Mama Monday: Thoughts on Breastfeeding

I'm a bit late on this, but in honor of World Breastfeeding Week, I wanted to throw out my thoughts on the past 17.5 months of breastfeeding. (Hans says I should include a warning: Breastfeeding pictures included. Stop now if that kind of thing bothers you.) If you've spent any amount of time with me, you know I'm a huge advocate of nursing. Maybe not as big or as informed advocate as some of my friends, but it is still something near and dear to my heart.

Before Emma was born, I knew that I wanted to nurse, but I hadn't really given it much thought. It's just... what you do. I'd read all the material about how much baby benefits from it. But I had this idea in my head that it just kind of happened. This is how our species has existed for thousands of years, right? It's what our bodies are made to do! Nursing will be easy.

So you can imagine my surprise when I discovered that breastfeeding is HARD. I don't think anyone adequately prepared me for that. Sometimes the struggle was so hard I almost gave up. But something else interesting happened the very first time I nursed Emma. I fell in love with it. I loved feeling her tiny body next to mine. I loved having this quiet, still time to just watch her and marvel at her. I loved the feeling that comes from knowing that I am providing my baby with exactly what she needs. This love of nursing offset the hard times. I was determined that I would exclusively breastfeed until 6 months when we introduced solid food, and then continue to a year.

When her first birthday rolled around, we were still nursing 5-6 times a day. It was still a special time of day for us and continues to strengthen our bond. So we kept going. We weened off feedings and we are currently down to two a day. Most recently, my "goal" was to ween the morning feeding at 17 months and finish nursing at 18. Buuuuttt.... I couldn't give it up. So for now we will keep the two-a-days. I no longer have a goal, we will just see how it goes! I know the end is coming and I get incredibly emotional and teary when I think about it. So for now I'll just enjoy each moment.

I know it doesn't look like I'm "enjoying" it here... but we were just making faces at each other.

But I'm digressing from what I wanted to talk about. The hard stuff. Because it IS hard. And when I first hit the hard part, I felt very lost and alone and like I was just.... failing. I'm definitely no expert, but I'm hoping that my experience can help some new mom out there who is wondering whether she's doing this right and maybe it can help her. So without further ado...

Why breastfeed?
Once again, I'm not an expert, so I'll refer you to other reading materials. My choice to breastfeed has been primarily because of the benefits for baby: the perfect balance of vitamins, proteins, carbs, and fat that baby needs; antibodies and other immunities; and increased brain health (studies show that breastfed babies have higher intelligence). As an added bonus, breastfeeding has helped me emotionally and physically. The previously-mentioned bonding helped with the roller-coaster of emotions associated with new motherhood, and all those calories needed for producing milk helped me drop baby weight like crazy. And no, breastfeeding isn't necessarily free (nursing pads and bras, bottles, pumps, cost of food, etc), I'd argue it's way cheaper than formula, and you always have it with you. I remember being caught a couple places longer than we expected and being relieved that I could just go find a quiet place to nurse - and that I had an abundant supply of food for her always ready. If you need more convincing:

• 5 Great Reason to Breastfeed Your Baby
• Breastfeeding Basics from Women's Health
• Why Breastfeed? (Healthychildren.org)
• A really specific list from NursingMothers.org

Also, the Huffington Post had some neat infographics last week that had some pretty interesting data on breastfeeding in the U.S.

