Joy of "breastfeeding"

Little did I know about the joy of breastfeeding, rather, sound of pumping.

The sound of the milk that drips into the bottle, as it increases, the sound of it spraying into the bottles ..... it gives such sense of achievement. As I watch the bottles gets filled up, it feels good that finally I am producing milk .... milk that gives antibodies and nutrients to my baby. For the excess milk, I can even give it to #1, ZQ who had missed out on it last round. ZQ was mainly on formula milk (FM) and I had produced so little breastmilk (BM) that every drop of milk was like a drop of blood .... so precious.

As I had failed in breastfeeding with my #1, I did not bear much hope of succeeding this round but I tried to find all other avenues to help improved my breastfeeding efforts. I bought a nursing pillow so that it helps in positioning the baby for breastfeeding (I feel that this is one of the greatest challenge) ... afterwhich is getting the baby to suckle (this will depend greatly on the baby). I had also invested in a good pump - Ameda, a dual electric pump, which is important because a dual pump will cut the time spent in emptying the excess milk by half!

Having done all that, I had also bought Milk producing herbs tea and a kind of herb called Fenugreek which helps lactating mothers to produce more milk - well, I am proud to say that to date, I had not open my bottle of fenugreek as yet.

Most importantly I had prepared myself mentally that I WANT TO PRODUCE MORE MILK! Hence, during my final stage of pregnancy, colostrum already started to produce. Even on the 2nd day at the hospital, I managed to squeeze out 50ml of milk which I even took a picture of - haha, so proud u know.

Til this morning, I had produced a record high of 260ml in a pumping session. What do I do with so much milk when ZK is only consuming 100ml per feed.

Sadly, I must say that I've enjoyed pumping more than direct latching the baby cos he still drinks 100ml regardless of how long I had latched him on! Latching on - he fusses, cries, struggles and now having gotten used to the bottle - he feels the slow flow on direct latching and becomes impatient. Hence, I had decided I'll do exclusive pumping and let someone else do the bottle feeding.

I hope that without the latching and with exclusive pumping, the milk supply will not dip. Now I must say that it is too late to get back to direct latching as ZK had already learnt that he can get milk without having to suckle too hard ... and compared to direct latching, he does not need to put in so much efforts.

It does not matter so long he gets the breastmilk and that I am comfortable in what I am doing - relax ... so I can produce suffient milk.