breastfeeding Archives - Milk Maven, LLC

July 23, 2019July 23, 2019

The Perfect Formula for Breastfeeding

“I just fed him every two hours or when he woke up, then everything went much better!”

“We were trying to get him to sleep in the crib for naps, but I missed him too much so he sleeps in my arms now.”

“My pediatrician said he should be sleeping 5 hour stretches by this time, but he is so much happier when I feed him, is this a bad habit?”

Woman bites nails with furrowed brow — I read 500 books, but I forgot the right way to take care of my baby!

You read all the books, scoured all the websites and got all the (sometimes unsolicited) advice from your friends. Now, you feel you are going into this big, important, life changing thing prepared and knowledgable. Filled with confidence about breastfeeding, you are ready…and then the baby arrives.

Nowadays, new parents believe that knowledge gives them the best chance to feeding their babies easily. The more information the better right? Education is not bad, and it is good to know what to expect. However, downloading the perfect app, going to the perfect class, and creating the perfect schedule will not ensure perfection. What if I told you there is no perfect baby?

A parent who goes into breastfeeding with absolutely no expectations is a beautiful thing. These parents go with the flow! They give their baby whatever they need, whenever they need it. This ease allows them to hold their babies close, sniff their little heads, and get to know their cries. Parents who respond to their babies, instead of trying to force them into a box, tend to have less stress.

Skin to skin isn’t just about all the great benefits like temperature and blood sugar regulation. When you hold your baby close, you learn who they are. When a baby is away in another room, swaddled, pacified, and monitored electronically, you may miss the little nuances. You might even miss early feeding queues that are so obvious when the baby is nestled on your chest, resulting in a very unhappy little camper.

The thing is, a perfect formula to breastfeeding just doesn’t exist. Every parent and every baby is different. So often to solve an issue, it takes an IBCLC. We will look at all the variables to make a specific plan for your family. It isn’t as simple as just consuming all the information you can find, because here is the thing, no book or blog has ever been written about your baby. No math equation will work without fail with every single baby and parent. There is no perfect class, app, or professional who can predict what kind of baby your baby will be. A good IBCLC will teach you what is normal, help you get comfortable, and show you how to interpret cries and cues. I can’t wait to help you to write your own book.

March 11, 2016

Beware of Sleep Trainers

Sleep. She is a wicked mistress.

A few days ago, I received a panicked call from a very worried mama. She was concerned her milk supply was dropping, her baby was losing weight, was upset at the breast, and wouldn’t latch. The mother was getting plugged ducts and worried about mastitis. After the course of the call, we tried to pinpoint what it was that went wrong. Decongestants were used once, not long enough to make a huge difference, her pump broke while she was away from the baby, but that should have been remedied the moment she got back with her baby. The baby was teething, so that could make a bit of a difference in the latch, causing the ducts to clog, sure. Then she dropped the bomb. She admitted she had seen a sleep consultant a month ago (when her baby was 5 months old) to help the child sleep 12 hours at night. She was told by this trainer to spread out feedings to only 4-5 times a day, and never to feed at night.

So, a little background on how milk supply works. When you drop your feedings in half overnight (no pun intended) your milk supply will drop by (anyone, anyone? Bueller?) half. It is a supply and demand relationship. The baby or pump demands, your breasts supply. If you stop demanding, they stop supplying.

10525631_10154797444825585_2863247910875511009_n — Sleep finds a way

Let’s do the math shall we? An average baby 5 months old, needs 24oz-32oz of milk a day to continue growing and being healthy. They get 100% of their calories and hydration from this milk. So, when a mother is told to bar on demand access to the breast, the baby is still only going to take in about 3oz per feed because their tummies are still the same size, but only four or five times a day. Now, what if you took everything you ate normally and cut the portions in half? What if you also drank half the water you should? What do you think would happen to your body? Science tells us malnutrition and dehydration would set in, and you would become very weak, and really sleepy…huh. Yes, it turns out that a baby getting half their nutrition become quiet, sleep a lot, and become very “good” babies. As opposed to those awful “bad” babies with their punk music and their bar room shenanigans.