Erika's oh-so-expert (cough cough) tips

• Prepare ahead of time - A couple weeks before I gave birth, a sweet woman from our ward took me into the mother's lounge to talk to me about nursing. She advised me that each time I got out of the shower, I should rub a towel over my nipples, fairly roughly, to help toughen them up in preparation for nursing. Confession: I didn't do it. And I wish I would have. Because the first few days hurt like I have never hurt. Better bet I'll be doing this next time.
• Find your "helps" - There are so many products out there to help. Oh, sure, you can get by without them. But I certainly appreciated having them. The ones that came in most handy for me were a nipple shield (to help Em learn how to latch), these little ice packs that looked like donuts, and Mother Love nipple cream. Girls, I tried other ones, but this one was different and WONDERFUL. Don't waste your time on those other ones, get this one. Found at Central Market or People's Pharmacy, probably Whole Foods, and on Amazon.
• Before you get started, ask another mom - I had no clue where to begin. They handed me a tiny person and told me to nurse her. I didn't know how to hold her, I didn't know how to latch her, I didn't know how long she should eat, I didn't know it mattered which side. I made the mistake of leaving her on one side for almost half an hour the first day... it was so sore and raw I couldn't hardly nurse on that side for the next week. I was fortunate that on my very first night home from the hospital when I couldn't get the hang of nursing, I had three mommy friends show up at my house in the wee hours of the morning to help me out. That "takes a village" thing is no joke. Ask other moms who have been through it to walk you through it. I can promise they either had someone who helped them learn or they wish that they had.
• Try different positions - Em nurses lying down, in my bed (side-along nursing). We have tried other positions and she just doesn't like it. She likes to stretch out. If we are out and about and she has to nurse in public, obviously she will accept the traditional cradle-hold, but she's easily distracted and she won't nurse as long or as well. At times of desperation, when it was hardest to get her to nurse, we tried everything. I swore I'd never show anyone this picture, but we are far enough removed from that night that I can swallow my pride and fear of embarrassment and laugh about how ridiculous this was.
  
  We tried everything and couldn't get her to nurse. This is what finally worked. She was smiling the whole time like she knew *exactly* what she was doing. "Ha ha, look what I'm making mama do." Punk. Here's a good reference from kidshealth.org if you're looking for different positions to try. I never knew there was anything besides the cradle!
• Drink water - This is pretty much the number one rule with nursing. Drink water until you feel like it's going to leak out your pores and eyeballs. My boss told me that her rule of thumb was that every time she sat down to nurse, she would drink a Big Gulp size cup of water. Thought you went to the bathroom a lot when you were pregnant? Ha. That doesn't end. Drink, Drink, Drink. 
• Eat enough and the right things -
  
  I know there's an urge to "get your body back" after baby and so you want to curtail what you eat. Don't. Your body needs the calories to make that milk! And if you're like me, you'll be hungry as a horse after nursing. Listen to your body and feed it. My doctor told me she didn't care if all I ate was snickers bars, just keep eating. If you're struggling with milk production, there are things you can eat and drink to help stimulate milk production. Yeast (especially brewer's yeast), oats, flax, fennel, - all these things help get that milk flowing. I ate a lot of these cookies (mostly because they are delicious) and would immediately see an increase in production. KellyMom (Love that site!) has a great list of tips if you are having production issues.
• Don't kill it at the gym - This goes hand-in-hand with the diet one. It's a delicate balance between wanting to lose the baby weight and wanting to be able to produce enough milk. Exercise is a good thing and I can say it really helped me deal with some baby blues, among other things. So I'm definitely not saying "don't work out." I'm just saying... Don't go to the extreme. I can't remember where I read it, but when I started doing more serious running again (about six months post partum) I did some research to make sure my milk would be ok and the general consensus I found was to keep hard, vigorous exercise to 30 minutes or less. Additionally, I like what La Leche League has to say about exercise and breastfeeding: http://www.llli.org/faq/exercise.html
• Pump - Eek. Not my favorite thing. Actually, I hate it. But I did it every night until Em was a year old. I know I'm probably gonna get some hate mail for this, but my kid was one of those rare ones who was doing 10-12 hour nights by three months old. Yeah that whole midnight feeding thing? We really didn't do that much. Sorry. Send the hate mail. It's cool. I can take it. I sleep all night :) But since she was sleeping so much, I didn't want to go 12 hours without anything. So I would pump every night before I went to bed. It gave me a good supply in the freezer for supplementing as needed, but I did end up having a ton of milk that I donated to other mothers. Especially in the beginning, if you can't feed your baby every 2-3 hours, make sure you pump. Your body produces as much milk as your baby needs. So pumping can help to stimulate production.
• Ask for help - I'm listing this twice because you need to do it in the beginning, but down the road you will have questions. I went to local La Leche League meetings and they were extraordinarily helpful. I was nervous for the first one I went to, but it's just a bunch of moms all bringing their questions to the table. You learn what you need to and sometimes you get to share something you know, that you didn't realize you know. That's a cool feeling.
• Bonus suggestion: Get a good app - This is a bit of my OCD coming out here... but I track everything. This was after the first two nights at the hospital the nurse kept asking me "Well how long did she nurse for?" and I had no clue. Shortly after getting home, I downloaded the Sprout Baby app.
  
