The Nine Month Freakout

Hello Dear Boobjuicers and Friends!

Okay I totally promise I am going to continue on the travel thread. But one, I have done a crap job of getting to my friend mamas to ask if I can use their stories, and two, I have such a pressing topic I just have to share it: The Nine Month Freakout.

So of course it could be the eight month freakout or the ten month freakout. And while I think this might happen for mamas who are with their kiddos all day, I am referring in particular to the problem of Keeping Up With Demand Via Pumping. Somewhere around nine months, I seemed to have gotten it in my head that since Kiddo was eating more and more solid food, he would start needing less boobjuice. Incorrect. In fact, his caloric need seemed to be going up just exactly along the lines of his solid food intake, so the boobjuice demand was totally unchanged. Because I had gotten it in my head that I was going to be able to pump less, or at least have less trouble keeping up with him, this turned into a freakout. Sometimes Hubby would run out of boobjuice while I was at work, or have to give "scant" bottles (more on this below) in order to stretch it out. Finally it ended up with some very unscheduled days off and a panicked call to the lactation consultant.

The LC made a couple of excellent points. One, Kiddo was on solids now. If he had one more meal of solids during the days that I was off winning the bread, so what? He was getting plenty of nutrition, plenty of boobjuice, and an extra half an avocado in the afternoons was NOT a crisis. Two, I was producing plenty of milk. (Recall from earlier posts my adventures in fenugreek? Not only did the stuff totally not work on me and make me poop my pj's (ew), it was completely unnecessary. As were the disastrous adventures in barley water. Closest I had come to barfing since the first trimester.) Here "plenty" means he had several bottles during the day, he never complained about supply when he was nursing unless I had *just* pumped, and even in that latter case I still managed to get some good stuff into him. In terms of numbers, I think I was getting 4 or 5 ounces when I pumped first thing in the morning if I was lucky and he had slept through the night, and less otherwise. Then during the work day it varied but I think eight was average. You can do the math here and see that I was not producing enough on a work day to supply a whole work day. Hence, pumping on weekend mornings. Yes, it was a pain in the ass, and yes, it was worth it. I also worked from home on Wednesdays at this point which really helped.

I came up with a couple other ideas myself. At this point we all have it in our heads that we give boobjuice first and solids are like dessert. Which is totally correct when we are 4-6 months along and experimenting with rice cereal. But once Kiddo can eat all sorts of stuff, and digest it well, I think there is no reason you can't have the person wrangling your kiddo while you are at work give solids *first* for most meals. This means Kiddo should be more full and need less boobjuice, at least for a couple of sittings. This will help stretch the supply during the day. Caveat: if your pediatrician or LC says differently of course that trumps my suggestions. But it never hurts to ask for a second opinion if what they are saying isn't working for you.

Lastly I want to point out something that actually smacked us upside the head earlier than nine months but came up in discussion last week. My dear colleague Mama CC has just encountered the Nine Month Freakout, and we had a heartfelt conversation in the hallway a week or so ago. It felt so good to be helpful to another mama! She is struggling to keep up with the amount of breastmilk that the daycare workers are giving her kiddo, and it had her in a panic. It turned out that the well-meaning Kiddo Caregivers were giving her little girl seven or eight ounces of breastmilk at a time. This is simply not necessary or productive. (The anti-pumping sorts will now go into the requisite rant about how bottle feeding is unnatural, it messes with Kiddo's demand signals, blah, blah. Tell them to start paying our rent and we'll think about it.)

I suggested instructing the day care folks to give solid foods first, give no more than five ounces of boobjuice in a bottle, and if she's still hungry try more solids after the bottle. This can be tricky (who wants avocado after yummy yummy boobjuice?) and who knows, the magic number might be six ounces, but the wildly large bottles Mama CC's kiddo was getting were a function of the glass bottles we anti-plastic mamas like to use (which come in four ounce and eight ounce, and if any of those manufacturers are listening PLEASE start making a five or six ounce one!!! ack!!!), and a new kid at the daycare who is being formula fed and gets seven our eight ounces at a time. This had both Mama CC and me wondering how that little one is not (a) puking more, or (b) obese yet, but as cited in earlier posts, it's none of our business. But really, seven ounces of anything sounds like a lot for a four month old kid? And lastly I pointed out that she can nurse her kiddo at daycare at pickup time (if it's closing time she can nurse in the car) and that might save a whole bottle depending on how they were scheduling things. So what if you're home twenty minutes later? Hubby can start dinner.

So as disclaimed before, I am not a lactation consultant, pediatrician, or any other sort of expert, I'm just a mama like you sharing some ideas that worked for me. So don't sue me. Besides I have almost no money so suing me is a waste of your time. I spent it all on cord blood banking and moving to Oregon. And it was worth every penny.

Did you encounter a demand-based freakout? Did you find any tricks you want to share? Drop me a comment and let me know!

Be well and happy boobjuicing!

Love,
Suzi

PS - Acupuncture doctor totally floored that I'm still nursing. He was positive about it but just couldn't seem to get his head around it. Tee hee!