Bite

• I know some people don't want to nurse at all because they are afraid of being bitten.
• Being bitten will happen, but it happens way less then I initially thought.
  
• It's probably because whenever either of my kids nursed and bit, I took them off and said, "NO"! I say, "NO" loudly not on purpose, it's just is unexpected.
  
• They were not allowed to go back on for 2 minutes, which seems like torture to them.
  
• After this they do not bite. It may happen again when they cut another tooth a few months later. Just say, "NO" and set them down for 2 minutes.
• They learn really fast that they have to be good to get what they want.
• A little fact in my household: I've been bit on the leg way more then on the breast. I'll be cooking, they want my attention, they are teething and come up to bite my leg. This is even harder to deal with then being bitten during nursing because often times they are to little for a time out, the only thing they want is my attention. I'm in the kitchen and it's hard to stop what I 'm doing. In this case I give them a firm, "NO" and set them in their high chair.
  

Low Supply?

• I think all mothers run into the worry that they are not producing enough milk.
  
• With Mica I had too much in the beginning, then not enough. I was so worried. It was a common worry in my mommy's group.
• The BEST thing to do is to pump. They say to pump after a baby nurses. I found that I really didn't have anything after nursing, so I pumped for only 5 to 10 minutes before they nursed, or 5 to 10 minutes during a non-nursing time. You won't get a lot of milk in this time frame, but a baby can always get more out, much more then a pump can. This really helped my supply.
• Other things that help: There's a natural pill called Fenugreek. I called my OB doctor, who gave the ok to take it. Let your doctor know if you plan on taking anything when breastfeeding. Even if it's natural.
  

• Good old fashioned malt powder is supposed to help. I love malt powder, and it did seem to help. You can stir it into ice cream, yogurt, coffee (don't intake a lot of caffeine when nursing though). There are lots of brands of malt powder.
  

• Mother's Milk Tee is great tasting, smelling and again builds up your milk supply. Many tee's are not ok to drink while being pregnant or nursing. They have too many herbs in them. This one is one of the safe ones. It can be found in any health food store.
  
• It even says on the box, "Promotes Healthy Lactation".
  

• There is also the yummy lactation cookies. This recipe will be another post. No...it does not include breast milk in the ingredients.

Look No Hands!

• Pumping now a days is much better then it used to be.
• I never knew when I nursed with Mica that they made a nursing bra where the pump hooks up to it, and you don't have to hold anything!
  
• I could literally eat breakfast, type on the computer, drink water while I was pumping.
  
• Sometimes I wondered if my boss really knew that I could do all that if I really needed to take shortened lunches to make up for time at work pumping. But...the door was shut while I was pumping, and he couldn't tell what I was doing. So...I just called to check on my son's while I pumped, and took shorter lunches.
  

Baby and Me Group

• I know some Mom's don't like Baby Groups. I won't get into the negative things I've heard. Let's just say that women in general can get gossipy.
  
• I want to stay positive! :)
• There is a group I went to called Baby and Me Group in Omaha, NE.
  
• Some things I really liked about going to a group like this is that they had a Lactation Consultant come in once a month for help, your baby could get weighed, they had guests come in to talk about other mommy/baby needs, it was free, time with other mothers was just needed, you could get advice, or give advice.
• I started going initially because Mica's pediatrician wanted him to come in a lot to make sure he was gaining weight. The same with Isaak. I said, "How about I go to Baby and Me Group to report back to you as to how much he weighs?" They were fine with that as long as I did indeed call in to report. Ahhhh...no co-pay, plus other benefits!
  

Sterilize Your Tubing...Milk in Your Tubing?

• Whenever you get new pump parts, you'll want to sterilize them. Boil filtered water, put your pump parts in it for 5 min. Yes...the tubing can stand boiled water.
  
• Hook up your tubing to your pump, and run it for 10 minutes on it's own, or until the water gets out of the line. I put my pump on the counter, so the pumping tubes pointed down to drip.
  
• I got backed up milk in my tubing line while pumping a few times. You take your pump bottles off the tubing. Let the tubing run on their own. The air will force the milk out. It's a good idea to sterilize the tubing after this happens when you can.
  

What Pump Should You Buy?

• I happen to really like the Medela Pump in Style. It is expensive. But...not as pricey as formula feeding!
  

