The Pump and Dump Duo

I was reading the April issue of Parents Magazine (I still get magazines even though it seems I never have the time to read them!) in it there was a short column about these two moms, The Pump and Dump Duo – Shayna Ferm and Tracey “MC Doula” Tee, who after having their own children decided that the plethora of moms out there struggling with parenthood, really just needed a night off. So they started “The Pump and Dump: A Parentally Incorrect Comedy Show and Night Out” in Denver, CO and now have a nationwide tour. To quote the column from Parents Mag, “Several weeks a month, these funny mamas get on stage to help moms (and dads) find humor in a world filled with parenting pressure.”

A few of the songs highlighted include, “I Wanna Come Back as a Dad” and “Eat Your F-ing Food”. They also read audience submissions during the show. To see more about these ladies and their night out , go to http://www.thepumpanddumpshow.com.

Thanks to Brooke Schuldt, Parents Magazine, for highlighting this show!

New Recycle Program Supports NICU Moms

While skimming through the Medela website looking for some of my favorite resources to share, I found this link to a new program they are launching, Medela Recycles.

The program is designed to, “allow more moms the opportunity to breastfeed — supported by the recycling of used Medela personal-use electric breastpumps.” In their press release from December 9th, 2014, found here, they outline how any Medela pumps donated will go towards the donation of Medela, hospital-grade Symphony Preemie+ breastpumps and breastfeeding supplies to the Ronald McDonald House Charities. The goal is to provide them with the same supplies and high-quality equipment they would receive at the hospital. “The Symphony Preemie+ Breastpump help infants’ mothers establish a milk supply to provide their own breastmilk to their premature babies.”

I’m Over It, Done Pumping!

It’s been about a month since I last attached a pump to my breasts. If they could talk, I’m sure they would thank me.

Until about a month ago I was still nursing my daughter at night and first thing in the morning, but I knew that it had become more of a comfort thing than a food thing because my breasts had gotten WAY smaller and since I wasn’t pumping I didn’t know how much I was making. My husband and I had gone to a wedding and since we had an overnight babysitter for the girls I took advantage of it and had more white wine than usual. Once we got home the next day I wanted to check my milk before nursing so I pumped. After 30 minutes I only had 1.5 ounces. That’s it! That’s not even enough for a snack for my one year old. So I figured it was time to start weaning her off. By the way, my milk wasn’t contaminated in case you were concerned.

With my first daughter the change to whole milk was easy because she was always bottle fed, so after her first birthday I just started giving her whole milk in place of breast milk. She didn’t seem to notice the difference, so all was well. This time around though I also nursed, since I couldn’t make the change as abruptly to whole milk, instead I had been weaning her off of nursing for a couple of weeks. I think I lost a lot of the emotional connection to nursing when I realized how little milk she was getting, I wanted her to start to figure out how to soothe herself. Since weaning off of nursing she has done great. We still do a bottle in the morning and a bottle before bed and then rock to sleep, lately I haven’t even been waiting for her to be asleep before laying her down. We do bottle, books, songs, rock for a few minutes and then into bed she goes. Some nights she cries a little, and others she talks herself to sleep. The whole transformation has been pretty amazing, especially with how fast it’s happened.

I am pretty sure she was our last baby, and I don’t think I’ve fully grasped what all of that means. Our basement is packed with baby clothes and I still have my pump and all the parts in my closet. They’re like a glimmer of a chance that maybe I’ll do all of this again. We’ll see though, now that I’m completely done with it all it feels pretty good. Stay tuned.

One of these days I will take the time to calculate how many hours I spent attached to my pump and how much milk I made for my first baby. All of that data is hand written on a million charts. For my second I used an app on my phone called Mommy Log. It was free and pretty good, I didn’t religiously track my milk and time, but here are some fun stats.

I pumped from January 13th, 2014 – October 6th, 2014.

• Total Pumped: 19.1 gallons
• Highest Day: 6/19/14 22 oz
• Lowest Day: 10/7/14 2 oz
• Average Per Day: 12.44 oz
• Average Per Pump: 4.84 oz

Best of luck to all of you out there still pumping, or are yet to pump. After another year of doing it I still believe it was the best thing I did for my girls and I’m very proud of it. I didn’t make the most milk in the world, I had my trials and successes, but overall it was a wonderful experience and I hope that all of this has been a help to someone – it has certainly been helpful for me to get it all out! Literally and figuratively. 🙂

Please share your own stories on any of my posts, I would love to hear them!

Thanks for reading!