65145cf805be60149a36cfdfeb69c363 — Bad Baby!

Many of these sleep trainers, in fact ALL the trainers I found in my area, take babies as young as a couple months old. We know from research in this area that babies must nurse on demand to establish milk supply, and grow correctly. We also know that babies are not made to sleep through the night at this age, and in fact it can be extremely dangerous for babies to sleep too deeply.

Nobody likes to miss sleep. In fact, sleep deprivation can be used as a form of torture!However, starving your baby is not the solution. If you value breastfeeding, and would like to figure out how to continue and get some sleep, hire an IBCLC with years of education on child development, infant nutrition, and breastfeeding management. There could be several reasons your baby is having trouble settling, is nursing more often than is normal, and keeping you up at night. An IBCLC will look at sleep arrangements, schedules, anatomy to check for ties, check weights to check for intake at the breast, work with your other health providers, follow up with you and your little one over the next couple of weeks, help you get reimbursed by your insurance for her visit, and will charge about a QUARTER of what these trainers are charging. The thing is, the person who referred this mother to me once things went south, WAS the sleep trainer.

10527338_10154410700720585_999572687711978630_n — Now they snuggle each other

It is absolutely normal and healthy for your baby to wake up at night. Don’t you? Sometimes you need some water, sometimes you need to pee, sometimes you have a bad dream, and need a snuggle. Would you deprive your husband of these things? Your dog? Yourself? I am 33 years old and I don’t remember the last time I slept through the night. It just stopped being my mother’s problem at some point.

December 9, 2015

Don’t Panic: Hitchhikers Guide to Parenting

I remember seeing a book on my parents’ shelf when I was young, called Parenthood is Not For Cowards. I assumed this meant that it meant that in order to be a good parent, you had to listen to nightmares, and not be afraid of them. Then I became a parent. I realized that parenting meant being scared to death, every single day, and doing the right thing by your kiddo anyway. It means doing the hard thing, making the hard choices, it means never giving up, and never surrendering.

During pregnancy, we read all the books, we make all the plans, we do all the research. We attend classes, and force our partners to go with us, we pick out the perfect layette, and apply to receive the perfect breast pump. We interview 15 different pediatricians, we find the numbers for lactation consultants, parenting support groups, and visit every daycare center in the tri-state area. But things go wrong. Labors stall, emergencies happen, daycares fill. And when they do DON’T PANIC! There are far more than 42 things that could go wrong, but let them be hurdles, not walls.

Of course, as soon as you think you have breastfeeding down, something is going to change. Your milk comes in, the baby grows, you go back to work, the baby is teething, or baby goes on a nursing/sleep/solids strike. When this happens DON’T PANIC. All of these things are normal, and part of breastfeeding and in no way means that you are insufficient, or doing something wrong, or a bad mom. Here is the thing about bad parents, they never wonder if they are being a bad parent. Just by you being scared to death that you have somehow inadvertently broken your baby, you are being a good parent.

No one expects you to have all the answers. Historically, we never were expected to have all the answers. We used to raise our babies in tribes. Where all the aunties, grannies, mothers, sisters and friends were all around us, informing, encouraging, and supporting us. We used to see breastfeeding everywhere we went. We saw women latching, unlatching, babies sucking and swallowing, and crying and sleeping all the time. Many of my clients have never seen a baby fed at the breast. We no longer have access to this education. We no longer have this tribe. We try our best to fill in the gaps with social media and blogs, lactation consultants, nurses and doctors, and books and books and books.

We must be discerning between good and bad advice, we must be savvy about science v placebo affects, we must trial and error every choice we make and we must do it all while Instagraming our bliss, for beware if someone catches on that we are struggling to stay above water.

Here’s the thing people. You are doing a good job. DON’T PANIC if something goes wrong. DON’T PANIC if you don’t have the answers and you need help. DON’T PANIC if your idea of what parenthood should look like doesn’t exactly match with your life. Let go of your expectations and the expectations of others, and just do the best you can.

