Keeping Up A Healthy Milk Supply

In a previous post I wrote about what to expect after birth when your milk supply comes in. I received numerous questions about how I kept my milk supply up while nursing harper.

Below are are a few of my tips and tricks to maintaining a healthy milk supply.

1. The most important thing to know, I believe, is that your breast milk increases on a supply and demand basis. Meaning, that the more your baby is on your breast or the more you pump in between feedings, the more milk you will produce. So if you want your supply to go up pump in between feedings.

2. A healthy diet is key! Drinking a glass of water while nursing to keep you hydrated is important. Eating healthy foods and a balanced diet is also very important. Almonds and oatmeal are also know to help mothers produce more milk.

3. Lactation teas! If you are allergic to certain pollens or plans its is probably beat to stay away from herbal teas. But if not my favorite brand was the  Mothers Milk Tea by Traditional Medicinals. It is important to remember that too much of the herbs that are in lactation teas can be harmful to your milk supply. If you have questions about this please contact a lactation consultant.

4. MY FAVORITE! Milkn’ Cookies

When Harper turned six months old I noticed a drop in my supply. Within two days of eating one cookie a day, my supply was up again and I was pumping an extra 4 oz. a day!

5. Make sure that you have your baby in a proper position in order to establish a good latch.

6. Lastly keep your stress levels as low as possible. Stress can significantly reduce milk supply.

Remember, I am not a lactation consultant. I am a mother and a doula who has training in breastfeeding support. If you need support breastfeeding or are not able to bring your supply up please contact a lactation consultant.

xo

Baby Talk 0-6 Months

My baby is here and we are overwhelmed with joy. Family is coming to see our little one, and I am exhausted from labor and delivery. Exhausted, but at the same time, have that “new mommy energy.” I don’t know where it comes from, but it is incredible how I could be so tired but still have the energy to push through. It is a gift and a curse. When family arrives, I don’t want anyone to watch my baby. I have this new, weird maternal instinct that makes me extremely paranoid about everything. So I cook, clean, nurse and never sleep. I end up back in the hospital because my C-section incision opens up from pushing myself to hard. What I should have done was stayed in bed with my baby, and when people came over, asked them to clean, bring meals or help my husband take care of the baby while I took a shower. When everyone tells you to sleep when baby sleeps… SLEEP… They aren’t kidding. I didn’t, and it bit me in the butt. Next time around I will, I promise.

Some of us have the birth of our dreams and some of us do not. I personally did not, which was difficult, especially in the beginning. But that is for a whole other post. My point is that it is so important to take care of ourselves. As new mommies, most of us become completely selfless. Which is important. But at the same time, a healthy mother equals a healthy baby. Babies are intelligent, they can easily pick up on our emotions. Make sure that you are getting enough rest, eating well and taking a few moments each day for you! There will be moments when you need to cry or you want to give up. My advice is to put baby down in their crib for a minute and walk away to take a few breaths. It’s not their fault, they love you and you are a great mommy. Check out my resource page to find support groups for those of you who have gone through C-sections, who need help postpartum, who have babies with colic, or for those who need support breastfeeding.

In the first six weeks of life, babies are not regulated to sleep/wake cycles. This means you will practically never really sleep. They cannot differentiate between daytime and nighttime. With Harper, what I made sure to do was, during the day, I opened up my house – all of the windows and the back door – and let in natural sunlight throughout the day. I also took her on walks in the morning and in the evenings. Newborns sleep a LOT, about 18 hours a day! I can recall one of the hardest days that I had with Harper as a newborn. She was maybe two months old and I was out and about. I was driving home as fast as I could because I knew that she was tired and hungry and that she wouldn’t go to sleep until she nursed. Well by the time I got home she was over tired. There is nothing worse than an over tired, fussy baby. About four hours later, she finally went down. I cried that night. Word to the wise, if your baby is giving you signs that he/she is tired, get them to bed ASAP!