  You can track feedings (bottle and breast), sleep, medications, diapers, you name it. I use it mostly for feeding and sleeping. I think of it a lot like people who count calories. Sometimes our perceptions of how we are doing just don't match how we're actually doing. I thought she was getting enough sleep but when I started tracking it, I realized it was all over the map and not as much as I thought she was getting. The feeding app really helped me keep track of how often ("What? Really, it's been three hours? I swear I JUST did it!!") and, to an extent, how much. It's hard with breastfeeding to know if baby's getting enough milk. It's not like with a bottle you know she got 4 ounces. The app helped me identify patterns. I could pinpoint when my letdowns came (one minute and again around 8-9 minutes). I could see that she likes shorter feeds in the morning and then 20 minutes for every feeding after that. Keeping track also let me pinpoint days where she ate for less time than usual and I would pump to compensate or give her an extra feeding to make sure she was getting enough that day. I know it's a bit Type-A of me to track everything, but it's really made me feel more organized and on top of my nursing habits.

After allllll of this, I would like to say that while I strongly urge breastfeeding for as long as possible, I also feel it's so important to note that not everyone can. And that doesn't make you any less of a good mom. I have a close friend who, due to her own health complications, was only able to breastfeed each of her children for one week. And I think it is incredibly awesome that she was able to do that. Every bit of breastmilk your baby can have is chock full of benefits. How great is this mom that she wanted that for her kids?

Maybe you can't exclusively breastfeed and you supplement. AWESOME. Maybe you don't produce milk at all or you simply choose to bottle-feed. AWESOME. Good for you for knowing what you can and can't do and making sure your baby has a full, happy tummy. I really don't like some of the "I'm better than you because I breastfeed" things I see out in the blogosphere these days so I really want to stress that while it's something special and important to me, I don't think anyone is less of a fantastic mom because they don't. We cool?

Yes, breastfeeding can be difficult. But it can also be really wonderful. Know that if you're having trouble, you're not alone. I'm definitely no expert, but I have learned so much from my experience and if you ever need me to be your breastfeeding cheerleader, just let me know!

Love List: She's a funny kid

This week's Lovelist is all about Punkito's funny little quirks. She has been making us laugh so hard lately! I love her little personality. It shoes more and more each day.

1. Tunnel fun
We got a fun little surprise in the mail from Bapa yesterday. Since Emma's been kind of down lately with teething and trouble sleeping, he thought it might cheer her up. Boy, did it ever. She spent the next 30 minutes going in and out, in and out, giggling the whole time. It was wonderful to hear her laughing. Thanks, Bapa!

I tried to chase her through and got stuck...

2. Mama's little helper
Lately, Em really wants to help Mama in the kitchen. Most of the time she's content to cook in her play kitchen, but often she grabs my legs and wants to sit on the counter and help me.

Mama, let me help! 

3. Rocking the bad sunglasses
Hans and I both had to get our eyes dilated this week. Booooo. I must be getting old, because I don't remember it affecting me so adversely in the past. I was nauseous and useless for hours.

Emma thought the glasses were pretty great, though. She rocked them all over the house for a couple days. They fell off her face easily and it was really cute how she kept bringing them to us to put them back on her.

4. Stealing Shoes
The other day I am in the living room and I hear this THUMP shuffle THUMP shuffle THUMP shuffle over and over again. I turn the corner to see that she has managed to put on just one of daddy's sandals and is parading around the house in it.

