It's really too bad that I can't store some of this milk in my abs because my boobs can certainly get rock hard at times. More specifically, at midnight. Apparently my body and baby have ganged up on me by deciding that would be the time of the day to produce the most milk. Go figure. The result is that I end up waking up with two huge, and extremely hard spheres attached to my chest. Trust me, it's not as comfortable as it may seem.
All this has a side effect that I don't know if most of you have considered... to pump or not to pump? Given that I've produced a lot of milk, let's just say that for some strange reason Ellie decides she'd rather sleep than to take the energy to drain me. Do I pump?
Advantage to pumping:
1. Temporary, but much appreciated relief. Can we all say "Ahhh".
2. Add to my slowly accumulating storage of frozen milk. Mmmm... white gold.
Disadvantage to pumping:
1. It sends a confirmation to my body that, indeed, making gallons* of milk at midnight really is a good and fun idea. We don't want to encourage such behavior. Ugh.
On the plus side... I know that things are going well for us because Ellie is now 10 pounds! Dang, girl! In 6 weeks she has gone from 6 pounds to 10. That's just crazy. Tomorrow she starts kindergarten... she's growing so fast!
* And by gallons, I really mean ounces.
2 comments:
I am the wrong person to reply to this one. I can tell you what will happen if you do pump, but you already know. =)
I was a crazy lady with my hospital issued hospital grade pump. The stories you may or may not have heard are 100% true. I pumped all the time from birth and never made it more than 3 hours before I had to do something or suffer. And when I tried to sleep through the discomfort I would end up soaked.
By the time the Cracker was 7 weeks old we had more than 300oz frozen. No, NOT a typo. At my best I would fully feed him and then pump 8 oz from each breast. We had pretty much run out of freezer space.
Cow? Yes.
I think it was meant to be. When I got sick we had enough that we never had to use formula even though I couldn't bf for 3 weeks due to being too sick and later all the drugs. We were down to just a handful of bags when I was able to resume. Freaky.
During that time I pumped and dumped as much as I could, but by then end I was down to a trickle. As soon as we were given the all clear I started bf again and while the first few days I was panicked, my supply came back, though never enough to be able to pump any thing over a few little ounces with a lot of effort. The Cracker, who had never taken to bottles but didn't have a choice those three weeks, camped out and never took a bottle again. In fact, he was pretty obsessed with bfing and comfort sucking after the whole ordeal that at 6 months I thought I would go crazy. It was then that I seriously considered weaning, except I couldn't because he would have nothing to do with a bottle. Slowly things got back to normal and he self weaned at 19 months. Bfing that second year was such much easier/relaxing/enjoyable I am so glad I stuck with it.
More than you ever expected, right? Now I've shared...
Damn! That's a crazy amount of milk! I am humbled by your incredible cow abilities.
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