it’s like washing a car
This is not a baby who spits up a lot– before this week, it was a little tiny leak a couple times a day.
Nonetheless, despite not having food for over an hour, as soon as I got him into a nice clean outfit, he did a stealth hurl. Mostly on his neck, because, hey, his aim isn’t so good.
Fortunately when he spits his pacifier out, it falls nipple-up usually. Cosmically, it all balances.
He likes to sit in my lap as I do things. This is how I manage to post so often!
So, pumping update! I’ve pumped almost 900 ounces since I started tracking; this probably puts me at 1000 ounces since Robin was born. I get about 24-26 ounces a day, which still isn’t enough, and I’m still working on raising it, intermittently. Meanwhile, the formula is balancing all those times I forget to add vitamin D drops to the milk. I pump 5-8 times a day (and occasionally 9 or 10)– usually around 6 or 7 when I’m not trying to stimulate more– and I get about the same amount whether I pump 5 times or 8 times. Sometimes I get less on 8 times, I think because I lose more dribbles at the end, but I think it helps out long term. Yesterday, an 8-times day, I pumped for 167 minutes. That’s 11 minutes shorter than the theatrical release of Fellowship of the Ring. In the last week, it’s been 842 minutes, which is almost 14 hours. Oh, and yesterday I ordered some fenugreek in the bulk powder cooking format, because paying for gelatin capsules at the rate I swallow them is dumb.
I like numbers.
ETA: Oh, and for your own fun with math, apparently breastmilk is 20 calories an ounce.
Tamago, 
Chrysoula, and 
Stacy are discussing.
Stacy 4:58 pm on September 28, 2007 Permalink
Congratulations on the pumping! Sounds like you’re doing really well. I know, first-hand, how hard it is to keep going some days. I’m sure Robin’s immune system appreciates it!
Chrysoula 5:54 pm on September 28, 2007 Permalink
Well, it’d be nice to be making enough to freeze or even save for the next day. I have wondered a couple of times how often you were pumping when you were achieving your highs? You told me how much per session but not how much per day or how many sessions– did you keep to the every 2 hours the entire time?
But overall, while it’s time consuming and sometimes inconvenient, I’ve arranged matters such that I don’t think I need to plan on stopping anytime soon. For which I’m grateful– expensive pump! It IS frustrating when I get Robin off to a peaceful place and then make the mistake of putting him somewhere out of reach– he inevitably wakes up and starts complaining when I can’t get to him. Sometimes I can out-noise him, though– sing gibberish Very Loudly, to reassure him he’s not alone even if I can’t come rescue him right away. It seems to work, weirdly enough.
Stacy 12:05 am on September 29, 2007 Permalink
I had the same problems balancing responding to Asher’s needs with pumping. It’s one of the things that ultimately led me to stop. When he was little enough, I could lay him across my lap on a pillow, feed him with one hand, and pump with the other. But eventually he became fascinated with the tubes on the pump and started pulling them out. Rocking him to sleep with one foot in his bouncy seat while pumping also worked for a bit.
I’m pretty sure that my normal pumping schedule broke down to seven times per day, every three hours, between 6am and midnight. For a while, I did have to wake up for a 3am pumping (so 8x per day). And in the very beginning I did a 2 hour round the clock schedule to get things going (12 x per day). But that was very brief.
At first I double pumped for 15 minutes each session. Eventually, I was getting plenty of milk after 10 minutes.
This may seem obvious, but then I’m not sure if you took a breastfeeding class. Do you think about the baby while pumping? I found it very helpful to concentrate on an image of (one of the few times) that Asher nursed really well and contendedly. Really closing my eyes and visualizing for about 30 seconds helped get the milk flowing. After that, I would listen to music to relax.
Chrysoula 12:52 am on September 29, 2007 Permalink
Actually, I seem to have ‘bonded’ to the pump; I can start leaking just thinking about how I need to go pump (or talking about the process). I haven’t really had any problems getting the milk to start flowing, it’s just that the initial copious flow runs out after a couple of minutes. Well, it feels copious to me, I don’t really know; I often get as much as four ounces (combined) in the first 3-4 minutes. I can actually hear a rushing noise as the sprays of milk hit the inside of the horn. There continue to be dribbles for almost as long as I want to pump, and I try to get them all to convince my body Robin is STARVING. I can sometimes get a second letdown by fussing with the suction settings and rearranging my anatomy, but that one only lasts maybe 30 seconds or so.
Tamago 5:25 pm on September 29, 2007 Permalink
One woman who pumped reports that she used to let down if she heard the dishwasher running because the sound was very similar to her pump. I though that was hilarious. Is that wrong of me?
I don’t really let down unexpectedly, I just leak all over the place.