Six week update a little early.

Since we'll be busy with a battalion function on Saturday, which is when we actually hit 6 weeks of breastfeeding, I'm going to do our six week update now!

First of all, look to the left of the screen and see the little ribbon? That's a breastfeeding achievement ribbon! Six weeks is the first one. There's different colors for the longer you nurse. I've never gotten to such a point to display one in my little corner of cyberspace before, so now that I am, I'm a little proud of it.

Secondly, I've got to give credit where credit is due. I thank.... my pump!! Seriously. I wish I had this pump from the get-go, like before Erin was born. If I did, I think I could have nursed all my kids at least part time. The pump helped me to overcome the extreme pain that I experienced while starting to nurse Chai (which was the same pain that was the downfall of nursing Erin and Orren) while maintaining milk supply. I exclusively pumped for a week, and then I latched Chai back on, and like magic, the pain was gone. I continue to pump while he sleeps in an attempt to build supply up to the level he needs it to be. I will say, though, that pump has already paid for itself, and will many times over. Formula costs about $200 a month. The pump cost a little under $300. A month and a half into the nursing relationship it helped me salvage, and it has paid for itself. There you have it, girls. Go for the expensive pump. It's good, and honestly, with this kind of thing, you can't afford to waste time with less than good. Trust me, I speak from experience.

Otherwise, we're still doing a lot to keep supply up. I've upped my dosage of Fenugreek, maintained my dose of Blessed Thistle, and continue to drink Mother's Milk Tea when I remember to (which probably isn't as often as I should, because let's face it, when it's 100 degrees outside, nobody wants to drink hot tea). I also continue to drink one beer a day, and use Tumeric in as much of my cooking as possible. It seems to be working. I pumped just now, since Chai is in bed, and just an hour after our most recent feeding session, I pumped twice as much as I was getting last week and that was after waiting hours between nursing and pumping.

Seeing that, I'm really motivated to get my supply up so that we can stop supplementing. I do notice that we are supplementing less most days than we used to be. (Like anything, there are good days and bad days.) Chai, of course, is eating more each day as he grows, so supplementing less even though he's eating more, is pretty good indication that supply is increasing. Tonight, I just really wanted to SEE it, so I pumped right after I put Chai to bed, and as it turns out, my intuition was correct. I am producing more milk. I also notice that Chai usually only takes one side at a feeding now, and it fills him up, whereas he used to take both sides and still want more. This, again, is another very hopeful sign.

So where do we go from here? We continue with the supplements, but increase the pumping. I think doing just a 10 minute pumping session after each feeding would help boost supply in the same way as power pumping does. I'm going to give it a try and see how it goes. I really want to stop supplementing, hopefully within the next month.

I also note that we are now 1/4 of the way to our initial breastfeeding goal of 6 months. I am pretty confident at this point that we are going to make it that long and longer.