Oh, and always carry a towel.

November 13, 2015

Low Supply

The most common reason women start supplementing is a fear their supply is low. This perceived issue and incorrect diagnosis can start a real issue with supply if allowed to continue. Supplementation can start babies and moms on a downward spiral of overfeeding, under emptying of the breasts, and ultimately, a perceived problem becomes a real one. So, how do you know whether your baby is getting enough from the breast? Our breasts don’t have ounce markers on them, so how do we tell whether our supplies are enough?

max-stomach-capacity — How much milk does a baby’s stomach even hold?

Is your baby gaining well? If your baby has regained their birth weight by 2 weeks and are they gaining about an ounce a day after that, there is not an issue with supply.

Is your baby pooping and peeing normally? Babies should have one wet diaper on day one, two on day two, and so on. By day five, babies should be having 5-6 wet diapers minimum a day, with 2-3 quarter sized poops. Sometimes poops do space out a bit, and that can be normal, but those wet diapers must remain. If you are changing diapers frequently, there is no supply issue. After all, if there isn’t anything going in, there can’t be anything going out. A trick I tell moms to do if they are worried, is to put a stack of six diapers on the changing table, if they run through them in 24 hours, they don’t need to worry.

The following things are NOT a sign of low supply.

The baby nurses frequently
The baby suddenly nurses more often and/or for longer
The baby nurses more frequently and is fussy in the evenings
The baby wakes often in the night to feed
The baby decreases the lengths of feeds
The baby gulps down a bottle of milk or formula after a breastfeed
Your breasts don’t leak anymore, or feel softer
You pump very little
You stop feeling, or never have felt a letdown feeling

If you truly do feel that you have a low supply, due to hormonal issues, early mismanagement of breastfeeding, or over supplementation, talk to an IBCLC about how to get back on the right track. The nice thing about supply is that it is almost always fixable.

November 12, 2015

Take my Picture

I was asked to write a guest blog by one of my favorite people and pregnancy/birth/breastfeeding/boudoir photographers, Sabrena Rexing. I wanted to touch on family, parenting, breastfeeding struggle, and memory making. This is what came out.

This is my mother.

She fancies herself an amateur photographer. At every event, there she is with her camera, clicking away. No, not just at the happy big events, like Christmas and birthdays, but EVERY event. Hospitalizations, funerals, rehab facilities, shopping trips, and family dinners. I even have a picture of me with 90% of my body covered in poison ivy when I was 10. It has become somewhat of a family joke. I asked her once, why did she feel it necessary to document our entire lives without exception?

Turns out that she had read once, that when bad things happen, people stop taking pictures. Taking pictures was her way of saying, “this isn’t bad enough, we will get through this.”

This mindset, true or not, has become ingrained in me. I am one of those weird people who love seeing selfies on Facebook. I drool over everyone’s beautiful food pictures. I coo over babies (and not just because that is my job). When I was turning 29, I had just had my third and final baby, I was in school and overextended. I wasn’t feeling like the hottest tamale, and my sex drive was at the absolute lowest point of my life. So what did I do? I posed for a boudoir session.

When my kids are being monsters and I am frustrated with my day, I start taking pictures of them being them. I catch them climbing the furniture, singing inane songs repetitively, or putting my make-up on the dog. In this way, I take back the feelings of irritation, and replace it with making memories.

I think it is so important to document the good, as well as the bad. When it comes to parenting, eventually you will want to remember all of it. I highly encourage my clients, especially those who struggle greatly, to photograph their nursing babies. Facebook policies and modesty be damned! Take pictures of this time, for it is fleeting. You don’t have to look at them right away, if they might be painful. You deserve to remember the struggle, to acknowledge it, and then proudly say, “I am strong, I got through this!”

