I will get to that post I promised, but I have to talk about this first

Responding to some comments:

Okay, not formula bashing or anything - but I guess I have to give a little tsk and remind you that you should pump WHEN she's with her dad, right? I mean you did say you were all dressed up with no where to go - K meet pump, pump meet K. Now go do naughty things to each other! And, um, do you have a freezer, super-spoily-milk-one?? If you were at a LLL meeting and someone asked about this what would you say?

I have been lactating for four consecutive years. It's going to take a lot more than a few hours without pumping for my breasts to close up the milk factory.

The longer you lactate, the hardier your milk supply is. If a new mom of a four month old came to a meeting and said she'd be away from her baby for 4-6 hours three nights a week, I'd tell her to please try to pump during that time to maintain her supply. The newness of her lactation and her inexperience with supply would lead me to advise her to err on the safe side and pump.

Because I've been lactating for so long, and because I know my breasts and their patterns so well, I don't feel like I have to pump while I'm gone. I don't often feel empty, and conversely I almost never get engorged, even when I go all night without nurisng. Nursing fo-evah has it's benefits.

Besides, I'd look awfully silly taking my pump into a bar to play Quizzo.

Which brings us to:

You know about lipase and scalding, right? Of course you do, you're a leader.

Yes. And I should have linked back in that last post, but I was being lazy. It turns out, scalding only works about half the time. Which half is determined randomly by someone other than me. Maybe sometimes I don't let it get hot enough. I've lost precious ounces because I turn my back for a minute and the milk that barely covers the bottom of the tiniest saucepan ever has boiled away.

I don't find out until it's defrosted whether it's usable milk. The day I broke down and padded the bottle with a little free hospital formula about half of the five needed ounces had spoiled in less than 24 hours in the freezer. Miriam takes the milk/formula combo without complaint, but she will spit back anything sour. As would I.

The other problem I have is with the pumping itself. Don't get me wrong, it's a great pump. I don't leak or let down easily, so I don't produce much for the pump. If I am very lucky, my full breasts will produce 3 ounces on the right and barely an ounce on the left. Scalding reduces these numbers a bit. Bedtime by itself requires five ounces. If I am going to stay out past bedtime, say, until 12 or 1, I need to leave an additional 3 or 4 ounces at least.

Some of you might be thinking I shouldn't be staying out that late. All I can say is bite me I have a need to blow off some steam lately. I am hardly painting the town red. Yes, there's some drinking and carousing going on, if you must know. All very sedate and responsible. Mostly.

So, that's the story about the formula. I choose to give formula rather than curtail my time away from the baby. My reasons for this are both selfish (I need to get out!!) and practical (the only way Josh is going to learn how to be a caregiver is by giving care). I am aware that I may catch some heat for this. That's okay. I'm not sure that I would have understood it either when I was in a different place with mothering and marriage and the rest of it.

Comments

[Jul]

Woo, boy... someone was actually giving YOU... who has been nursing for FOUR FREAKING YEARS, NONSTOP... crap... about supplementing? Oh, piss off, commenter.

Any boob-milk is good milk. And anything mama needs to do to stay sane, within reason, is ALSO good. There is such a thing as a happy medium, and unfortunately, having a pump hoovering away at one's boobs during one's precious few hours of non-baby time is NOT a sanity-conducive thing.

I am Jul, and I Have Supplemented.

[Round is Funny]

Not that you need assvice from me, but I've been screwing around with formula as I'm trying to induce lactation and have learned some valuable bits and pieces. We stumbled on goats milk formula recently and it is GOOD stuff - closer to human milk, about the same price, produces (at least for my boy) way less gas than the other stuff, and has no corn syrup. Proportions are at askdrsears.com.

(Stepping off my soapbox now). As for your decision to supplement, a girl's got to do what a girl's got to do to maintain her sanity. So good for you.

[MomSquared]

Hey man, me too. FuzzyHead was given exclusively breastmilk until she was 6 months. Now she is almost 8 months and I'm at school all day. I pump twice during that school day and I get a paltry tube of breastmilk.

So she gets solids, a little bit of formula, and two ounces of breastmilk while I'm gone. She BFs exclusively from 4pm until 8am and on weekends. I think that's just fine.

[Chris(mombie)]

Sweet mother of crap, why do some people insist on making breastfeeding an all or nothing proposition all of the time?

Sure, it is great if someone can exclusively breastfeed. And if someone needs or wants to pump then they need the best advice possible. But ANY breastmilk is good for a baby, and if a mother is doing what she can to balance nursing with sanity then she should be left alone. Even if that involves (insert pretend shocked whisper here) formula. Creating guilt about a little formula helps no one.

Good luck finding your balance, Kateri. I wish you immunity from well-intentioned but thoughtless comments.

[Casey]

Wow. Kateri got a drive-by on breastfeeding. KATERI. I think we've all learned something here, although I'm not sure what it is.

Anyway, enjoy your nights off. If you find a formula that doesn't give Miriam teh nasty gas, please recommend. Annie gets formula every now and again when I'm at work (my milk supply is super finicky. Engorged one day, no milk the next.), and every time she turns into the world's stinkiest baby. Mixing with breastmilk seems to help, but hot damn, I had no idea baby farts could be that foul.

[Moxie]

I can't believe you even bothered with the formula. I think I'd leave a big stack of Ritz crackers* and wish Josh good luck.

*OK, I wouldn't really. I'm too consumed with the evils of trans-fats to do that. I'd get the health food store Ritz knock-offs instead.

[Meira Voirdire]

I have not supplemented (since we're announcing these things up front). But since the rumor about LLL is that they say horrible things if you think of supplementing, I think it's kind-of cool that I can now refute those arguments with 'Oh, screw that rumor, I know a LEADER who's supplemented!"

And I wondered if it was the lipase issue -- I have it too, my milk gets super-soapy if it sits in the fridge. But they've taken most of what's come out of the freezer (scalded), so I guess either it's not that bad or they have no taste buds, lol. Were you sad when you figured it out? I was. I had been daydreaming about a freezer stocked with enough milk to last for months, and once I realized about the lipase I just wasn't as enthused to pump. So not "the end of the world!!!" sad, but a little sad.

[Deirdre]

Enh. If she's eating some solids, I don't see the evils of a few ounces of formula when it is necessary. You're no newbie at this. And the second round of parenting really is different.

Rock, meet hard place.

[Wasabi]

Hmm I see my post on my screen but not yours so hopefully this doesn't make a double comment. Lurking to see the modified AP post. Found myself unable to go to sleep in the wee hours of the night and came back here to read more and discovered that like me you are also a LLL Leader. The similarities are so striking that when I told my DH about your blog he asked if it was my other personality writing it. Har Dh good one. And now I read of your marital problems and ambivalence with nursing your older child and again I am nodding along. I've got my almost four year old down to nursing only once or twice a week and we're having serious talks about her 4th birthday being the time to close up shop. I never really intended to tandem much less do it for 18 months. Come on I get a ribbon of some kind right? I can quit now without scarring her horribly, right?! Right?!

[SugarPixie]

Is your child eating? Is she eating something? Anything? Yes? Good. End of story.

Have a good time when you can, girl.