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It's amazing to me how different parenting is with each child. Each pregnancy is different, each baby is different, and your body is also different every time. With my first child I had issues with over supply. I had "hyper lactation" and produced more milk than he needed. With my second, I had some struggles with both producing too much in the early days and then not making enough when I started dieting in an unhealthy way. This time around (baby #3!) I never felt like I made nearly as much milk as I did with the others. I don't know if it's age (I've reached the big 3-0!) or if it's just the way my body has responded to her. She is also my smallest baby so I've wondered if maybe she just drinks less so my body makes less? I felt like early on with her that I was making the perfect amount of milk. Not too much and not too little. We've been in-sync since she was born. My body has also held onto my weight more than it did with the oth...
This week is Babywise Friendly Blog Network week and we are all discussing the topic of feeding our children. When I was pregnant with my first baby I wasn't sure how passionately I'd feel about breastfeeding. Once I learned about all the benefits of breast milk for babies, I became much more dedicated to giving my children the very best thing for them! I often get asked about how I pump, how I store the pumped milk, and how I use the milk that I have stored. I am blessed to be able to stay at home full time with my children so I don't have the pressure of pumping at work or dealing with transporting milk on a daily basis for child care. I do, however, travel often. And many of those travels require leaving my young baby at home while I'm away. When my son was 7 weeks old my husband and I went to Paris for a week. And when my newest baby was 11 weeks old we went to Hawaii. Both of these trips required me to start pumping soon after my babies were born to allow time to...
If you made it this long, then you deserve some type of reward. I feel like for making it this long in writing all of these posts that I also deserve some type of reward. I wish I could ship some gelato from Italy for me as my prize for completing all of this!!! After dinner on our last day in Rome we wanted to try to squeeze in a couple more sights. It was dark at this point but some of the outdoor sites we read were actually better at night. We hopped on the metro and headed to The Spanish Steps. The Spanish Steps were built between 1723-1726 and the fountain Barcaccia ("bad boat") was built in 1626-1629 by Bernini with his son Gianlorenzo. They were actually designed and funded by the French and include 12 flights of curving stairs. I enjoyed the rules for the Steps: The steps! Crowded even at 10:00 at night! Fountain at the bottom We were EXHAUSTED by this point and literally didn't have the energy to go all the way up. We wan...
Everyone knows that breastfeeding started off super tough for me. I had pain. I had bleeding. I had engorgement, mastitis, and yeast. Basically everything that could go wrong did! It took me about 8 weeks to finally get every issue solved and to finally feel like I had the hang of it. As Kye is getting older I realize that I am closer and closer to the goal I had planned for myself: 6 months of breastfeeding. I have a lot of mixed feelings about stopping breastfeeding. Here is my "pro" list for stopping at 6 months: my breasts will go back to a normal size instead of being one size right after he eats and being super huge right before he eats again no more pumping for missed feedings! no more leaking milk through the night it'll probably make it easier to lose the last little bit of weight that I'm clinging onto he's already gotten all the benefits from it and doesn't "need" it the way he did in the beginning no more scheduling everything ar...
Before leaving for Paris I researched all I could about pumping milk and being able to bring it home with me. While I still felt guilty leaving Kye , I felt okay about it at the same time because I knew I'd still be giving him nourishment while I was away by being able to bring home all the milk I pumped for him to drink sometime in the future. TSA allows you to carry on more than 3 oz of breast milk so I planned on pumping all I could, storing it in our fridge in our room, then bringing it home in a cooler. I had three coolers ready to go with several freezer packs for each of them. The rule with breast milk is that it is good for 5-7 days in the fridge and 24 hours in a cooler with ice packs. I figured I'd keep it all in the fridge during the trip, then the trip home it'd be in the coolers, then freeze it asap when we got back (it's good for up to 6 months in a deep freezer). Before the trip I mapped out our flight schedule and worked out how often I'd need to ...