I have lovely professional photographs of my pregnancies, growing family, and even some of my labor and birth. I was about to wean my final baby this summer when I realized, I had none of my children nursing. I, the IBCLC, the person who made breastfeeding her career, have zero professional and frameable photos commemorating the nearly 8 years I spent nursing. I will always regret not making that a priority, but thankfully Sabrena took some lovely ones during her Breastfeeding in Public sessions this summer. She captured perfectly one of our last nursing sessions.

If you look at my mother’s photo albums, they are filled with the minutia of our lives. It is utterly biographical, unashamed, and unblinking. They aren’t all posed, or even flattering (a point that I tease her about) but they are all us. I can hear my Aunt’s voice as she comforts my two-year old about her “boo boo”. I can smell the hospital room, and hear my grandmother’s cackle laugh. Thanks mom, for encouraging me to live my life out loud, and for leaving me a legacy of memory making.

October 9, 2015

The Eight Stages of Breastfeeding

Lots of moms seem to go through the same stages of breastfeeding in the early days following their baby’s birth. These range slightly from situation to situation, but mostly follow the same patterns.

Stage One: Prenatal Bliss

You are pregnant, in the home stretch, maybe only one to two months to go. You have read a few books, gone to that breastfeeding class your hospital or birth center offered, and every woman with a snot nosed toddler and a sassy five year old in tow has told you their horror story. Still, you figure, that won’t be me, breastfeeding is NATURAL. Besides, they don’t want it as much as I do. At this point, you also probably have a lot of feelings about babies sleeping alone, toys staying out of your personal space, and still going on date nights once a week.

Stage Two: Post-partum (The Hospital)

Congratulations! You have a healthy baby! (or you don’t) and they latch right on after birth! (or they don’t) In the next 24 hours, your baby is bathed, washing away the scent of you, and making it hard for them to find you again. Then they are vaccinated, poked for a blood draw. This is followed by prodding, weighing, measuring, photographing, wrapping, and eye goo smearing. Finally, after all that, handed back to you…1-3 hours later. This is if everything goes right and you don’t opt for unnecessary surgeries!

Stage Three: Bliss Bubble

You are floating in a bliss bubble, and so is everyone else you know. They are all crowded around, asking to hold the baby. If the baby latches, you may not even notice it is bad, or that it hurts (my first born literally gave me hickies on 80% of my breast) until the nurses start bothering you. Everything is measured: weight, blood sugar levels, jaundice levels, body temperature, how often/how much you are nursing, and poop and pee output. By the way, their answer for all of this, is supplementation.

Meanwhile, it is really hard to nurse on demand when everyone you have ever known is in your postpartum room, holding your new baby. That is when the nurses and doctors aren’t doing their rounds.

This is about half of my IMMEDIATE family. I know what I am talking about.

Stage Four: Hospital Help

At this point you may see the hospital’s Lactation Consultant. Or, you may see a nurse who once sat through a two hour course online, who calls herself the Lactation Consultant. If you are lucky, she will help you with latch and she will give you great tips on how to better position the baby. If you are extremely lucky, and the hospital is empty, she will look at the baby’s oral anatomy as well as yours and make sure everything is working properly. If you catch her on a good day, she will treat you like a human. Often, none of this actually happens.

Stage Five: Things Change

You arrive home, finally. Perhaps you are already are supplementing or using a nipple shield just to get out of the hospital. Maybe this was for good reason, or maybe this was a band-aid that was put on a problem that was ignored. You are tired. You are grateful to be home. You are ready to start enjoying your baby. His latch is great! Everything is going so well!

And then, The Milk Fairy arrives! Suddenly, your breasts have swollen to the size of bowling balls and the baby won’t latch. Or, your milk isn’t coming in and the baby cries all day. Your nipples may be sore, cracked, even bleeding. You are worried the baby isn’t latching correctly, or that you just don’t know how to do this. You saw a Lactation Consultant in the hospital, do you really need a home visit from one now?! You call the hospital. You realize you can not talk to the kind and wonderful LC you talked to when you were there anymore. That is against the rules.