A few days later it was Uncle's lifting shoes.

What is it with this kid and shoes??

5. S'mores Cupcakes
Did you know I love s'mores? I'm kind of obsessed with them. Since Em came along, I bake far less than I used to. But every once in a while, I get the itch to whip something up.

Marshmallow cream filling!

These Cinnamon Graham S'mores Cupcakes from Baked By Rachel are out of this world. May be my new favorite cupcake. May be the only cupcake I make from now on. Tryyyy them. Or come here so I have an excuse to bake them for you. (P.S. I doubled the recipe and used half white sugar, half brown sugar).

Spiritual Thought: Favorite Scripture

When I was graduating from high school, someone asked me what my favorite scripture was. They wanted to have it embroidered on a blanket. The question kind of caught me off guard because it made me realize that I didn't really have one.

Now things are different. There is one scripture that always comes to mind as my favorite, because it's one that I read over and over again. It always brings me peace, and hope, and strength.

"Counsel with the Lord in all thy doings, and he will direct thee for good; yea, when thou liest down at night lie down unto the Lord, that he may watch over you in your sleep; and when thou risest in the morning let thy heart be full of thanks unto God; and if ye do these things, ye shall be lifted up at the last day." Alma 37:37

For a long time I made decisions all on my own. And I made a lot of bad ones. When I course corrected, I kind of... over-corrected. And didn't trust myself to be able to make good decisions anymore. I wanted Heavenly Father to tell me what to do in every situation. As time passed, I became more confident in my ability to listen to Heavenly Father's promptings and be guided by them, but also to come to conclusions on my own and seek for confirmation. But this scripture has always been my reminder that we should pray ALWAYS. First thing in the morning, last thing before bed. Seek for that guidance and he will never lead you wrong.

Don't Mess with Emma

After our big Schlitterbahn adventure, we decided to take it easy this weekend. We slept in and then headed to the downtown Austin Farmer's Market to wander around.

There were more booths than I expected, yet I didn't see anything I was interested in buying. While I'm sure the prices were pretty standard for a farmer's market, I couldn't get over how much they were. Like five bucks for this basket of peaches. Yikes. Hans and I were talking about how you have to be really committed to organic, local produce.

It's sure a great place to get breakfast, though! Lots of fresh bakery items, tamales, teas, and, of course, breakfast tacos. We got a few Taco Deli ones and they were delish. Great salsa. Emma's favorite part was the sticker on the tacos.

Our next stop was to take our weekly mural pic. This one was a bit tricky to do because it's right on the feeder of I-35. And it's huge, so we look really tiny!

I sure love this one of Em and Hans though. One of my favorites in our little project so far.

We topped off our night with a family favorite - homemade pizza - and a movie, The Lego Movie. Punkito loves this meal so much it always becomes a giant mess and it ends with a good, strong bath. I'm just happy to see her happily cramming her mouth.

It was an nice, relaxing day. Lego Dude's got it right, everything IS awesome.

Mama Monday: Schlitterbahn with an Under-2

Some of my favorite memories growing up are the family trips we took almost every summer to New Braunfels to go to the amazing water park there, Schlitterbahn. This weekend, Josh had a friend visiting from Utah and they wanted to go to Schlitterbahn. I was a little nervous about taking Punkito, thinking she was too young and it might be too difficult.

To my great surprise, we had an AMAZING time and it was a wonderful day. In case you're thinking about taking your very little one, here are my best tips.

