--and so we didn't create oversupply issues during those first several weeks. However, that ended up meaning there wasn't a whole lot to pump when I wanted to and I started to fret and get discouraged.

Fabulous Le Leche League Leader to the rescue!! In a brief chat with her I was able to take a step back and assess more logically--

• I do not need the pump supply of a mother working outside the home full-time.
• the event that I am most concerned about having milk for is two months away. It is only three days and I will be with baby in the evenings/night.
• he will be 6mo old, likely starting to explore solids (I still need to check the library for Baby Led Weaning...I've heard tell it should actually be titled Baby Self-feeding), and we can overnight nurse those days. If he gets fussy about bottles during the 8hr workshops he will actually survive--it's only three days. My milk supply will recover.
• if I stay consistent with my once-a-day pumping (at approx the same time each day) I will produce. She reminded me that adjustments in feeding patterns typically take 72hrs for the body to "catch-up."
• even if I don't produce more than the one-ounce per pump session (that I had the two times I pumped last week), that's still 7oz a week which should be sufficient for our needs once I'm off sabbatical.
• I do not NEED to pump 5oz every time I plug in. Again, I do not need the supply of pumped milk a mother working outside the home full-time needs. I'll only need to cover the three day certification, and then some 2hr to 4hr blocks during the week. Maybe one 8hr day each week.
• this is why I declared sabbatical until he was 6mo so the necessity of me being constantly on-hand was not as great. 

So relax. Breathe. Snuggle. Nurse. Adore.
...and pump every morning at 8:30.