scrawls.

scrawls

still cheaper than therapy*

30.4.08

baby food (in which i go all self-conscious)

Situation: i am working two days a week, toting the milk pump back and forth every time, washing it in between, scalding all the milk so it doesn't go all lipasey. Breastfeeding all the rest of the time, except when you get Real Food, like bananas or applesauce or rye bread or baguette or ostrich. (Um, because nobody is allergic to ostrich, right? And there it was at the store looking all steaky and delicous. And then when we grilled it, it was yums. And seriously, nobody is allergic to ostrich.) Feeding you Real Food now, not every day, but more often than not; usually about a third of a little jar of baby food, or an inch-square fistful of baguette, or about an eighth of a banana. We handed you a broccoly stalk and you held it by the stalky part and ate all the florets off the end like a lollipop. (That was cute: we may have to do that again. Plus you liked it.) The pediatrician said we could feed you Real Food, so we've been doing it. And you've been enjoying it (though somehow you seem to like vegetables more than fruits? Carrots and sweet potatoes you willingly eat a lot more of than you do applesauce. Not sure why, but i think it's uncommon for a baby to prefer veggies to fruit, and having tasted all your baby food, i don't quite understand your palate, either, but whatever). Anyway. Seven months, starting to eat Real Food, breastfeeding, working, pumping.

And apparently (in my very informal word-of-blog-and-message-board surveying) yes, it is not an easy thing to do, pump and work, even just two days a week. But anyway we got you to five and a half months with exclusive breastfeeding (because pumped milk counts), but the ped said it was okay to give you Real Food so i'm all conflicted about not having exclusively breastfed you to six months actual, as hoped for by the CDC.

Looking at those charts is a bad idea because the last time Momma looked at charts like that were all those tests in grade school and by God i was in the ninety-ninth percentile ALL THE TIME and whatever i do, there is a value judgement on it, whatever i tell myself, however i encourage other people who can't or aren't breastfeeding for whatever reason, i can't get it out of my head that breastmilk is better. Can't. (Also, in which, having googled breastfeeding rates, i came across Britain's, and they are abysmal.) And i know you were and are and will continue to be ready for solids and i don't think we were wrong to introduce them and yet there's this table suggesting we did something very, very bad. There is this ugly little voice in my head (i imagine it sounds sort of strident and annoying, like Jiminy Cricket, and it eats enough fiber and rinses and recycles the plastic wrap from pork chops and never takes the tram for just one stop) that says i have to Do Everything Right and Be The Best and Really, Is It That Hard. (Condescending little prat.)

And now you're not enjoying bottles so much at the tagesmutter's so she's feeding you Real Food as well and this happens at the same time as suddenly (and, again, apparently this happens to everybody a whole lot, so why am i surprised by it?) i'm having issues getting enough milk pumped, 'enough' meaning something completely arbitrary, plus i'm having to cut out the morning pump session (one of only three, mind you) because you will. not. sit. still. and. eat so that i can feed you and pump at the same time, and if i had to do them seperately then my morning routine would grow by forty-five minutes and you're hard enough to nurse in the mornings already and this squirming, it does not make things easy for Momma. i have to remember to get more of that mutter-freund tea, as i'm almost out. But you're not liking bottles and are more interested in Real Food and less interested in the previously all-powerful boob and the pump has never been all that efficient at getting out every last drop, and i know you're ready and i know you'll grow up at some time or other and really, for that matter, i know you've had next to no formula, as far as that goes. And if i keep two pumping sessions it'll almost certainly be enough (though not up to Arbitrary Par) to keep you in milk, especially seeing as how i have still more than a month and a half's worth of freezer stash, and especially especially now that you're drinking less of it anyway.

Come on, liz, can't i forgive myself for feeding you real food? It's a hard idea to wrap my head around - that breastmilk isn't the end-all and be-all any more. You're still so little. (And so big.) Letting go of this is going to be hard. It's such an obvious thing that i can do for you, it's been so easy, and it's such a loaded topic, and i know it'll be gradual and i hope you'll be breastfeeding for ages yet, but what they say about weaning starts when you eat anything else? Yeah, that's true. And i know you're ready. But i'm not.

Labels: breastfeeding, food, mamadom

scrawled @ 12:20