Planning your trip

• Go on a week day. Hans took Friday off and we were so glad we went that day - a few lifeguards mentioned that the next day was historically the busiest day of the year. It was also a little cloudy, which was awesome. It wasn't too hot and white-boy Hans didn't get horribly sun burned, as usual. Between the weekday and the cloud cover, we didn't really feel like it was very crowded and Josh reported only having to wait 30 minutes for one of the most popular rides. I remember waiting two hours for that one once!
• Buy discount tickets. Fortunately, under 3 is free! In the past, we have gotten a great deal by buying the summer fun pack from Simon Malls. It has two adult tickets for $85, plus includes some goodies and a $25 visa gift card. Alas, since it's such a good deal, it tends to sell out fast and we weren't able to do that this year. We bought our tickets from HEB instead. I think that only saved us about $10 total, but hey, it's something.
• Bring a cooler. Schlitterbahn encourages picnics - thank goodness! We packed a ton of frozen water bottles, some fresh berries and pineapple, cheddar bunnies (Em's current favorite), several Plum baby food pouches, a bunch of Clif bars, and a few other random snacks. We didn't end up buying any food in the park, which was a major money saver for us. For reference, I noted that a burger with fries and a drink was about $12-13.
• Bring all your supplies. They have anything you might need in the park, but you'll pay for it. Definitely bring sunscreen, hats, towels, sunglasses, etc. We also found that Em's water shoes were very helpful to prevent slipping on the wet ground and to keep her feet cool on the parts of the ground that were baking hot in the sun. We also borrow a little Puddle Jumper vest/arm floatie thing from our baby friend Hinckley and it was a huge win. I thought Em would hate wearing it, but she seemed to really like it and it meant that I could get more than arms length away from her. It helped keep her face out of the water if she fell over (and it also helped keep her from drinking the water, a "fun" new trick of hers). Schlitterbahn does offer free life vests all over the place, we just didn't end up using any.
• Pick a baby transport. We opted not to bring either of our strollers. I didn't want to risk it being stolen and I also remembered a lot of stairs and the tram from park to park. I really didn't want to have to cart a stroller around all day. We saw several people with cheap umbrella strollers - that would definitely have been a good alternative. Baby friend Hinckley went a few weeks ago and her mom said they took her stroller just because it reclines and they were able to lay her down in it and get her to take a nap. While that would have rocked, we know our Em and that's just not something she'll do. So we decided to ditch the stroller and just take the Ergo. I was very glad we did, it made it very easy to navigate the crowds, stairs, and shuttles. She did almost fall asleep in it at one point (as we switched parks), but alas, no luck. She didn't end up taking a nap that day, but we didn't expect one and she did far better than we expected missing her nap. Too much fun to be had!

Old Park (Schlitterbahn West)

• Lagoon Activity Pool - This was the only section we didn't love. You have to go down a bunch of stairs to get to it and it was sooooo crowded. The only time we felt like there were too many people. And there wasn't a whole lot for Em to do. There was one tiny little area with 4-5 slides, but she couldn't even really leave that area. We couldn't find chairs or tables to set our stuff down. We didn't stay long and it really wasn't worth the effort of going down all those stairs.
• Polywog Pond - The pond is fairly shallow - Em could touch through most of it, except the very middle. It had a few slides that were hard to go down. I don't know if they needed more water but she was sticking to them. But there were four larger slides that went pretty fast. We were a little nervous about letting her go down them, but one of us stayed at the bottom to catch her (a little deep on landing) and the other helped her at the top and she LOVED it. Every time she got out she'd run for the top to go again.
• Tadpool Kiddie Pool - This was kind of a neat little play area. There are these big, soft mushrooms and trees that bubble water out. You can climb through and under them and splash around in little streams of water. It's more of a splash pad type activity than a pool, though there were a couple slides going into slightly deeper water. We started here and it was a good way to get her used to the cold water temperatures and venture into playing without anything too intense.
  
• Schatze's Central Park - What a cute section! There were tons of fun splash pads, water slides, trees with hanging bridges to climb through, a "car wash," and a castle where a large dog makes an appearance every (other?) hour. We loved the slides and splash pads, but the car wash and dog scared her. This area was very shaded and the slides were very small, so it's a good section for very little ones.
  
  
  
  
• Congo River Expedition - We didn't ever make it over to this one, but Baby Friend Hinckley and her family said that she LOVED it.