• I loved my pump because it pumped both breasts at a time, the freezer pack that comes with it is great for storing your milk during a work day, it has a dial on the pump for slow to fast pumping, the pump bag looks like a computer bag, so no one asked questions. It was a hospital grade pump, so that's even what many hospitals recommend.
• Did I have problems with my pump? Yes! I used it for two kids, so I was bound to run into some problems. I changed tubing, and bottles between kids.
  
• The face plate on my pump was recalled. It kept popping off when I'd use it with Isaak. At first I kept holding it on. Then I decided to contact Medela, and ask them about it.
• They have GREAT customer service! You fill out a form, and they email you back with information on a service rep in your area.
  
• They supplied me with a new face plate and pumping tubes because I had a kink in mine. All free of charge, even free shipping.
• I was told by a birthing class instructor, "Just don't buy a pump that is made by a formula provider". Why? Because they want you to fail at nursing, so that you will buy their formula. I don't know if it's true, but I didn't want to find out.
  

Tickle Their Feet

• Mica was a sleepy nurser in the beginning. Latching was hard, once I got him latched he'd fall asleep.
  
• A Lactation Consultant told me, "Tickle his feet to keep him awake while feeding".
  
• It was the only thing that would work.
  

Nursing Pads

• You may wonder what kind of nursing pads to get?
  
• I was never picky about the brand. I was only picky about having both disposable and reusable pads.
• Some women leak even while they are pregnant. You may want to get nursing pads early on.
• Why is it good to have both disposable and reusable pads?
• I liked disposable while I was out and about. It's hard to know what to do with a reusable pad when you are in public.
  

• Reusable pad were just more comfortable to me.
  
• I didn't waist anything, because I could wash them over and over again. When I did wash them I put them in laundry bags along with baby socks, so they wouldn't get lost.
  

Nursing a Sick Baby

• My 4 year old Mica had a staph infection at 7 months. He caught it through an ear infection, so we believe. There's no sure way of knowing how he really got it. His neck kept getting bigger, so my parents who were taking care of him rushed him to the doctor. His white blood cell count was super high.
  
• My almost 2 year old Isaak had meningitis when he was 2 months. It felt like deja vu for us. Oh...the worst was when he got a spinal tap done! I was told to wait in the waiting room. I filled up with milk because I could hear him crying. To this day we don't know if what Isaak had was viral or bacterial. Bacteria never grew in the samples, but antibiotics seemed to help when they'd only help the bacterial meningitis.
  
• With both kids, we were asked by the infectious disease doctors if we had illegal immigrants in the basement of our home? Plus other crazy questions that they just have to ask to get to the bottom of what they have.
  
• I got free meals in the hospital with Isaak because I was a nursing mom. They figured I was helping him to get better with my antibodies.
  
• I think the key thing to do if your baby gets sick is to pump, pump, pump. You are going to loose your supply otherwise. My supply went down, but the key thing is, is that it didn't go away! Both kids were not too into nursing when they were sick, but when they were on their upswing that's all they wanted to do.
• Doctors and nurses just love to walk right in without knocking, someone will walk in while you are pumping. Don't expect the doctors and nurses to shut the door while you are pumping. Oh...privacy is what I longed for! They had a drape that went across the doorway. Shut that! It seemed like they always left the door wide open when I had it shut.
  
• Another thing I learned through the experience...find a way to take your pumped milk home. The hospital only kept it for 24 hours. Some of my "liquid gold" as Lactation Consultants call it, got thrown away.
  
• When Isaak got sick I learned. I kept only what I had to at the hospital. When someone else was watching him, I took my milk home to freeze. The hospital has disposable bottles on hand that work with any pump. So...ask for them. There is less clean-up, and you can write dates right on the bottle.
  
• If you have a sick baby that's hooked up to all kinds of wires like Mica was at 7 months, if they are old enough try and sit them up to nurse. Remember he had a staph infection in his neck, so it hurt to turn his head. This is the only way we could nurse. This way they don't get tangled up in wires that can be set off if they become disconnected.
  

I Taught My Boys to Say, "Bottles".

• Both of my boy's nursed until they could talk. It wasn't necessarily my plan. I always wished that they would of stopped on their own.
  
• Isaak still nurses at least once a day.
• I taught both of them to say, "Bottles" instead of "Nurse". I just didn't want them to ask to nurse in public. I mostly call them, "Mommy's bottles".
  
• I find myself saying more then anything now, "Isaak Mommy's bottles are empty." or "Isaak say goodbye to Mommy's bottles".
  
