Still Nursing

Naja smiling on Mother's Day 2012

I'm skipping the weekly update this week to provide an brief update on my breastfeeding experience. Naja is 10 months old now and she is on three solid meals a day, with two additional snacks. She drinks water, and my milk. She has exclusively had my milk, and I continue to pump three times a day at work, and nurse her whenever I'm around.

I plan to nurse her through her first birthday, and I'll see where we go past that. Her recent set of incoming teeth has caused nursing to be her only consolation to the pain. I'm happy I've stuck with it this long - it's a great feeling to know that I can assuage her pain, even if only for a moment, and I do love the bond that I share with her due to breastfeeding.

Since my last update, I have a new tip for the working- nursing mom: Pump and nurse simultaneously - yes at the same time! I stole this genius idea from a mommy mentor. This tip has saved me time, and re-built my milk supply since I lost about 40 ounces due to a fuse break in my freezer. It's quite simple - whenever you nurse the baby - you nurse her on one side, and pump the other side. It takes some getting used to at first, but after the first time, Naja could ignore the pumping sound and go right to sleep while she nursed. This is really helpful at night now that Naja isn't waking. This is also helpful when I go out on the weekends, as I leave "balanced" - I don't have to worry about one side being more full than the other.

My body is at an equilibrium with the whole milk supply thing. I don't leak, and I am past the pain that accompanies those first few weeks months. I even went away for one night for business travel last week, and while away, I didn't have a chance to pump as much as I normally do. Surprisingly, everything seemed to be fine when I returned - my milk seemed to be just enough for Naja!

This may be TMI but...I still have yet to have a visit from Aunt Flo - no complaints - 19 months and counting! However, recently, as Naja has nursed less, I have experienced bouts of slight nausea, headaches, being tired, and other pregnancy-like symptoms. No worries - I'm definitely not pregnant. In talking with other moms (and googling the heck out of stuff), it seems like other nursing moms have experienced these symptoms surrounding a change in their milk supply. Joanna talks about this here, and Drea talks about it here. This nursing thing is all hormonal, so funky things happen, I'm noting any changes that are out of the ordinary for the future (and my next visit to the doctor).

Finally, I've lost a ton of weight without even trying! I haven't changed my diet, and I am the smallest I've ever been in life, thus I attribute this weight loss to nursing.  I lost a large chunk at the onset, and another 5+ pounds after the 6-month mark. I've heard similar stories from other nursing moms. Who knew?

No promises that all of these things will apply to you, and this may actually be totally irrelevant...but I thought I'd throw my experiences out into the net to help future google searches ;).