Breastfeeding Week...and Weight Loss

In case you haven't heard, it's International Breastfeeding Week, designated as such, I assume, by lactation organizations. So in its honor, I've decided to post some links and some of my own thoughts about this endlessly contentious issue

First, a couple of great links:
If you want to find a truly hilarious post about the benefits of breastfeeding, see this post at MODG blog, in which this mom of "G" explains how breastfeeding you do such things as catch up on your DVR recordings.

If you are interested in hearing more about breastfeeding from someone who couldn't, read Moosh in Indy's lovely post about her struggles, and her final recognition its what's in the heart that really matters.

Now My Thoughts:
As is the case with almost every mother out there, I have so many thoughts--always evolving, ever changing--about breast feeding. I could probably write a whole memoir devoted to the topic (but who would read it?). Since the MODG post brought it up--and because it's been on mind as of late--I want to focus on just one issue that has always bugged me about the debates on the topic: the oft-quoted correlation between breast-feeding and weight loss.

As MODG quotes, breastfeeding burns something like 500 extra calories a day. At least that's what the experts will tell you, in an apparently anxious effort to get the vainest among us to breastfeed as much as possible. What they don't say: you have to eat a lot of extra food to keep up. If you sign up for weight watchers, for example, you'll find a special category for nursing moms that requires you to eat extra food. And if you try to diet at all, you risk losing that milk supply entirely. Meanwhile, for the first couple of months, you are nursing so often you could hardly find the time to work out; in fact, at first, you're kind of a slug. I'm not trying to discourage anyone from breastfeeding, I just don't think that this should be your reason.

Breastfeeding will help...definitely help...to reduce that post-pregnancy bulge. But often it takes a lot time to drop that final five pounds, and even longer to drop the little bit of post pregnancy-squishiness around the middle that seems to haunt us moms. If you are someone like me, who is not naturally-thin, it means you have to spend some real time working out (here's where an awesome co-parent helps). It took me more than 18-mths to finally fit into the skinnier jeans that I wore before pregnancy. The good news, though, it did happen.

So in honor of International Breastfeeding week, I'm celebrating something a little different. I'm celebrating that nursing is life-changing, and body-altering, but also temporary. Breastfeeding will change you in many ways--and you can sometimes feel like your body is not your own--but there will come a day when you'll feel like your old self again.

Sleep problem solved, but a new problem emerges

A couple of weeks ago I posted a short update about our new post-trip sleep problems. After a week or two or sleep training, adjustments to the routine, and general experimentation, we figured out that the problem was that Holden wasn't getting enough food at his final feeding. First we noticed that when Mike fed him with a bottle he wouldn't cry. So at first we thought it was a sleep-association problem. But then one night last week when Mike was away, after nursing him I tried giving him some more milk in a bottle. And...he drank another 5 oz and went to sleep without a wimper. The previous night when I had just nursed him he had cried over an hour. So...needless to say, this was a dramatic difference. Since then we've been supplementing, sometimes with formula (not my favorite option, but we have no other choice), and he's been his normal self, and has been sleeping all the way until 7 am. While I'm happy that we solved this problem, I really sad that my supply seems to be dwindling. Sigh. Any advice from you mothers out there who may have gone through this?

The Bedtime Battle: Why I'm not there

While taking a break at the coffee shop today (it's "Weekends with Dad" time, aka my PhD work hours), I logged on to facebook to discover Mike's post on his big ole' sleep project of the week and realized some of you may be wondering why I'm not there to join him in the fuss fest. Yes, as Mike has noted, it's partly because of our co-parenting commitment and our decision that Mike can take this one for the team. And yes, I really do need a break after the breastfeeding battle that consumed my life the first 6 weeks of parenthood (a topic deserving a real post at some point).

But the real reason comes down to this--if we're going to help Holden get the sleep he needs, we have to break him from his worst sleep habit: nursing-to-sleep. And frankly, since I know that nursing does indeed take the tears away, it's hard for me to keep myself from running to his aid if I'm anywhere nearby. So for the next few nights I'm taking a breather, seeing friends, doing our grocery shopping, and going to the movies. Whatever it takes to stay away. Because Holden can't always get what he wants, as the Rolling Stones would say, but hopefully, he'll get the sleep he needs.