Stage Six: Home Help

You find the number for a International Board Certified Lactation Consultant (IBCLC) in private practice. You make an appointment. She will come to your home, spend as long as it takes with you and your baby making sure everything is working properly, and give you a care plan. She will communicate to your healthcare providers. She will empower you to make good decisions based on your goals and your baby’s needs. Best yet, your insurance is required to reimburse you for her services, just like they covered that shiny new pump you received a few weeks ago.

Stage Seven: Healing and Learning

Lactation Consultants can’t make everything all better with just one visit. They can, however, empower you to do so. The first weeks out of the hospital are difficult. You don’t have to go it alone. There is still going to be a learning process and a period of really getting to know your baby, their likes and dislikes and quirks. There is also a getting to know yourself as a mother period, so be kind to your body, to your soul, this all takes time, this is not a skill you just know how to do. And you are NOT alone.

Stage Eight: Breastfeeding Boss

You are pain free! You can now cook while you tuck Junior under one arm, latched the whole time. You no longer fear public places, or feeding time, or returning to work. You are a pro! Your baby is growing, and thriving, and starting to smile at you while he nurses. You might even be thinking, you could do this all over again in a few years…

August 25, 2015

Back to Work Breastfeeding Class!

Women have always worked and breastfed. However, in our modern world it can present unique challenges. I love to empower women to truly have it all! This class for the soon-to-be-working parent and the already-working parent who want to explore options for getting back to work while breastfeeding. This class is presented in a casual, round table format. Questions and special situations are welcome!

Pumping most effectively and efficiently once you are back to work.
Working with your employer to create a supportive atmosphere to pump or breastfeed your baby.
Creating a realistic plan with your family and care providers to support your goals as a breastfeeding mom.
Being familiar with pump options and other supportive equipment needed for the working/breastfeeding mom.
Introducing your baby to a bottle
What to expect from your baby and you when back to work
Exploring the state and national laws protecting your right to breastfeed and express milk for your baby

Please bring to class your pump and bottles. Partners (and babies) are encouraged to come to learn about bottle feeding for the breast fed baby and how to provide support for the working mom. Taught by Alyssa Goss, IBCLC.

Location: Thrive Chiropractic Center 15501 Ranch Rd 620 N #1200, Austin, TX 78717
Cost: $50 per couple
Registration: Please call 512-415-8627 or email to reserve your space!

August 24, 2015

Milk Myth Monday: Daddy Bonding pt 1.

Myth: Daddies will not bond with a baby unless food is involved.

I hear it all the time, “I plan on breastfeeding, but want to pump and introduce the bottle so that my husband can bond.” Or, “I want my partner to feed the baby at night so I can sleep.”

Truth: Daddies and non-breastfeeding mommies can bond with their babies in a LOT of ways!

Daddy bonding time is important and (surprise!) doesn’t have to include a pump or a bottle. Some of my favorite memories of my husband are the moments after birth when he held them, dressed them carefully, kissed their tiny noses and cradled them very gently in his arms. He was the only one who could put our youngest to sleep for the longest time. He had a magical way of bathing them without tantrums erupting. His broad shoulders settled their tummies and his fearlessness helped them grow confident and secure. None of these daddy bonding rituals involved a bottle, and to be quite honest with you, the few times we tried a bottle, I nearly knocked it out of his hand in a hormonal mama lion way.

Here are a few other ways your partner can bond with baby and become a partner to you and a parent to your new little one:

Baby-wearing
Bath time
Diaper Changes
Naps on your chest
Baby massage
Taking goofy Instagram pictures with baby
Dressing
Skin to skin care
Playing video games while baby sits and watches you (captive audience)
Walks
Bedtime routine
Burping
Sing to them
Making silly faces at the baby
Reading Stories
Loving and taking care of their breastfeeding partner
Skeet Shooting

Ok, that last one is for a bit older child, I admit. Still though, there are a ton of ways that babies and their parents to bond and be involved with each other that don’t include food. Here are some more great ideas from Code Name Mama.

August 18, 2015

Milk Myth Monday: Circumcision

I realize this may lose me more business than it will gain, and I am going to keep this short and sweet, however, in the past few weeks I have seen too much of this to keep quiet about it any longer.

