Milk

Faith's jaundice issues at the beginning took a toll on my nursing expectations. After two trips to the hospital and almost 6 weeks of 1/2 formula and 1/2 breastmilk orders, Faith totally rejected my breast and wanted that bottle with the fast milk flow. So every since she's been on 100% expressed breastmilk. I didn't mind that much. I was going back to work part time in 4 months so I knew she would have to get used to the bottle eventually. Ed could help me especially at nighttime and we could have the flexibility of going out. Another plus was that it was more efficient -- she could zip through a bottle in less than 5 minutes. So I pump roughly every 3-4 hours during the day and sleep through the night. That's been my schedule.

However, recently Faith's appetite has been really erratic and thus I've been really sad to see all this wasted milk going down the drain. Once she starts drinking the bottle, the breastmilk gets tainted with bacteria from her saliva so it's only roughly good for a hour after she drinks. This wouldn't be an issue if Faith was predictable in her drinking amounts. But my little daughter will sometimes only drink 2 ounces and thus I throw the rest away. You might be asking why I just don't put 2 ounces in her bottle? It's because sometimes she's super thirsty and will drink 4 ounces. Mom never knows.

Lesson learned: Between pumping, washing bottles & pumping equipment, storing breastmilk, keeping up with how old the expressed milk is, throwing away milk....I've already decided that I'm going to try to be as diligent as possible to nurse the next baby Leung.