pumping update

I’ve been pleasantly surprised with pumping just twice daily. I pump around 10am and around 2 pm now and I’ve been able to pump between 7 and 9 oz total – usually close to 8 oz per day. That is pretty good considering I was getting about 9 oz pumping 3 times a day before. I’m guessing the amount will taper off as my body adjusts, as it did when I switched to 3 pumpings from 4. It will be okay though. I have enough breastmilk in the freezer that I should be able to get well past Brooklynn’s 11 month mark before starting to add in whole milk. My goal is to be down to pumping once a day by Thanksgiving and to stop pumping by Christmas.

Brooklynn is down to taking only 2 bottles during the workday, which is why I’ve been able to keep up this long. She would just rather eat food. She eats breakfast of oatmeal, fruit and bits of whatever adults are eating then she has her bottle. She eats a jar of baby food, veggies and some of whatever adults are eating for lunch and then she takes another bottle a little later. I have the in-laws offer her the Yo-Baby whole milk yogurt and some fruits or veggies each afternoon since she dropped a bottle there. Sometimes she eats it all, other times not so much. Then when I pick her up I nurse her for a few minutes if she seems like she wants to, otherwise we just go on home and nurse there. Then she eats some of our dinner with us. She’ll nurse a few times each evening, with the longest time right before bed. She usually wakes up sometime around 3:30am to eat and then will eat a bit more right before she goes to my in-laws at 6:30am.

AF did not show up and the signs went away. I got out my trusty, dusty old copy of TCOYF and read what it had to say on the topic. It said that nursing women can have a few “False Starts” when their body is trying to ovulate or start a new cycle with annovulatory bleeding when they haven’t been getting cycles due to lactation. I guess this could come and go for awhile. Kellymom.com said the average time for the period to return is 14 months, but the normal range was really wide. I guess I’m just paranoid that I’ll be surprised and unprepared when it hits me. Since I’m not itching to TTC right now, I’m in no hurry for AF to show up. The earliest I see us trying for another one would be next fall.