Veggies are delicious...

We started our foray into solid foods when Claire was about four or five months old. We started off with some rice cereal once every week or so. A little after she was six months old she started to get really good at eating the rice cereal, so we started to make sure she got at least one cereal feeding every day - usually in the evenings. So then we decided to start trying some vegetables.

I had determined to make all of Claire's baby food from scratch. So Jared and I got some fresh vegetables from the grocery store and I looked up some basic recipes. I also have this really great rice cooker that comes with a steaming basket insert. I can steam all of Claire's veggies and then use my food processor to make purees.

Jared and I decided to start Claire off with some peas. Claire was getting really good at eating the rice cereal, so I hoped veggies would be no problem. I spent a good 45 minutes preparing fresh, homemade peas for that baby. I was so excited about letting her try them. Jared and I sat down with her at the table and gave Claire her first spoonful. She stuck out her tongue and made the most horrendous face. She acted like we were torturing her. I think we did eventually get her to swallow about three spoonfuls. However, soon after she started gagging and I am pretty sure at least two and a half of those spoonfuls came right back up. She hated the peas.

I was a little miffed, but still determined...she would like the next food better.

Three nights later we tried some green beans. She ate about two baby-spoonfuls. She didn't throw the green beans up, but she still made all of these horrible faces. She acted like we were asking her to eat feces or something. No green beans.

Three nights later and we tried some broccoli. Same thing. I was starting to wonder if it was worth all the effort to make the food if she wasn't going to eat it. I decided to try something yellow next. I got a nice squash and prepared it for her. She did a little better with the squash, but still didn't seem to like it.

We went through peas, green beans, broccoli, squash, sweet potatoes, carrots, avocado, apples, and finally tried some banana. Claire really like the banana - she ate half of a banana in one sitting (which led to the The Big Poop) and probably would have eaten more if we had let her . I really wanted to get Claire eating veggies and a variety of fruits. She couldn't eat bananas for every meal for the rest of her life. I tried mixing some of her veggies with rice or oat cereal. Which helped some, but I could still not get her to eat even half of a serving of most things. After about three or four weeks of eating and trying new things we finally got into a rhythm.

I think I was feeding Claire some apples. The first bite was pretty typical Claire. She made a horrible face and acted like she wasn't going to have anything to do with me or the food I had made. Then she leaned forward and opened her mouth. I gave her another bite. She ate it. She leaned forward again and started reaching for the bowl. I gave her another bite. Pretty soon the whole bowl was empty. She had eaten two tablespoons full of apples.

At lunch that day I tried some sweet potato. She ate a whole serving of sweet potato. So at dinner I went back and tried peas. She gobbled up an entire serving of peas. I couldn't believe it. She still makes a funny face on the first bite of some foods, but she usually eats a whole serving of just about anything we try with her now.

Claire is now eating three solid food meals a day and still taking about 25 oz of breast milk. She has become a super eater. I can't believe that just a few months ago she was gagging up pretty much everything we tried to get her to eat. I never thought she would turn in to such a good eater. It just goes to show you that persistence pays off.

Nursing Strikes and Clogged Ducts

I pumped exclusively for five months. This is something that I do not recommend to anyone. Here is why it happened/where it all started:


At Claire's two-month doctor's appointment we found out that she wasn't gaining a whole lot of weight. She hadn't lost weight, but she still wasn't even a pound over her birth weight. I was producing plenty of milk (I was pumping in between nursing sessions to store up milk for my return to work) and Claire was still nursing well with the aid of a nipple shield.

The doctor said not to worry about it, but to bring her back in a month - they didn't want two months to go in between weight checks. I wasn't worried when we left the doctor, but over the next month I could tell that Claire wasn't growing like she should be. My return to work was also fast approaching, so I was getting more and more anxious.

Claire was not quite three months old when I had to return and finish out the school year. She started getting bottles of breast milk for three feedings during the day and then I nursed her once or twice in the evening, once at night, and once in the morning. I was also pumping at least three times during the day while at work. (Let's just say I was one tired momma).

Jared took Claire to the doctor to be weighed at the three month mark - I was back at school at this point. This weight check confirmed what I had known for the past month. Claire was still not gaining weight. She had gained an ounce in the month since her 2-month appointment.