Now onto nursing… Once you deliver your baby, your body’s hormones shift and you start to produce colostrum. Your milk won’t come in for a few days, so in the meantime, you will try to initialize a healthy latch with your baby, and get into a good feeding routine. They say that babies nurse every two to three hours. What they don’t tell you is that this countdown only begins when you start nursing. So my baby, who ate every two hours until she was 11 months old, really got back on the boob every hour and a half because she nursed for thirty minutes. This scared the crap out of me. I worried that my baby was not getting enough, or that my milk would never come in or that I would not produce enough milk. (Read my other post about breastfeeding to learn more about nursing and what to do if you do have a low milk supply.) Then my breasts would become engorged for a few days. And if I hadn’t had my midwife to give me remedies for this, I probably would have given up.

It’s important to remember to trust your body! It knows what to do. Your body is so intelligent that it knows how to regulate its milk supply based on what the baby’s needs are. And once your milk comes in, it is normal to become engorged for a few days. You will regulate shortly after that. Nursing is hard work, but it is super rewarding and the best thing for your baby. Not to mention that it is a cure-all. When Harper got hurt, I nursed; when she was fussy I nursed; when she was tired, I nursed. I never had to worry about how much formula to bring, or how many bottles. Not to mention the fact that I knew that, by me nursing, I was helping to keep my daughter healthy for the rest of her life. The benefits of nursing far outweigh the difficult moments.

It is so important to have support when you start nursing. Investing in a postpartum doula or a lactation consultant can literally make the difference between a mother giving up completely, or developing a great latch and routine so she can easily nurse for at least a year. They will also help you learn how to pump. Which is important if you ever want to start to go out on dates with your husband again. 😉 Now I know that not every woman can nurse. We live in a society today that doesn’t really promote nursing either, which makes things even more difficult. If a woman has to go back to work, she may only nurse for six weeks, or sometimes not at all. She may pump at work or cut down to morning and night feeding only, with formula in between, which is really difficult, I’m sure. I personally am pro breastfeeding. I believe that we should educate and encourage more women to breastfeed. The most important thing for a new mom who is choosing to nurse is to have support. Check out my resources page to find breastfeeding support in your area.

Okay, time to talk about poops… Babies’ first couple of poops are called ‘meconium,’ and it is kind of nasty stuff. My recommendation is to bring something to the hospital that can be a barrier between your little one’s bum and the poop. I say this because it is like tar. You will wipe and wipe and wipe, and it will still be stuck. I personally brought a little olive oil and put it on Harpers’ bum to act as a barrier. My midwife suggested this because A., it works, and B., it’s organic. Then once the meconium phase is through, you will be dealing with runny poop, probably for the next six months or so, because your baby only ingests liquids.

The worst part about all of this is leaky diapers. I can tell you how many times I had poop running down the side of my shirt from Harper’s diapers leaking. And I tried almost every diaper out there, I’m sure. Make sure you have an extra change of clothes for both you and baby in your trunk at all times, because the chances are good that this will happen to you at least once. You will also get peed on, it’s just part of being a mom. Babies, in the first few months, obviously don’t know that when diapers come off, they should hold it. So bottom line is, you will get peed and pooped on. Most of the time you laugh it off. As mothers, we love our babies so much that none of this bothers us for more than a brief moment.

Teething for us was brutal in the beginning. Harper tends to get four teeth at once. She was fussy and cranky, slobbery, and chewed everything she could get her little hands on. After she got her first couple of teeth in, I found out about the amber teething necklaces. What a gem these are. I will write a post later about how they work. For us, an hour after I put one on Harper, she was significantly happier and all of her drooling stopped. Before putting the necklace on, I was going through bib after bib trying to keep her dry. I used the amber necklace, with Hylands teething tablets and Pumpkin Butt teething oil. The Pumpkin Butt teething oil works great, and it is natural and safe for your little one. My pediatrician is against the use of baby Oragel, and I knew that it wasn’t the healthiest choice for Harper. I know it’s hard seeing our babies in pain. I hope some of these remedies will work for you.

I feel like the first six months went by the fastest. One minute she was a newborn; next thing I know she is six months old, rolling over and sitting up. They say that the first months are the hardest. I disagree. Becoming a parent is hard! Every age has its great moments, and its more difficult ones. It is important to realize this. I miss the days when I could lie harper down in her crib, and she would lie there for 30 minutes watching her mobile so I could shower or eat. Once they start crawling and walking, it is a whole other story. That’s not to say that I didn’t enjoy that age. I miss it so much that I am looking forward to having another baby.