Newer section (Blastenhoff, Surfenburg, Tubenbach)

• Hang Ten Harbor/Kristal Cove - This is a perfect place to camp out. Eat your snacks here. If your little one will nap, this is the perfect place for it. It's quiet. Shaded. Plenty of tables and chairs. There's a nice, large cove with a beach entry that doesn't get too deep. Hang Ten Harbor has those lily pads with the ropes that you try and pull yourself across on - Emma loved to watch her Uncle Josh and his friend go across those. We will probably come straight back here and make that our home base for all trips from here on out.
• Kristal River - This was my favorite part of our visit. They have yellow kiddie tubes that have bottoms on them. The first time we tried to put Em in one (over in the old section, in the Lagoon), she freaked out. So we waited awhile and tried again. We brought the tube up on the ground and just let her play around it. Eventually she got in it. And touched it. And saw it wasn't scary. We drug it over to the beach entry at Kristal Cove so it was in the water, but not even floating. And let her play around in it. Eventually we eased it out on to the water so it was floating, and she was a little nervous, but ok with it. And then we went out into the lazy river. We floated the first lap with Mama and Daddy just walking along side the tube, close to her. On the second lap she was comfortable enough that we both got in tubes and held on to her handles to link the three tubes together. She was so happy just chillin' on the river, watching the other kids play on floating crocodiles and tubes and we went around and around until we lost count. It was so fun.
  
  
  
  
• Kinderhaven/Kiddie Coast - I think this was Emma's favorite place. I guess it's technically two attractions, one geared more for pre-schoolers and one for young children. But she liked both equally. There is a big ship that spurts water and has six slides coming off it. They aren't little baby slides, but our little baby loved them all the same. You can't ride down with your child, but one parent can take baby to the top and the other can help at the bottom. We had to tear her off those slides at the end of the day. There were also some smaller slides, like a clam that went pretty fast, a shell that didn't, and another ship-type thing that curved. She liked the speed of the clam and did that one quite a bit, too. You could probably spend your whole day on this one section alone.
  
  
  
  
  
• The Falls - This was our one misstep of the trip. We could see a good portion of this tube chute and it looked pretty tame. We talked to a lifeguard and a mom/tiny daughter duo we saw getting off the ride. Both assured us it was fine for Emma. It was not fine for Emma. The first part WAS tame and she liked it. But then it turned the corner and turned into rapids. It was fast. It was bumpy. She was terrified. She started crying and giving me this look like "Mom, make it stop!" and there was nothing I could do. I felt so bad. I was truly worried she was going to get pitched right out of her tube. She just didn't weight enough to keep the tube down as it went over all the rapids and she was getting bounced around like she was in a washing machine. It was terrible. We bailed out at a lifeguard stand and walked the rest of the way back. She cried for a good while and was pretty clingy after that and it took us a while to convince her to get back in the water. Folks, this ride is not for the under two set. Don't let the lifeguards tell you otherwise.
• Blastenhoff - We went over to this section toward the end of the day, after we'd already explored what the rest of the park had to offer. It has a wave pool which was kind of neat, but Emma seemed kind of scared of it. Could be she was still traumatized from The Falls. I sat with her near the water's edge and let her see how the tide came up and went away again and that it wasn't scary. She eventually warmed up enough to sit down and play at the edge, but never got brave enough to venture in. There was a kiddie play section, but it wasn't as big as some of the other's we had seen, and there was a whale there that scared her for some reason, so we didn't stay long. There's a Hans' Hideout that has a bunch of water guns and giant buckets that tip over and spill water on you, but she was definitely too small for that. We didn't go near it, but she liked to watch the big kids playing in it. We ended up not staying in Blastenhoff for very long because it didn't seem like there was much for her to do and we ended up going back to Surfenberg.

Are you still reading? Good on you. Hopefully my superfluous explanations may come in handy for someone out there trying to plan their trip. Maybe it convinced you that your little under-two can handle it. Trust me, she can. And she will love it. And so will you! I think if we do it again with her under two, we will pretty much just go to Surfenburg and hang out on the lazy river and the kinderhaven coast all day. That was definitely our favorite part. 

It was a really wonderful day. I don't know if she will remember it when she's older, but I know that we will and I will never forget this smile.