The doctor wanted us to make sure she was getting at least four ounces during all of her bottle feedings, nursing frequently in the evening, and that we woke her up at least once in the night to nurse. They also wanted us to bring her back in a week for another weight check. We complied and Jared returned with our baby in a week.

She had lost 3 oz. I was devastated. 

The doctor decided that for a week we needed to make all but one of her feedings bottle feedings - to make sure she was getting 4 oz at every feeding. I was allowed to nurse her during the middle of the night feeding. The doctor also wanted us to add half a scoop of formula to Claire's bottles in order to increase the total calories Claire was getting.

I cried for two days. I was so disappointed. Being at work was so hard during this time. I felt like a failure. My breast milk was not fulfilling our baby’s needs. Deep down I knew that there was nothing I did wrong, but it was really hard to not feel like a complete failure.

When your baby is not growing and you are her main source of nutrition it is really easy to be convinced (by the enemy) that you are the problem. Poor Jared tried so hard to be supportive, but this was a really difficult time for me as a woman and a mother. I am not sure a man could ever really understand, but he did try and was very supportive.

I still had five or six weeks until the end of the school year.

Jared took Claire back to the doctor and the plan had worked. She was up over a pound. I was told I could go back to nursing her in the evenings/mornings as long as we supplemented after nursing and made sure she was getting at least five 4 oz. servings.

I was really excited to get to nurse my baby again. Unfortunately, Claire did not feel the same way. After a week of almost exclusively bottles, Claire wanted nothing to do with me and my slow let-down. She screamed like I was torturing her every time I tried to nurse her. I read about all these different techniques to try and end a nursing strike. I started with a bottle and then switched to the breast halfway through. I tried pumping to start letdown and then trying to get her to latch. They all worked okay temporarily, but eventually she realized what I had done and started screaming at me again.

I was still working and exhausted from lack of sleep and dealing with students all day, so I just decided to pump until the end of the school year. I had the whole summer and next year (I had decided through all of this to take a year off) to end the nursing strike. I would worry about it when I wasn't working full time. I started making a whole lot more milk when I gave up the battle over nursing. (Stress reduces milk production). Ha!

The summer came and I went back to trying to get Claire to nurse. I tried a number of different things, but Claire was not going to give up her bottles easily. Eventually, I decided that it was not worth the battle to continue to try and get her to nurse, so I resigned myself to pumping exclusively. When Jared was home he gave Claire a bottle while I pumped. When he was at work I would pump thirty minutes to an hour before Claire needed to eat and then feed her. It was a lot of work - she was eating every three hours and I had to pump as often as she ate. Over the next few weeks I would occasionally resurrect my attempts to get Claire to nurse, but it was to no avail. She was having none of it.

We had a family vacation planned for the end of July and I had to come to some sort of decision, so I officially gave up on trying to get Claire to nurse (I threw away the nipple shields). We started giving her five ounces and I extended the time between her feedings to four hours. It gave me a little bit of a reprieve in between pumping and feeding.

I did NOT enjoy pumping during our vacation (See Orlando Vacation Posts). If it wouldn't have been unbearably painful I might have quit. Even Jared was starting to question our resolve to stick with it - it had been pretty easy up to this point for him to convince me to continue on. There was no way I was going to attempt quitting cold turkey, so I stuck with it. After pumping for a week in Disney World I decided I could make it through pretty much anything. The rest of the summer went by quickly.

Even though I was not going to be teaching I still attended teacher inservice at the beginning of the school year and brought my pump along with me. I did get some much needed professional development hours, but the most beneficial thing I gained that week was reassurance that not working during the next year had been the right decision. I was walked in on twice while pumping and struggled to juggle all of my meetings and pumping schedule. Pumping and school teaching are just two very difficult things to blend. I also got a clogged duct - a precursor of mastitis - during the last day of inservice. I cannot imagine if I had had to be in the classroom teaching the next day while trying to get my duct unclogged (which requires frequent pumping sessions, ice packs, heat packs, and occasionally ibuprofen).  

