Milk for your coffee?
It’s been almost a month since I’ve started back to work, and today is the first day my littlest one didn’t wake up in time for a morning milk before I left for work. Continuing to nurse him twice a day (once around 5 am and once before bed) has been surprisingly easy since I’ve gone back to work. I know he doesn’t really need to be nursed any more, but we’ve found a rhythm that’s working well for us so why tinker with it?
Nursing this baby has been a far different experience from nursing my first son. I hated nursing and persevered only because of sheer stubbornness. My nipples were cracked, blistered and bleeding for weeks, we got thrush, he had reflux and when he started having weight gain issues at four months, I had start supplementing with formula. Weaning was easy: by the age of 10 or 11 months, we were down to nursing only once a day, and he was pretty clear about when it was time to give it up entirely.
But my youngest is a boob man. He was close to seven months before I could convince him to even consider taking a bottle, despite regular attempts. “Gack, mommy, what are you doing? That pacifier is leaking into my mouth, get it out of here! I’m so traumatized by this experience that you must nurse me now!”
So back to today… The good news is, I got to sleep in. The bad news is, I now have more than 12 hours of milk supply built up to carry around with me. Not really a problem just now, but I’m a little worried about how things might be going at around 2 pm when I have a meeting with the director general. I’m pretty sure we’re long past the stage where I might spontaneously leak (oh, the joys of motherhood), but I brought my breast pump to work with me, just in case. Except, there is really nowhere private that I can pump. Doing it in my cube is not really an option. The executive boardroom has lovely comfy chairs, but it's booked solid all day (too bad, there's a nice big TV in there and I could have got my Dr Phil fix while I pumped.) I would do it in the washroom, but can only imagine what the person in the next stall would think when they heard the “whick-wheee, whick-wheee, whick-wheee” of the manual pump emanating from next door. Especially when it is accompanied by the “youch, youch” of trying to get a plastic pump properly latched on an overfull breast, followed by a grateful “ahhhhh” of relief and release. Maybe I could go into the Market at lunch time and accost random mothers pushing strollers, asking if they would mind if I borrowed their babies for just a couple of minutes. A kind of a random act of nursing. That's not too weird, is it?
Nursing this baby has been a far different experience from nursing my first son. I hated nursing and persevered only because of sheer stubbornness. My nipples were cracked, blistered and bleeding for weeks, we got thrush, he had reflux and when he started having weight gain issues at four months, I had start supplementing with formula. Weaning was easy: by the age of 10 or 11 months, we were down to nursing only once a day, and he was pretty clear about when it was time to give it up entirely.
But my youngest is a boob man. He was close to seven months before I could convince him to even consider taking a bottle, despite regular attempts. “Gack, mommy, what are you doing? That pacifier is leaking into my mouth, get it out of here! I’m so traumatized by this experience that you must nurse me now!”
So back to today… The good news is, I got to sleep in. The bad news is, I now have more than 12 hours of milk supply built up to carry around with me. Not really a problem just now, but I’m a little worried about how things might be going at around 2 pm when I have a meeting with the director general. I’m pretty sure we’re long past the stage where I might spontaneously leak (oh, the joys of motherhood), but I brought my breast pump to work with me, just in case. Except, there is really nowhere private that I can pump. Doing it in my cube is not really an option. The executive boardroom has lovely comfy chairs, but it's booked solid all day (too bad, there's a nice big TV in there and I could have got my Dr Phil fix while I pumped.) I would do it in the washroom, but can only imagine what the person in the next stall would think when they heard the “whick-wheee, whick-wheee, whick-wheee” of the manual pump emanating from next door. Especially when it is accompanied by the “youch, youch” of trying to get a plastic pump properly latched on an overfull breast, followed by a grateful “ahhhhh” of relief and release. Maybe I could go into the Market at lunch time and accost random mothers pushing strollers, asking if they would mind if I borrowed their babies for just a couple of minutes. A kind of a random act of nursing. That's not too weird, is it?
Said DaniGirl at 7:30 a.m. #
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