Milk Wars

Andrew helped me come up with the title of this blog posting last night. I have been at battle with my boobs and daycare for a while now. Since the first week of daycare, the teachers in Jacob's class have pretty much made me feel like a terrible mother and like I am starving my child. It seems like everyday I go in to pick him up they are telling me he either needs more milk, a different size nipple on the bottles, or he is crying after every feeding. In the last 3 weeks his bottles have gone from 4 oz, to 5oz, and now to 6 oz. Now, you have all seen pictures of this chubby child and know that he cannot be starving by any means! I swear every time I give Jacob a bath he has a new roll on his thighs that I have to clean. :) I really do not want to give Jacob formula because I set a goal to breastfeed/pump for 1 year.

Well, Friday was the last straw. I went into daycare on Friday afternoon and the Director pretty much gave me a tounge lashing for not leaving enough milk for Jacob. I got home and was really upset thinking that I was this terrible mother and I knew that I could not pump 24 oz. worth of milk to leave for him everyday. I quickly got on the phone with the lactation consultant at the hospital and she said pump for 10 minutes after Jacob eats over the weekend to try and produce more milk. I thought great.....now I am really going to feel like a cow. Andrew happily reminded me that cows only get milked two times a day and I would now be getting milked at least 8. (Thank you Andrew) Well, I survived the weekend and got enough milk to send 4-6oz. bottles with Jacob on Monday morning. Unfortunately, I have not started producing more milk. I actually think I am producing less.

My sister Carrie sent me an article today that made me feel much better about the situation. You just do what you can and don't stress. The important thing is that you enjoy the time you have with your baby- and it doesn't have to be through breastfeeding.

And because no blog posting is complete without pictures.......