November 26th, 2004
My Little Milk Stash
» motherhood
I am saying byebye to my little stash of frozen breastmilk. They are stocks during the one month period (around September) when I felt very insecure about my supply. The baby was taking two solid feeds a day, meaning reduced nursing appointments with me. And she was easily satisfied after 10 or 15 minutes of nursing. She must be either super efficient or super lazy sucker, and that got me super worried about drying up again!
So I took out the medala mini electric pump and decided to try expressing again to upkeep my supply. Surprise surprise, I had “improved”! I could yield about 2 oz of precious milk after 30min of painful hard work. When I said painful, I really meant painful! Somehow the pump didn’t like me; the suction gave me burning, cutting, tearing sensation. I simply could not continue after 30min of self inflicted torture, the suction funnel was like a plunger (what is a plunger? think blocked pipes) trying to remove my milking taps! After one month of collection, I surrendered and gave up. I convinced myself to relax and let nature takes it course. Probably also because I realised I wasn’t drying up afterall. I also wondered if extended painful expressing would ultimately injured my body and cause some muscle or cell mutation!
Those liquid foods are about two to three months old, not too sure if they still fresh or not. I have not used a single packet as I gave up using the bottle. I don’t know what else to do with them. Mix them with the baby’s cereal? But the cereal already contained milk and advice against adding more milk. Drink them myself, err, very weird, don’t dare to. Maybe I should use them to make Milo or tea for James secretly, very yummy yummy nutritious. I think he will freak out and drop dead if he finds out.
November 26th, 2004 at 5:22 pm
*laff* Too bad we don’t have a milk bank here in Singapore, otherwise the milk will be very useful for anyone who is enable to nurse her baby for a short period of time. Maybe want to try and advertise on AsiaParents and see if anyone needs it? (That is, if you haven’t thrown it away).
When I fell ill when Ryan was about 3 months old, I was really afraid I could not nurse him. I was running a high fever and the prescribed antibiotics did not seem to help. The GP told me that if I still do not recover with the prescription, she might have to increase the dosage and that means I could not breastfeed till I finish the course, which is about a week? At that time, I was contemplating calling up all my friends who are breastfeeding to see if they can spare some supplies for me, as I am reluctant to let Ryan take formula milk. Call me a breastfeeding fanatic, but I think other mommies’ milk is still better than formula milk lor!
*LOL* Can try that on James. I support you!
Other recipe ideas would include making ice popsicles? ice-cream? yoghurt?
November 28th, 2004 at 2:31 am
dory, you are really one persistant mom! lucky ryan. btw, have you or your chris tried drinking your express milk? I just don’t dare to try. And I think James wouldn’t dare to ask for Milo or tea in future…haha
November 30th, 2004 at 2:39 pm
somehow i never pluck up the courage to taste my own milk :p the idea sounds yucky kkkekkeee. My baby is eating more now and sometimes I do have problem expressing enough for him. Do u ladies know of anyway to help increase milk supply?
November 30th, 2004 at 9:41 pm
I don’t have any secret recipes to increase milk supply. The only method I use is to let her suckle (direct feeding) more, it really help to increase the supply. And I also drink a lot of water.