Reposted from 8/8/08.
When is the best time to pump? While nursing the baby at the same time, of course! Babe on one side, pump on the other. I hate pumping! I would rather just nurse my baby. But, my sanity (or is it my husband?) requires time away from mothering, at least in small doses. Unfortunately, small doses still necessitate at least 4oz. of breast milk. And in Bug's case, more like 8oz. Cute lil' bugger already eats like a man! I must be bad at pumping...or my pump is bad at pumping...because it takes FOREVER to pump 4oz. And, because I hate pumping so much, I want to limit my sessions to only one or two before the milk is needed. That means I have to pump FOREVER a day or two before my evening out with hubby. Seriously, I am the last person you will find with a "breast milk bank" in their freezer!
This weekend is my anniversary weekend. Yes, yes, thanks for the congrats. And, you guessed it, I need to pump. So, I get out my pump, hook it all up. I even get out an extension cord, so I can sit comfortably on the couch! That bright orange, heavy duty extension cord also helps me feel like I'm really working hard...it looks just like the cord my dad would use on site when he was building houses! Anyway, back to the couch. I have Bug there hooked on, and I quickly get the pump on the other side before I have a letdown. Success! Hurrah! Joy! I feel like a prize dairy cow issuing liquid gold! And then Bug pulls off to find out what that noise is (my pump whirring away on the next boob over)...darn curiosity of a 3 month old boy. Did I mention I JUST had a letdown. Milk is spraying all over my poor son, and I am trying to get him re-latched on. In the meantime, I have let go of the pump, the seal breaks and loses suction, and all my precious letdown milk is going to waste. Now I feel like I just got my water bill after unsuccessfully trying to fix a leaky faucet. BUT, I will prevail. I get both baby and pump back where they belong and I'm going again. Sitting comfortably on the couch is a joke. I am completely uncomfortable...although I'm still on the couch. I have baby on one arm, the other hand is holding the pump to my breast, and I'm leaning forward just enough to keep the milk from collecting in the top part of the pump. And I'm trying to keep Bug from kicking the pump out of my grip. I hold this position for half an hour. FINALLY, I have close enough to 4oz. that I'm satisfied...and a sleeping baby. That's what I call success.
1 comment:
hilarious! I found you on Mommy Bee's page. I did not have this problem, which makes me feel guilty aout laughing...but only a little. I had the exact opposite experience with pumping. I had twins 8 weeks early. So I had to pump. They never learned how to latch on without a shield and that was the most painful thing ever, so I pumped...literally like a prize winning dairy cow. Every two hours I pumped on average 12-16oz. It was craziness. My girls only weighed 2 and 2.5 lbs at birth and 3.5 and 4 lbs when they came home. They only ate 1-2 oz every 2 hours. I had to buy a deep freezer chest to put all of my milk in. When my milk dried up a few months after they came home from the NICU, I had some 100 gallons of milk in the freezer.
I got called Bessie for the longest time.
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