1. Circumcision hurts. Babies have the same nerve endings we do. Their penis is just as sensitive as any other male’s. There is even evidence of in utero masturbation for pete’s sake! When you cut, peel back, and cut skin from the penis, it is going to hurt. Period.

2. Circumcision affects breastfeeding. If you had just had surgery on your genitals, you probably wouldn’t want to be pressed up against anyone for a while. Too bad that is exactly what happens when breastfeeding properly. Tummy to tummy contact means that your little one’s open and fresh wound is pressed up against your body, which hurts. The reason it hurts? Check out #1.

Often, in the days following a circumcision, the baby will reject the breast, pull away from mother, avoid eye contact, and will fail to bond properly. This causes a domino effect of consequences to take place, such as: Lowered milk supply, weight loss, jaundice, lowered blood sugar, screaming and crying from the child.

3. Circumcision is pointless. It has been proven so needless, that some Jewish communities are bypassing full Brists for more humane practices including symbolic cutting and blood letting that leaves the foreskin alone. I am sick of the penile cancer argument. Women have a much higher incident of breast cancer, and yet we don’t remove little female’s breast buds at birth.

So really, why risk it? Why give your son an unnecessary cosmetic (and most times unmedicated) surgery at birth that can put your breastfeeding relationship at risk? So that he can match his daddy? Honey, if the only difference between your husband and your son’s penis is the amount of skin on it, you have more problems than I realized.

July 30, 2015

5 Reasons to Hire an IBCLC

How do you know when to throw up your hands and call a professional to help you with breastfeeding?

1. The pain of breastfeeding makes you wish for the days of leather straps and a strong shot of whiskey.
Breastfeeding should not make you dread every feeding. It should not make your toes curl. It should not make you cry. Sometimes, yes, it can be mildly uncomfortable for the first couple of sucks, but it should not make your nipples bleed, bruise, or bevel. That is not normal, and you should seek help from an International Board Certified Lactation Consultant (IBCLC) before help from a plastic surgeon is needed.

2. Your baby isn’t gaining weight
Don’t reach for that handy dandy bottle of formula that came in the mail just because you signed up for a baby registry! Instead, pick up the phone and call for help. If a baby hasn’t gained their birth weight back by 2 weeks, it doesn’t mean your milk isn’t good, or there isn’t enough. It could mean that they aren’t able to transfer enough because of latch or perhaps because they would rather sleep! Simple tweaks to breastfeeding management might be all they need to get them gaining again.

3. The baby won’t latch
Sometimes, due to extenuating circumstances, babies develop a preference for the bottle, and prefer not to nurse at the breast. If this happens, you aren’t alone, you don’t have to give up, and breastfeeding CAN be regained!

4. You would like to have your boobs back but you don’t know where to start…to stop.
IBCLCs have knowledge to help you from pregnancy all the way to helping you come up with a weaning plan. Weaning gently is one of the hardest things to do emotionally, don’t go it alone.

4. Something went wrong the first time
If this is your second (or third, or fourth) and you have struggled with breastfeeding in the past, set yourself up for success, and get a prenatal consult. Talking with a professional with what went wrong before can help you work out how to avoid the pit falls and “boobie traps” that are so common in the first weeks of parenthood.

5. Any other reason that you feel like you can’t do it alone
If you want to punch the next person that tells you how “natural” breastfeeding is, it might be time to call in an expert. If it is a quick question, call me, I do free help over the phone. If it is a problem big enough to warrant a home visit, then we will take those steps, but questions are normal.

Ultimately, the early days of parenthood is rough enough without trying to take it all on alone. Peeing is also natural, but if it burned every time, and you started seeing blood, you would go to a doctor, right!? Don’t feel like you must go this alone. Historically, we used to have our aunties, mothers, cousins, friends, sisters, all who breastfed openly and around us, to be our lactation consultants. We have ALWAYS needed help learning this skill, we just don’t have the support systems and knowledge we once did (thanks Similac!).