The clogged duct threatened my resolve to stick with the pumping, but somehow I managed to stay strong.

The first week of September I got another clogged duct. We had a trip planned for a few days later. We were going to be driving to Austin to visit my siblings over Labor Day weekend. Luckily, I got the clog cleared after a day and I reset my pumping schedule to try and alleviate any future clogs.

On the drive down I got another one and spent the entire drive trying to resolve it. The next day it was clogged again. I spent most of my vacation trying to get rid of clogged ducts. (They are pretty painful, so it was not a pleasant way to spend the vacation). By the end of the weekend I had cleared all of the clogs and was feeling better, but I had decided that it was time to wean. I could not handle any more issues with my breasts. I skipped my first pumping session that day. It was liberating.

I am still in the process of weaning, but I am down to just two pumping sessions a day. Claire is eight months old and I think I will continue to pump twice daily until she is at least nine months. I cannot tell you how freeing it feels to not be tied to my pump all day every day.

Every time I have questioned my decision to wean I have gotten a clogged duct. I am pretty sure that even if that isn't a sign it is a good enough reason for me to continue along the weaning path. Claire is eating a lot more solid foods now and I have other issues to deal with (see The Big Poop), so I am not concerning myself over the decision to wean. It is the right decision for me and for Claire.

My adventure into breastfeeding...

I went in to breastfeeding not really understanding what I was getting myself into. I had signed up for the "breastfeeding class" through Willow Creek to learn more about it - my mom never had good letdown and was not able to breastfeed, so I didn't have much in the experienced veteran department to rely on. I did, however, have a fantastic cheer-leading section. Jared and my mom, a lot of good friends and family were all very supportive of my decision to breastfeed - I would never have made it as long as I did without them. Anyhow, the breastfeeding class I signed up for got cancelled because the instructor was sick, and then the make-up class got cancelled because of snow, and then on the day I was supposed to have the make-up, make-up class I went into labor and little Claire Marie was born. (Suffice it to say I didn't make it to the breastfeeding class).

During the hospital stay I asked to see the lactation nurse, but she always had an obligation and was "coming" to see me when she was free. I am pretty sure that I never saw her. The pediatric nurse was pretty helpful and we did manage some latch on, but it was with the help of a nipple shield. I never could manage to get Claire all the way through a nursing session without a shield. If I had been more diligent I would have seen a lactation consultant after we left the hospital, but the two weeks after we took Claire home we had two "900-inches of snow" snow storms. (Okay maybe it was only twenty inches of snow.) When you have a newborn infant to transport any amount of snow seems like a good reason not to leave the house.

On our second or third night home from the hospital I had a really high fever and had to go to the emergency room. My milk was just coming in and as it turned out I had developed double mastitis, and a urinary tract infection. (Not fun!) They gave me some antibiotics and I pumped like a madwoman in between nursing sessions with Claire. The nurse in the ER was really helpful too. She gave me some literature about mastitis, clogged ducts, pumping, etc., and some really good hints about dealing with those issues. She and Claire's pediatrician (who was a breastfeeding mother) were probably the most helpful people I talked to about nursing. After that nursing went pretty smoothly until about the time that I had to go back to work.

Working and nursing is a whole different ballgame - and will have its own post. : )

My (unsolicited and possibly unwanted) advice to new mothers:

1) Make up your mind about breastfeeding before the baby arrives. 

Decide you are going to do it (or not) and for exactly how long you want to continue with it. If you are wavering it will be really difficult to stick with.

2) Surround yourself with support.

See a lactation consultant whether you are having trouble or not. Make sure your family knows your decision and supports it whether they agree and understand or not.

3) Educate yourself. 

Read all of the articles, books, Facebook posts, etc. about breastfeeding that you can find. The more you know the better off you will be.

4) Do not beat yourself up about when you decide to wean. 

You have to do what is best for you and the baby. The baby isn't going to be in good shape if you are not in good shape.

5) If you have to go back to work...God help you. 

Working (especially as a school teacher) and breastfeeding do not mesh well, but if that is what you want to do then you can make it happen. You just have to be really determined!

Breastfeeding is hard, but it is worth it - however long it lasts. I will never regret my decision to breastfeed.