• Isaak does know the word "Nurse" from his cousin Elijah. He still mostly uses the word, "Bottles".
  
• When Mica was about 3 years old, we were walking through a bra section at a store. Mica said, "Bottles Mommy, bottles!" He no longer nursed. I was thinking, "This kid is going to probably call them bottles until his teenage years".
  

Treating Baby Eczema

• We've used lots of products for both kid's skin. Both of our kids had baby eczema on their heads. I thought it was cradle cap at first, so I was scrubbing it, only to find out I was making it worse.
  
• I found that Walmart's brand of eczema lotion worked better than anything.
• Both boy's had a huge flair up after their major sicknesses as babies. I gave them probiotics to put the good bacteria back into their bodies from all the antibiotics they took. Their flair up's disappeared fairly fast.
  
• I just recently read that breast milk can be applied to the skin of a baby that suffers from eczema. It's supposed to be better then anything.
  

Storing Baby Food and Breast Milk

• With Mica I used ice cube trays to put my milk in. I didn't even know they made ice cube trays with lids at the time, so I put HUGE plastic bags over the trays.
  
• I found some ice cube trays that I really liked after Mica was born.
  
• I used them for Isaak, and LOVED them! I used them for breast milk and baby food.
  
• They are called Orca Ice Cube Trays. It's great that they come in different colors (orange, blue and white). This way you know what was pumped the most recent.
  

• I just ran the bottom of the trays under warm sink water, then the cubes popped out very easily.
• They then went in the freezer in sandwich bags. I dated the bags with Sharpies.
• When they were ready to be used, cubes were put in drop in liners. Daddy would warm up water in a glass 2 cup measuring cup, he heated it in the microwave for 2 min. The bottle would sit in the water until it was thawed.
  
• Daddy preferred this method over milk bags. They expand when they freeze, so when they thaw they leak. No leaking with our method.
• I loved making baby food in these trays because I knew the food stayed fresh. I didn't get things like apples and pears mixed up because they were each put in a different colored tray. 
• There are a lot of baby food trays on the market, and Orka tops my list!
  

Bring in the Lanolin

• With Isaak's birth I didn't even think about bringing in Lanolin to the hospital. It just didn't faze me. I never had to use it with Mica, shockingly.
  
• Make sure you bring Lanolin to the hospital! I asked for an itemized statement from the hospital, and that 9 0z tube that costs $9 to $12 at the store cost me $45!
  

Isaak's Birth Story

• Isaak is now almost 2 years old. He was a repeat c-section. I was told even before Mica was breach, that I may never be able to have kids naturally. I elected to have another c-section.
• When Isaak was born, I thought nursing him had to be a breeze compared to Mica.
  
• I was wrong. I think the only thing that made it easier this time around, was that I actually knew how to use my pump.
• I got sores on my nipples really bad because Isaak was latching the wrong way.
  
• He lost too much weight, and I had to supplement with formula. Oh...I was upset!
  
• A week later, he was nursing just fine!
  

Mica's Birth Story

• My oldest Mica, who is now four was a breach baby who refused to turn. I even tried to get an external cephalic version, which is so painful! He was long, I was low on fluid, so turning him from the outside just wasn't happening.
• Mica came out mooning the doctors. Since he was a c-section baby I didn't get to nurse him right away. We were separated. This is one thing I wish would change.
• Once I did see Mica my sister's, mom and I realized that his tongue looked funny.
• It wasn't until the pediatrician came in that we found out Mica had a salivary cyst under his tongue, and he was tongue tied.
  
• A doctor came in that night to lance his cyst and complete a frenulectomy. Talk about difficult to nurse!!!!!!!!!!
  
• When people complain about how hard it is to start nursing, I always want to say, "You have no idea". It was hard!
• I was determined. I refused to give Mica a bottle because I didn't want him to get nipple confused. I had a birth plan, and that was already changed drastically with the c-section happening; I didn't want another thing to get in the way of bonding with my first born. Looking back...it was silly I should of just given him a bottle. Instead I pumped. I actually fed him with a syringe. I'd try and nurse with shields too.
  
• A few days later I was told that Mica wasn't gaining enough weight. I had to remove the shields, and nurse naturally. It was a bad night. Mica and I were both in tears!
  
• A few days later we had it down. He still had an asymmetrical tongue.
  
• Latching under a blanket was out of the question. I had to see what I was doing!
  
• He went on to nurse until he was 2 1/2 years old.