got (enough) milk?

Infant growth charts can be a massive source of anxiety for new parents. Your baby is measured and weighed and compared to standardized curves that tell you how big your baby should be. Actually, that’s not what they do, but that’s how it often feels for a parent, and if your baby falls into the lower percentiles, it’s so easy to panic, even if your baby is totally normal for his/her age.

A nursing mom’s milk supply can also be a huge source of anxiety. A lot of women only breastfeed a few weeks, and there’s definitely a lack of readily available information about how your milk and your breasts change if you continue to nurse for 3, 6, 12 months, never mind if you nurse for years. The information is out there, but you have to look for it.

That’s what this post is about: infant growth charts and milk supply.

The background: last week, one of my best friends wrote me an email. Her first child is roughly 4 1/2 months old, and at her last well-baby check-up, registered in the 20th percentile for weight. My friend was concerned, wondered whether her milk supply might be dwindling, and she asked me for my thoughts. I sat down and wrote her a loooooong email (I had a lot of thoughts on the subject!), and I thought I’d share it with you, too. Of course I’ve taken out personal details regarding my friend and her baby.

Spend 2-3 days in bed with baby and just sleep, eat and nurse, nurse, nurse!

Here were my first 2 pieces of advice:

1. First of all, Don’t Panic! Your milk supply hasn’t disappeared. If it has diminished, there are plenty of ways to increase it. And most important of all: 20th percentile is still normal. It just means that 20% of normal babies are at about that weight. And baby’s being at the 20th percentile for weight at her age doesn’t necessarily have anything to do with your milk supply.

2. An extension of Don’t Panic! is that this is not a reason to supplement with formula. Don’t do it. Your milk supply really would drop if you did.

How to care for a sick nursling

Welcome to the Motherwear Carnival of Breastfeeding!

Not long ago, I shared my tips for surviving a cold or flu as a breastfeeding mom. Today I want to talk about what to do if you’re healthy, but your nursing baby or toddler is sick. My advice is based on my own experience and is really focused on managing daily life while caring for your sick nursling. Ask your pediatrician about what your child needs during his or her specific illness, and if you are unsure about anything, talk to your child’s doctor first!

1. Nurse, nurse, nurse! This is the single most helpful thing you can do. Your breastmilk is a complete food, providing not only the most important nutrients, but also unique immune factors that will help your nursling fight his illness better than any other food or supplement you could imagine. Any time you are exposed to an illness, your immune system produces antibodies to fight the infection. These antibodies are passed on to your baby through your milk, making it one of nature’s most clever protective mechanisms for little people whose immune systems are not yet mature. In fact, when a baby or toddler is sick, breastmilk is often the only thing he will willingly eat/drink and the only thing he is able to keep down. So try not to limit your child’s time at the breast. Be aware that your older baby may give up solid foods for a while and may not return to previous eating habits for a while, even after he is healthy again. If you have recently begun weaning, go back to allowing your child to nurse on demand until the infection has cleared up. You can always return to the weaning process later. Right now, helping baby get well has priority. Depending on what kind of infection baby has, you may want to modify the frequency and/or length of feedings. This overview by kellymom should give you a good idea of what to do.

2. Revive your comfy nursing spot. If your baby is younger, you probably have a nursing station all set up. If your baby is

back in the day

When I look at this photo, it seems like it was taken just yesterday, but it was actually over a year ago! How time flies with the little people!

better than pjs

In honor of International Babywearing Week, I give you this adorable image of Marie and her papa. It wasn’t so long ago that she still had to be “worn” to sleep for naps, and Toffi would often succumb to sleep himself after he had successfully gotten Marie to fall asleep. This photo also features the sling I sewed myself. I made it so Toffi would have an easier time rocking Marie to sleep.

Our Ergo Baby Carrier is great for taking walks, but not as great at lulling a baby to sleep. So I did a little research, took Toffi’s measurements, and in an amazingly short time, we had a fantastic sleeping aid!

This is one of my favorite babywearing pictures from our family, but there are so many more amazingly precious photos over here, at Adventures in Babywearing. You should really check them out (and prepare to get all sappy – bring Kleenex)!

Also, take a look at these stylish slings and wraps. One of the bloggers posting a babywearing photo or story will be winning one!

giving in to giving

I was a little shy about nursing in public when Marie was a newborn, and since she spent those first couple months nursing almost constantly, I rarely ventured outside for more than a short walk with the dog. But I couldn’t stay cooped up for long, and since the alternative to nursing in public was for Marie to cry and fuss, I got over my shyness and decided to go for it. Once I got comfortable with it, I was anything but modest. I was too impatient to deal with covers, and I hated the idea of retreating to some obscure corner, so a lot of strangers got to see my nipples. Big deal. It really didn’t bother me at all, and I enjoyed nursing my baby in public almost as much as I did so in privacy.

But now that Marie is older, I don’t really enjoy nursing her in public anymore. She squirms, she’s distracted, she laughs and points at things around us, and she likes to switch from one breast to the other several times within a short nursing session. Combine that with the fact that people look at me more anyway since Marie is a toddler now, and we attract a lot of attention. So I try to avoid going out when I know Marie is likely to want to nurse soon, and when she won’t settle for anything less, we find a way to head home ASAP. This almost always works.

Yesterday was one of those days where it didn’t work. Marie had slept badly the night before and had gotten up at 6:20 that morning, which is about an hour earlier than usual. When I picked her up from daycare, her caregiver informed me that she had only napped for half an hour. So she had at least a 2-hour sleep deficit. Nonetheless, she was in a great mood and had been for pretty much the whole day. I grabbed her stuff, she waved bye-bye to her caregiver and off we went. Except then I had to set her down so I could rearrange the stuff I was holding so that I could go get our stroller from the center’s “stroller garage.” Marie did not like this. Not one bit. As I set her down she arched her back and screamed, writhing her way out of my arms, then clinging to my legs, then making herself dead weight when I tried to pick her up again. When I had her in arms again, I tried to soothe her and explain that I just needed to grab the stroller and was now ready to hold her for however long she needed. She settled down a little, but not really. I tried sitting her in her stroller, thinking she might settle while watching the world go by. After walking about 200 feet it was clear this wasn’t going to happen. So I grabbed the sling from the diaper bag (a New Native Baby Carrier, which is not our normal carrier, but which fits in pretty much any bag, making it perfect for emergencies like this) and lifted her into it. Well, I tried to lift her in, but her writhing made it difficult, and it ended up taking quite a while before I really had her in the sling.

Once I was no longer struggling to get her squirmy legs into the sling, she calmed down again, but as we continued walking, she kept crying and pulling frantically at my shirt. For a brief moment, the thought, “but we don’t nurse outside anymore” went through my mind, but before that thought had an opportunity to pass across my lips, I asked myself, “why?” Sure, I don’t enjoy nursing Marie in public that much anymore, but that doesn’t mean I need to have an iron-clad “no-nursing-in-public” rule. Especially not when my sleep-deprived little girl is desperate for some relief from whatever frustration she’s feeling! So I unhooked my nursing bra and pulled down my shirt (the neckline was just barely low enough to make this possible), and I got Marie latched on. And since she was so tired and unhappy, all she did was nurse. No popping off to look around, point at things or laugh and babble. I did get a few looks, but none of those passers-by saw my nipples – they just saw a woman walking and nursing a baby.

Marie and I made it home without any crying or fussing, and I was so glad that I had given in. And I mean “giving in” in a positive way, as putting my ego aside and giving in to someone else’s need. I gave in so that I could give her what she needed.