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| All clean and ready to go! |
Other than I didn't have a big enough freezer stash to begin with, I'm still not sure what happened. One week I'm matching what Joey eats while I'm at work and the next he's demolishing whatever is in the freezer and I'm not bringing home enough. We didn't have any real plans this weekend, so in addition to nursing Joey whenever he wants, I'll be pumping. I also just bought a manual pump because there have been a couple of instances where I thought, "A manual pump would be so much easier right now" so I'll be taking advantage of both my double-electric (best investment ever) and my manual. I have an interesting relationship with my pump. I definitely think it helped my early labor progress faster. When the contractions weren't coming regularly, I'd pump one side until a contraction came, then switch to the other side after it was over. Now that I'm using it (or the hospital-grade pump at work) on an almost daily basis, I'm becoming less of a fan of pumping in general. It's kind of like brushing my teeth, something I don't necessarily want to do but I know I have to because it's the healthiest option.
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| Watching me clean all the bottles and lids for the pump. |
Basically this weekend is going to be about tricking my boobs into thinking that Joey is having a growth spurt so more milk will come in. What started this entire milk factory idea is the fact that I'm working three days in a row next week. I had asked to work those three days, but I didn't think I'd actually get them. It's good that I did, I'm just surprised. Normally what happens is I have a day or two off in between shifts or only two days in a row. I use those days off to pump in the morning when I'm still pretty full and add another 2-3oz. to the freezer. Between that addition and pumping in the morning before I leave for work, I can usually cover what Joey eats albeit just enough (what I pump at work comes home and goes in the freezer for the next shift). Usually at work I get between 9-12oz. depending on where I am in my cycle (yes, my period came back way early AND it affects my supply) and how many times I can get away to pump. Yesterday, I pumped 3 times at work and got 11oz which is pretty good. I would have gotten to pump a fourth time but I'm not on the schedule for the room. Due of the nomadic nature of my job, I need to be flexible about my pump times and give way to those who are signed up first. I'm not opposed to being flexible, I just need to start leaving my personal pump in the room for the day so if the machine I use is busy I can still pump. We also left early so it was a combination of waiting longer to pump and leaving early so I couldn't pump after we got off because we left 20 minutes after I was finished.
I'm not looking forward to pumping all weekend. It pretty much means Joey might be either hungry all the time because he's not getting milk as quickly as he'd like, or it means that he'll be attached to one boob or the other for longer-than-normal times. Or both. It also means that when I pump one side while he's nursing on the other or using my double-electric because he's napping, I'm not going to get as much milk as I'm used to pumping at a time. This means that it will take longer to build up to a "serving" that Joey normally eats (he can down 3-4oz. no problem and most of the time go for seconds). So far, after starting this regimen yesterday after work, I've only put one 3oz. bag in the freezer. However, that does bring me back up to 14oz. and yesterday he ate all 19.5oz. that had been in there. I'm hoping that between today and tomorrow I'll be able to have a decent stash for my next three shifts at work. Joey's been sleeping longer at night (thank goodness! No 4-month-old sleep regression!), if we can get his naps right he'll sleep between 6-8 hours before needing to eat and then 3-4 hours (or more) after that. Now, on days that I do work, I'll nurse him around 0300, sleep for another hour, get up and get ready for work. The last thing I do before I leave is pump/clean my parts for the next session. That way if Joey wakes up again I can nurse him and if not, I can maximize the time in between pump sessions (so I don't have to pump like 10 minutes after shift starts). I can typically get a whole other feeding out of that morning pump, or part of one anyway, usually 3-4oz. My newest idea, that paid off yesterday, was to get to work early and pump again. If I can time it so that there's about two hours between my at-home session and my first at-work session, I can get a decent amount of milk. I did yesterday anyway. It paid off because well, duh, I got extra milk, but also because we left early. Had I not gotten to work early to pump, I would have only gotten to pump twice the whole shift! I will definitely be doing this from now on.
Posting often is getting harder and harder as Joey gets bigger because he's awake more and wants to play all the time! He's definitely a Momma's Boy because most of the time if I'm home, Daddy just isn't good enough to play with he wants Mommy or both! He's currently transitioning between several naps a day and one morning nap and one afternoon nap. Some days it's several short naps and others it's just the two big ones. I've tried to help him fall asleep a couple of times, but if he's not ready then he's not ready and we'll just go back to playing :)
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