Hellobee

Wonder Baby was a good nurser, right from the start.  She latched on 20 minutes after being born, and has a been happy (and efficient!) nursling ever since.  On about day three my milk came in.  Wonder Baby is my second child, so I was prepared for this.  Even so, it was shocking how much milk I suddenly had (and how ridiculously busty I was… I’m well endowed to start with).  I was very engorged for about 3 days before it started to level out.  I was so full that Wonder Baby couldn’t even manage to latch on the left side unless I pumped a bit off first.  Her tiny newborn mouth was no match for this challenge, and I ended up taking advil before she fed for a few days until things healed up.  I had to sleep on a towel because I was leaking so much at night.  Fun times.

As I happily have no photos of me leaking milk all over, I will amuse you with photos of my tiny baby. Only one baby, not three.

Within a couple weeks, however, I was back down to my pregnancy cup size and could even wear my favourite Elomi underwire nursing bra for a few hours at a time.  That was much faster than the first time around.  It seemed crazy then, that even though everything looked and felt pretty normal, I still had SO MUCH MILK. Seriously, I’m pretty sure my body didn’t get the memo that I was only feeding one child here.  She didn’t nibble around the clock or drink excessive amounts.  I wasn’t on any supply boosting herbs and I wasn’t pumping after every feed.  I just had crazy amounts of milk.  I tried to be grateful and assumed that it would level out sooner or later.

Then WB started to get this nasty mucusy green poo.  The only time Toddler Girl had green poo was when she had a bad cold, but WB seemed totally fine.  Still, it kind of freaked me out and I decided to research, because that’s what I do.  Googling green poo, a fun way to spend an afternoon!  It seemed that my options were a) sick baby b) dietary issues or c) oversupply.  I knew I had a ton of milk, so I went with option c.  It seems that if you have so much milk all the time, your baby keeps drinking foremilk.  They drink and drink and drink and never get to the hindmilk.  The hindmilk is the cream, and has more fat and calories, so it’s kind of a big deal that they eat a balance.  Too much foremilk = the dreaded green poo.

A way to deal with oversupply is block feeding. I called my midwife and asked her for her thoughts, she said that it sounded correct to her and to try the block feeding and see if it helped.  I asked her if pumping would mess me up even further and have me create even more milk.  She told me not to worry about it; it wouldn’t have too much effect if I was only pumping enough to stay comfortable and help her latch.  It might prolong my oversupply a little bit, but it would make it a lot more manageable and help me avoid getting clogged ducts while I block fed.

Reading up about block feeding, I had to laugh.  They suggest feeding only on one side for an hour or two, and then switching to the other side once the baby empties the first breast.  Wonder Baby could eat off one side all day and night and not empty it. Clearly I needed to be more drastic.  I started going for 6-8 hours at a time on one side (which would not empty it), and then I would pump the other side down until it was comfortable (I tried not to pump more than 4 oz at a time). Then I switched to nursing on the side I had just pumped…and go for 6-8 hours nursing on that side.  She still never once reached the end of the milk.  It was insane.  At one point, I was over at my brother’s house and was changing WB on their bed when one of my lilypadz (which I do love for normal times) lost its seal and I was soaked all down one side of my body.  Good times!  However, Wonder Baby was fussing way less while nursing, and her poo was a normal colour again.  Temporary success.

When WB was 3 weeks old, something happened which I recommend to no one.  Toddler Girl and I both got a terrible stomach bug and for 4 days I couldn’t keep any food in my system.  It was terrible, Mr SH was on his work days which meant he worked all night and slept all day for nearly the entire time I was ill, so I had a newborn and a very sick toddler with only a very sick mommy.  I was so grateful for my oversupply!  Even though my milk took a big hit from not eating for 4 days, I still had plenty.  Thankfully, Wonder Baby never got sick (yay for breastmilk!) and when I recovered I only had enough milk for 1.5 babies, instead of three.

I continued to block feed and pump for a couple more weeks, and then my supply dropped down to normal.  By 4 months, I didn’t even have to wear nursing pads unless she had just had a growth spurt to increase my supply.  I’m so grateful to have always had enough milk, but equally grateful that it’s only as much as she needs now.  I don’t regret pumping at all; I think I could easily have gotten mastitis if I had tried to tough it out to speed things along, and I have lots of extra milk in the freezer. It’s mostly foremilk, but she rarely takes a bottle as I’m home with her, so it’s not a big deal.

 Anyone else have too much of a good thing?  What did you do about it?