Maria

My Baby is One, So I am Done…Pumping

Yesterday my daughter turned one! I’ve been weaning my pumping down over the last few weeks with the intention of eliminating my midday pump once she turned one. I still brought my pump to work in case I felt like I needed to relieve some pressure, but I ended up being fine. Although, at night when it came time to breastfeed before bed I think I had more milk than K is used to because her tummy got too full and she spit up – which she never does. So we’ll see how the next few days and weeks go.

I know there are a lot of mothers who continue to pump past the first birthday, but for me that was long enough and my daughter is certainly ready for the next thing. She’s already using a sippy cup at mealtimes and has just started trying to use a fork. I know there is still tons of good stuff in my milk which is why I’m not going to stop nursing yet, but I am so glad to be packing away my pump.

I’m not sure if that will be forever, or if I’ll need it again in a few years. But if this is goodbye, we had a good run, and I am grateful for the hard work it did! 😉

One Week Left

In one week my daughter will be one year old. I decided that I would pump for a full year, and since I’m able to nurse this time I will continue to nurse for a little while after her birthday. I’ve been slowly weaning back on my pumping over the last month, going from 3 times a day at work to only twice. And starting today I went down to once a day. My schedule is to nurse my daughter in the morning when she wakes up which is usually between 5-6am, then pump at work around 1pm, then nurse her to sleep around 8pm. While she’s at daycare they’ve been supplementing with formula to give her the amount she needs because I had a decrease in milk a few months ago that I didn’t keep up with. She eats so much regular food that it wasn’t worth the stress and effort of trying to make more milk if it just wasn’t in the cards. The same thing happened with my first daughter too, by her birthday I was only getting 10ml every time I pumped which is just not worth it for the effort.

Traveling and Pumping

A couple of weeks ago, my husband and I took a trip to Las Vegas for the weekend for our 5 year anniversary. Although I was so excited to have the alone time we very much deserved, I knew I would need to pump while traveling which added some stress to the planning aspect of our trip. I’d never flown anywhere while still pumping so it was all new to me. If you haven’t done it either, don’t be scared. It’s really a LOT easier than you’d think.

It’s Official, Starting to Decrease My Supply

My daughter is almost 10 months old and although she still nurses with me in the morning and at night and on the weekends, at daycare she’s drinking less breastmilk. She’s way more interested in the real food, mostly due to us weaning her with a method called Baby Led Weaning (and I HIGHLY recommend it, definitely check it out if you haven’t heard of it).

So I’m going to start slowly decreasing my supply by eliminating one pumping session a day for a couple of weeks and see how that goes. Ideally we will decrease by a pumping session every few weeks so that by her first birthday we are ready to introduce whole milk and limit her to just nursing with me in the morning and evening. And if you’re not nursing you can do the same thing and just pump in the morning and evening.

Pumping Tip: Empty the Valves

Quick Tip:

When you’ve finished pumping, and are emptying your milk into storage bags or into one bottle, make sure you empty the valves too. I usually remove the breast shield, then unscrew the connector but leave the valve attached and slowly lift the membrane off of the valve and empty the milk into the bottle. Surprisingly there’s usually more milk in there than you’d expect. Then pour the bottle of milk into a storage bag or keep it in the bottle, depending on your process. Every little bit counts, that milk is like gold so make sure you get every last drop!

World Breastfeeding Week is Here!

It’s World Breastfeeding Week again! I almost let it pass by without writing about it. Although the focus of this blog is breastpumping, I think those of us pumping should still be given credit during this week of awareness. The big news this week was about actress Olivia Wilde posing for photographs for the September issue of Glamour magazine while breastfeeding her son, Otis. If you haven’t seen this yet, here is a link to an article about it.

I’m not sure that most celebrities are like her when they have a baby, my skeptical opinion is that they probably hire a nanny, chef and personal trainer so that they can drop all their baby weight in 2 months. They also probably go right to formula because if they decrease their calorie intake they won’t make much milk anyway. They are able to spend all day every day being fed wonderful food and working out so that they can go on the Ellen show and talk about how they “have no idea how they lost the weight so fast!”  While the rest of us spend about 18 months slowly losing our baby weight, and if you’re reading this then I assume you are also still making breast milk so you are still eating the necessary calories to get the amount needed for baby. Am I way off on this?

Colors of Breast Milk

After my pumping session this morning, I removed my freshly pumped milk bottles and noticed something odd. The milk from my right side was tinted green and the left side was normal. I got a little worried, but figured it was probably nothing, but still strange to see the color change.

Once I got back to my computer I Googled “green breast milk” and found out that apparently that is totally normal. And apparently there’s a whole rainbow of colors that your milk can be, some are normal and others you should watch for. I found this article called, “The Colors of Breast Milk” and pulled out a few key points to share: