Breastfeeding at the End of Pregnancy

Nursing on the way home from seeing the lights in the city.

Breastfeeding sucks again.

I kind of figured that since things were going so well at the beginning of this trimester that they’d continue to go well for the rest of the pregnancy. You know what they say about when you assume? It makes an ass out of you and me.

All of a sudden, my nipples are incredibly sensitive. Like the I think I’m going to switch from wearing normal bras to nursing bras before the baby even comes kind of sensitive. Of course, it also appears that I have a new talent of smashing them on things and between things and toddler accidentally pinching them between the mattress and her arm when she’s sitting up and ouch, ouch, ouch! I’m guessing my hormones are changing in light of the pending arrival. Regardless, it’s no fun.

Then I’m also feeling a lot more irritable when Peanut nurses. Generally I’m okay if I distract myself with a book (currently reading the first few chapters of The Baby Book over again, which is definitely something I’d recommend doing before baby arrives), but sometimes I can’t distract myself with a book because Peanut thinks that I need to be asleep for her to go to sleep at nap-time, even if I’m just pretending. Not a huge deal (except when that doesn’t even work, but that’s a whole different story), but it makes distracting myself from the irritation more difficult.

Then little miss suddenly is trying to get handsy again. I thought we were finally past this point, but guess that’s the great thing about kids. Anyway, I’ve always really had an issue with her touching one breast while nursing from the other. I know that other moms can handle it, but I’m just not that mom. I don’t know if it’s just me or my history of sexual abuse, but either way it just doesn’t work for me. She seemed like she was understanding how bothersome it was for mama when she touched the other side, but now all of a sudden she’s doing it again. It’s not as bad as it used to be, but in my already heightened state of irritation, even little touches are beyond heebeegeebees.

Even having said all that, we’re still not stopping. None of this is bad enough that I even feel the need to contemplate stopping. It’s all just more irritating than anything. This all just adds to my willingness to be done with this pregnancy and have two cute little kids, rather than one cute little kid, a fetus, and a weirded-out body.

How did breastfeeding go for you nearing the end of your pregnancy? Any advice on nursing a newborn and a toddler at the same time? I’m kind of freaking out about that.

Breastfeeding in the Third Trimester

I’m 33 weeks now and things are still going steadily on the nursing front. Peanut still loves it and it gives me the ability to go to sleep, which is very much appreciated at the moment. We have no plans on stopping. Really, even if it wasn’t an enjoyable experience I probably wouldn’t stop right now because I’d worry that Peanut would get jealous when the baby comes and gets to nurse.

I have been experiencing one nursing problem that I literally have not had to deal with in over two years–engorgement. Peanut generally nurses at naptime, bedtime, and in the morning. Generally on both sides (unless she falls asleep on the first side). This has been working well for us and she’s definitely gotten what she wanted supply-wise, but then all of a sudden my supply seemed to ramp up and I actually got engorged!

Granted, this particular day was one where Peanut was in preschool through naptime, so we missed that nursing session. We also may have skipped the morning session, I’m not sure. So by the time that the evening came, I was very full on one side and pretty full on the other too. My right side was actually to the point of tenderness. Considering that I’ve had low supply issues as a general rule, I literally haven’t felt engorged in at least two years, if not longer. It’s a really weird sensation for me!

Considering how uncomfortable it was, I can say that it’ll be nice to have another nursling there to help take up some of the slack when engorgement happens in the early days. It was such relief to actually have her nurse! It also makes me hopeful that I won’t have supply issues after Twig is born.

I’ve also implemented a rule that someone suggested to me at La Leche League that seems to help with any of the discomfort I was having with nursing her in the daytime. We now only nurse in the bed. It’s not a hard-fast rule. The other night when we were over at Mema’s and she wanted to nurse before we left for home, I nurse her sitting on the couch. It’s considerably more painful when nursing upright though because we can’t get quite the right position and she gets distracted and whips her head around (an over-exaggeration, but that’s what it feels like to me). At home though, when she asks to nurse I tell her we have to go lay down then. Often she just decides to wait to nurse, which is fine by me.

How is nursing going for everyone else? Anyone else have experiences they’d like to share from nursing late in pregnancy? Any tips on my upcoming days of nursing a newborn and a toddler?

Remembering to Bond

I’ve been feeling a bit resentful about breastfeeding Peanut lately. With her asking for it all the time and my nipples hurting and I already feel touched out (though luckily not as much as I did earlier in pregnancy), I’m just annoyed. I’m still far from weaning, but if it were just the annoying nursing sessions I may be thinking about it. I do still have the ones that save my sanity like nursing her to sleep rather than fighting her to sleep (both for bedtime and naptime) and keeping her asleep when she’s ready to wake up at 6am.

Part of the problem is: I haven’t stopped to think about the beauty of nursing in a long time. I guess it just got away from me.

When she was an infant, nearly every nursing session was me staring down at her and marveling in her beauty. There have always been the times when it’s just because she’s starving or I’m annoyed that she’s asking again, but there’s always been times that are a wonderful bonding experience like they say in all the books.

With being pregnant and busy and stressed, I haven’t thought about the bonding portion of nursing for a long time. I mean, it made sense for the while where she was only nursing when I was half awake, but now that she’s nursing when I’m fully awake again, I should be thinking about that, right?

Without even having all this consciously go through my head, I did have that wonderful bonding experience while nursing Peanut to sleep last night. I could have felt rushed to get back out of the room because we were having a Halloween party and I wanted to get back to the guests, but I just didn’t. Rather than turning off the light because it would make her fall asleep faster, I left it on and just looked at her. I told her how much I loved her and could tell she wanted to say it back, but obviously couldn’t talk, so I helped her to sign “I love you,” which is something we haven’t done in months. I said something slightly amusing at which point she smirked. I could have been annoyed that her smirking while nursing kind of hurts, but instead I was delighted at how cute she looked. I watched happily as she drifted off to sleep, basking in the beauty of my child and the silence (which is something rare in a toddler). It was lovely.

I suddenly feel so much better about nursing. I don’t dread the next time that we nurse. This morning I didn’t put off nursing until she was so awake that it didn’t put her back to sleep, so I got a couple extra hours of sleep. I don’t know why I was fighting it before. Then when I got up I saw this post from Tophat about nursing in public. It was a great post about nursing in public, but it also reminded me about nursing being a bonding experience, which made it all make sense in my mind. I wish I would have realized weeks ago that I needed that bonding experience to get back to where I wanted to be with nursing. I’m sure it won’t solve every problem, but I certainly feel better about nursing than I did a few days ago.

Have you bonded with your nursing toddler lately? Do you forget that nursing is supposed to be a bonding experience too? What about you moms who are nursing/have nursed through pregnancy? Did you remember to bond with your nursing toddler while pregnant?

 

Tandem Nursing and Nearing the Third Trimester

I’ve done my best to document how nursing through pregnancy has been. First it was painful and gave me the heebeegeebees, then my milk went away and Peanut didn’t nurse for days on end, then my colostrum came in and she was ecstatic, now things are pretty much back to normal.

I realized that I haven’t really said much about nursing while pregnant lately because we’re just doing it. I don’t really have much to complain about so I don’t even think to mention it on here, but that’s exactly why I should mention it. I read about a lot of moms that have problems with nursing while pregnant and that is indeed one variation of normal, but I think that this variation needs some representation too.

Nursing while pregnant doesn’t have to be hard. It doesn’t have to make you cringe every time you do it. It doesn’t have to be part of your day that you dread coming to. There’s nothing you can do to influence whether you’re going to get the short end of the stick, but women need to know that the short end isn’t the only end. It’s possible to have a good experience with nursing while pregnant.

Mostly pregnant moms will have at least some point in their pregnancy that’s at least annoying to nurse through. Some moms it’s so painful that they can’t stand it. Some moms get such weird feelings that they start to doubt their sanity. Some moms just feel mildly annoyed at the thought of nursing. This is a very real part of nursing while pregnant. My point is that it isn’t the only part. You’ll likely go in ebbs and flows of nursing being annoying/sucky to alright. It might even change from day to day.

Right now, I just feel some mild pain when Peanut nurses. Almost like I can just feel her teeth too much. She works with me to decrease it as much as possible by getting a big mouthful and that makes it very tolerable for me. So much so that I can drift off to sleep while she’s nursing. It’s actually pretty lovely that I can go back to sleep in the morning when she’s suddenly waking up at 6am for some reason. Yeah, I still don’t get to sleep in as late as I’d like, but it’s better than nothing.

We’ve also gotten to the point that I know it’s colostrum in there, but there’s a lot! She’s actually gulping over and over. I wonder if my supply is adjusting even with just colostrum. Can it even do that? I’m not sure. All I’ve ever heard is that there isn’t much colostrum because a baby’s stomach is so tiny. Maybe it’s because Peanut is really only nursing once a day (though sometimes more if she sees a friend nursing or I’m feeling lazy about getting her to sleep), so it builds up all day and then she gets it all at once? Regardless, I’m happy that I can actually fill her tummy again.

What was your experience with nursing while pregnant? Did you have good times to go along with the bad? Any advice for my soon-to-be nursing two at a time?

My Form of Early Nesting

I bought a minivan.

Yeah, I’m probably crazy. Yeah, minivans aren’t “cool” by any means. Yeah, I’m losing some gas mileage (like 8 MPG sadly). But I bought myself a minivan which I am thoroughly happy about and I stayed out of debt in the process.

I’ve wanted a minivan for a while. Everyone thought I was silly because I only had one child and don’t you need like 10 before you consider such a thing? Honestly, I hated getting Peanut and all of our stuff into and out of my tiny Mitsubishi Lancer. That car was great when I was just me or just adults, but with her in the middle having someone on either side was cramped to say the least and after this new baby was born I wouldn’t have been able to take more than one adult with me in my car at any time. Plus trying to do something like driving to Vegas when we only had one kid worth of stuff was so packed in that car that when a thing of water spilled it ruined like $50 worth of things we had packed in there.

So I’ve been tired of that car for a while, but didn’t want to tie myself into a car payment (both of our cars were paid off) and wanted a nice minivan, so I figured we’d wait. Then in all of the paranoia (which I still call paranoia because I’m convinced it’s not twins by this point) I realized that if we do have twins, we’d have to get a new car. Still not wanting to tie ourselves into a car payment, could we possibly get one that wasn’t up to previous standards and stay within budget? Turns out yes. Even possibly that our prior standards were kind of silly.

Before I wanted a new (or near) Toyota Sienna or Honda Odyssey. When it comes to cars, I don’t care what you say, Japanese-made are the best. When I bought the Mitsubishi I gave my parents back the 1990 Toyota Camry they bought me thinking it was on it’s last leg and four years later it’s still running strong. When it comes to minivans, Every. Single. Source. says that it’s either the Sienna or Odyssey that outshines the rest. Part of my new life of trying to simplify and downsize means that I don’t necessarily have to have the best. Of course it also doesn’t mean I have to buy a clunker, but I could find something nicely in the middle.

I started researching vans and quickly threw out the Dodge Caravans and Kia Sedonas from reviews on trusted sites (Edmunds has reviews for every make, model, and year that are very nice, though sometimes dated). I decided that I would like to stick to either a Ford Windstar or Chevy Venture with a possibility of some others. I found plenty of cars worth looking at, but the caveat of buying a minivan was that I would have to sell my car and at least break even (definitely preferable if we could make some money in this process and put that towards debt).

We decided to spruce up my car and put it up on a local car buying site, just to see if there was interest. Oh boy there was interest. We listed my 2003 Mitsubishi Lancer that had a Kelley Blue Book value of $4300 for $4000. We had about 4-5 different groups (mostly teenagers with their parents) test drive it, 4 offers (some of which hadn’t even come to see the car, which is kind of silly), and eventually sold it for $3800. This all happened within 5 days. I stuck to my guns with the price because, while it wasn’t in perfect shape (though who would expect a car that’s 8 years old to be in perfect shape), the Blue Book for a car in good shape was the $4300 and my car very much fit into that category. I knew that if I didn’t get enough to buy a minivan, it wouldn’t be happening, so why would I sell my car short? One of the people seriously offered me $2500 without even seeing the car!

When we found our buyer, I decided that it was time to get serious about finding a minivan. I start school next week and while we would have survived on one car, it wouldn’t have been fun. I went to town with my mother and looked at cars I had found online and all of them ended up being bleh. While trying to find an address, we passed a dealership with a van out front and decided to stop. Wow, this van was amazing.

When we went back to town the next day (money in the bank from my car sell), we still couldn’t find a van that matched up to this one we saw. My husband was feeling sketchy about the miles (161K, which is pretty high for an 8 year old car), but it was just so obviously well taken care of. It had all of the nice little things like a mirror to watch the back seat, DVD player, power driver’s seat, etc. for $3500 (which ended up being $3900 with taxes and what not). We decided a car with higher miles and pride of ownership was worth it over a car with lower miles that was beaten the crap out of. No better way to state it.

When I was reading my pregnancy book this morning and it was talking about nesting, I started to think. My house is a mess, I’m not at all ready for school (and Peanut’s preschool) to start, and I often go hours without even thinking about the fact that I have a baby in my belly. I haven’t even kept up with the blog about my pregnancy! Obviously, I’m not nesting, right? Wrong. I took my nesting in a different route this time. I spend a considerable amount of time over this last week or so preparing my vehicle for our new arrival and keeping our finances in check all the while. I am nesting, just in a different way than I expected.

19 weeks 0 days

I am 19 weeks and 0 days today. Things are pretty happy around here. I’m still getting round ligament pain and it’s getting worse, but that might be because I’m running around like crazy and haven’t had a whole lot of time to rest. The dizziness is getting better and that is lovely. I also have a bit more energy now-a-days, but I’m still yawning come 6PM. My boobs are huge and my fingers are swollen. ‘Nuff said there.

I’m finally gaining weight now. I went down to 8 pounds below my pre-pregnancy weight (possibly lower because I think the pre-pregnancy guestimation was a bit on the flattering side) and stayed there for a while. Now I’m up to just 4 lbs below. I’m sure that has something to do with my ravenous appetite. Wow, I could eat a whole cow. Mmm… I want a hamburger.

I also think my colostrum has come in. Peanut didn’t nurse at all for a couple of days. One day because she just didn’t ask and the second day was because she asked right when I was rushing out of bed to get our Canadian friend to the airport, so I didn’t have time to sit and nurse, then she didn’t ask again for the rest of the day. Then yesterday she asked to nurse in the morning and I heard her actually swallowing. It’s a bit more painful now and still gives me the heebeegeebees, but it’s not enough that I’m thinking weaning. She even asked to nurse a second time that day after she hit her head, but then she wanted to spend the night at her grandparents’, so we’ll see if she nurses today at all (since she really only asks in the morning it seems and I obviously didn’t see her this morning). I told her that Twig can hear her today (because it said so in my email) and so she was just talking up a storm to him/her. Hopefully she stays this excited about her new sibling throughout the whole pregnancy.