About two months into being a mother, getting used to fatigued by night feeding. But overall is still much better than during confinement period. Chinese confinement meal does usually include a lot of ginger, herbal, red dates etc. Which these caused me feel hot all day long during confinement period, especially the ginger does warm up body very much. Was sweating a lot during feeding time even at night.
Usually there will be so much things to learn by a new mother, glad that I had personally take care of a newborn baby for two years previously, which is my youngest sister. I had been very good skill in feeding, bathing, all the things for baby except breastfeeding.
With lack of experience of breastfeeding, I had no idea of what to prepare for this journey. After postnatal, breastfeed specialist from hospital had visited me and baby, and taught me about the pump timing plus the position of breastfeeding. If you decided to full breastfeed your baby, you have to make sure your baby being cup-feed before you really latch him. My baby was not being cup-feed before I latch him for breastfeed thus he could not used to suck my nipple since it differ from milk bottle teat.
I am fine with it, I personally did not insist to latch directly as it might be difficult to wean later. Pumped breast milk for bottle feed would be ideal for me.
Initially I was using Spectra S1 which bought from Qoo10 (available at Thomson Medical Hospital too). I only start pump breast milk on third day after postnatal. Actually breast milk express from first two days would be very nutritious but I missed it. I was unable to get out of bed after caesarean in first two day, with the angle of the bed and I could not smoothly pump.
Finally started to feel painful boobs since third day, I used the Spectra S1 to pump in hospital, and manage to get only about 10-20ml of breast milk. I pump every 3 hourly, even in midnight. From day 4, my breast milk supply had been increased to approximately 40ml in every pump. And a week after postnatal, breast milk started to reached 100ml. Following gradually increased until 120ml, 150ml, 180ml and 250ml.
Fatigued by night feeding, including pumping too. Baby need to be fed every 3 hours, and so the breast milk pump. So I always feed my baby the expressed breast milk, then make him asleep and I will do my pumping job. And when he wake up for the next round, then same to my pump session too. This would definitely make me could have more sleeping time.
By using the electronic breast pump, it has the pump tubes, shields, main machine etc. I was started to think it is inconvenient to me, especially I need to do all these in midnight. Which is to remove the tube, shields from machine, and wash every single small part of the bottle. Pumping session took 15 minutes, and removal & washing & drying & assemble job took another 10 minutes. In order to save more and more time for my sleeping, I decided to go for manual pump plus haakaa instead.
Obviously that the manual pump (Hegen) and haakaa are much easier to wash. So what I usually do is to manually pump and haakaa another leaking boobs. For those who never experience breast pump/breastfeed before, you can know from here that when you pumping/breastfeeding one boobs, the other one will be "activated" and start leaking. Therefore, you could not let either one free.
If you are using electronic pump: Do pump both at the same time OR pump one and haakaa one at the same time.
If you are using manual pump: Pump one and haakaa one at the same time.
If you do directly latch: Latch one and haakaa one at the same time.
When my breast milk supply is not that much, I was using breast milk storage bottle to store it for feeding within few hours. Until the supply became more, I store them by using breast milk storage bag, which is disposable after used.
For me, I choose to freeze the expressed milk when it could not be finished within 4 days in refrigerator. And for the frozen breast milk, I decided to finish it within 4 months. And also, I will just leave the fresh expressed milk in room temperature if I assume it can be finished within 2 hours.
Obviously my breast milk production has been stimulated very well. The supply is getting more and more, and now storage space is lesser. I personally think what caused my high breast milk production is red dates tea, fish, ginger, and pump more. Do not only pump on demand, you have to pump more and more to stimulate the production.
Besides, I let my baby to drink expressed breast milk for whole day except midnight from 12am to 6am. Breast milk usually will be easily digested, sometime baby will require for next feed at about 2 hours later instead of 3 hours. Therefore, in order to have more sleeping time for myself, I would feed him formula milk so that he will only require for next feed at least 3 hours later (for baby before 2 months). I will share more experience and changes of all these when my baby is older.
And I actually do not want to breastfeed when I go back to work. So meanwhile, I am doing/trying any tips to stop my breastmilk production. For those who also trying to stop it, I will share my own methods when I stopped it successfully.
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