Zoë Elizabeth's Breastfeeding Story.
By the time my second child arrived, I was an RN in the NICU and have
assisted many moms with putting their babies to breast. I felt very strongly
that breastfeeding was the only way to go.
Since I was planning on returning to work full time when she was five months
old, I spent a lot of time reading and preparing even before she was born!
Zoë and I quickly established a good breastfeeding relationship. I still
lacked a lot of support and encouragement from our family but now I was an
"experienced" mom and was not about to let their opinions deter me.
By the time Zoë was six weeks old, I began to prepare for my eventual return
to work. I invested in a good double pump (a medela). I started pumping after
one morning feeding and after one evening feeding and put the milk in the
freezer. My plan was to have a good supply stockpiled so that I could keep up
with her demands while I was at work. I also had my husband give her one
bottle each evening to get her used to the bottle. At first she didn't like
it. It took a lot of patience on his part and my leaving the house to get her
to take that evening bottle.
By the time I returned to work, I had a good supply of milk already. Since I
was pumping about half of the time that she normally would nurse, my supply
did drop off initially but it was not a problem as I had plenty of milk
stored to keep up with her while my body adjusted to the demands on the job
as well as breastfeeding.
When the time came for solids at around seven months, she was not interested.
Actually she did not like baby food...even though she had no teeth, she
wanted table food like her family! By age nine months, she was eating three
meals a day along with breastfeeding 4-6 times a day.
When Zoë was 13 months old, I was pregnant with my third daughter. This
pregnancy was planned but I did not think that it would happen so quickly as
my periods had only returned two months prior.
It is perfectly normal to nurse through a pregnancy but I made the decision
to stop. My reason was that I had had several second trimester pregnancy
losses and since breastfeeding does release oxytocin which triggers uterine
contractions, I decided that for the sake of my unborn baby, I should stop.
Weaning was actually quite easy as Zoë did not seem to care for the change in
the milk due to the pregnancy hormones.
Zoë is now 5 years old and with the exception of a tympanostomy at age 15
months for excessive fluid in her ears, she has been very healthy and very
rarely sick.
