Too much milk?

If I knew the challenges that breastfeeding would bring me... It makes sense to me why some women don't even bother with it. It is not easy! I remember wondering what people could possible write in huge volumes about breastfeeding. I remember thinking when I was pregnant - a whole book on breastfeeding? What is there to say? Now I know.

So my latest challenge is oversupply. Geez, you think, what's to complain about if you have a lot of milk? Well, I'll grouchily tell you. With too much milk, most of what the baby gets is foremilk and foremilk is like skim milk. It's thin and not high in the good fats so the baby ends up consuming a lot more of it then he should and it breaks down into sugar and lactose and guess what that equals? You got it! --- Lots and lots of gas.  The proof has been in the poop. Cole's poop as of late has been tinged with green. It is not so much mustardy in color (which is what it should be normally) but more yellow greenish. The solution (or one of them)?  I normally nurse Cole on both breasts in one session, and probably don't empty both breasts. Now I need to do block feeding, which means nurse him on one breast until it's empty. I'd love to pump the other side, but then, my body would think I need to make more milk and then my problem would get even bigger (no pun intended), so my other boob does get fuller, but Cole nurses enough where it empties out in a timely manner. Those of you who are breastfeeding veterans are probably wondering why I didn't do one side at a time to begin with, but I didn't know I wasn't emptying them. It's what they told me to do when I was at the birth center - 15 minutes on each side. As if I've said before, this is indeed a journey. A HUGE learning process.  Luckily, I am surrounded by professionals. I've spoken to three doulas and had two lactation consultants looking at our latch and discussing the possible causes of the green poop. Although everyone seems to be in disagreement over the causes, I really do think it's an imbalance of the foremilk and hindmilk and so does the lactation consultant from the birth center where Cole was born. Her advice was the most helpful. This morning's poop - which was more mustardy in color was evidence that something is finally working - since I've been working to correct this for over 48 hours. (I literally spent all of Monday nursing in bed!)

Tuesday, thanks to Carolyn for giving me a much-needed baby-free break, I was driving past the falls that give our little hamlet its name -High Falls. And as I was driving I saw two teenagers in their bathing suits dripping with water walking alongside the road. And I thought - Oh my God, that's going to be my son one day. The thing about the falls is that the falls lead to a nice little swimming hole with two cliffs - one on top of the other. The bottom one juts out further than the top one and numerous people have died jumping off the top one. I once saw an obese man jump off the top one and heard as his tee-shirt scraped the edge of the bottom cliff on his way down. Scary. As a result of those deaths, the sheriff's office has declared it unsafe and put up no trespassing signs. I think at one point a year or two ago they made some arrests. You could see how well those signs were working with the 20 cars parked there Tuesday. It made me think of the dangers to come. What will I tell my son when he's old enough to go there with his friends? He's a boy and boys do silly things to impress girls and other daredevil boys. Will I tell him not to jump off the cliffs? Will he listen? I have a feeling - if he's anything like myself or Keith - if we tell him to do something or not to something, he'll do the exact opposite.  Time will tell what kind of parenting style I adopt depending on the personality of Cole.

So Cole is smiling a ton. He's looking at his hands. He's holding his head up a lot more. He has more alert time. He sticks his tongue out at me when I stick mine out at him. With his strong leg, muscles, he can stand when I hold him up, and even push himself up when I am holding him in the burp hold. He actually - get a load of this - slept 4.5 hours in a row Monday night - the longest he slept since he was about a week old.

Today will mark our 4th wedding anniversary. To celebrate we are going to the Overlook Drive-in to see Eclipse! I am so excited. I was wondering for days how I was going to get to the movie theater to see the latest Twilight installment and now it's going to be a reality! I don't have to worry about nursing or the baby crying - because we'll be in the privacy of our own car.