The Cottage on the Hill

Thanks to The Healthy Home Economist , I was encouraged to start making homemade formula for my baby boy after my milk waned too much to sustain him anymore. The recipe listed on her site is actually pretty easy, even though the ingredients can sound daunting. She even lists links to where you can buy the ingredients, making it easy to get started. Baby boy is almost a year old. He stopped breast milk at 9 months at which point he went on commercial organic formula until all the ingredients came in the mail for the homemade formula. Recently, he's been back on commercial formula due to busyness in our lives. I noticed a few things: When he's on commercial formula: 1. He's up at night, needing more formula. 2. He's fussy-hungry more. 3. He eats more table food. 4. He either looks slender or bloated. When he's on homemade formula: 1. He sleeps through the night. 2. He's got an appetite, but isn't fussy about it. 3. He eats a more balanced meal and smalle...

Baby boy is 9 months old today! He's also still breast feeding! My goal and prayer was 6 months, but I always wished for a year. Looks like we're heading to that 1 year finish line, and perhaps even beyond! I have noticed that if I lose any more than 2 lbs, my milk wanes. If I put those 2 lbs back on, I have milk! It's not like I'm starving myself. I'm trying to lose very gradually, but it seems I NEED those extra 7-10 post-preggy pounds to keep my milk up. I guess not fitting in my skinny clothes is a small price to pay for the fulfilled dream of breast feeding longer than a few months!

I thought for sure we were done breast feeding this past month. Baby boy hit a HUGE growth spurt (3 weeks long) that lasted through my cycle. I don't make much milk during my cycle and he was getting so frustrated, he'd beat my chest and cry. I held a wiggly, fussy baby in my arms for 3 long hours while no milk let down. His cloth diapers were snapped at the newborn setting. Thankfully, his arms and legs remained chubby and he loved his baby food, but I was getting concerned. I went for the formula. He would NOT drink it, and thankfully so, because we fought through and my milk came back strong, he plumped up to a larger sized diaper. I remember those two nights! Cosleeping on my bed, he seemed to wake up every hour and nurse. Being so tired, my milk let down easily and the baby slurped and slurped to his heart's content. He soaked through 2 diapers and jammies the first night and 1 set the second night. Thank God I'm still breast feeding! What an answer to ...

Still breast feeding! I'll admit that it is getting harder and I think about giving up. So far I'm taking it one day at a time. It's getting harder because it wanes quite severely just before my cycle starts and overall I don't achieve great let-downs. My baby eats 3 meals a day of solids like he hasn't eaten in days. He's up several times a night to eat. I do have Cal-Mag supplements I'm taking. They're supposed to help with the waning. Mother's Milk Tea is back on the daily menu, too.

We did it! Baby Boy and I made it to 6 months breast feeding! This is such an answer to prayer. Whenever I feed him, I think about my older two and how they were on bottles of formula at this point and all I could get out of myself were a few watery droplets. I'm happy we've made our goal and we're still breast feeding. He is eating regular foods now, mashed and watered down with water and/or breast milk. He also eats a lot at night. My best let-downs are at night. I don't mind. During the day, breast feeding is more difficult. He's easily distracted and frustrated that my let-downs are often slow in coming and weak. It's hard to just relax and breast feed when I have two older children who seem to suddenly turn into rabid monkeys as soon as baby's to breast. I often breast feed laying down during the day because my let downs seem better if I'm laying down. I'm definitely not as full chested and am in fact down two cup sizes since my mil...

We've been exclusively breast feeding for 4 months! He is taking a pacifier now, but it was his choice. At about 3 1/2 months old, he was fussing and noticed me holding the "binky." He actually reached up his little hand for it. As soon as my hand holding the binky was within his reach, he grabbed my hand and pushed the binky into his mouth. It hasn't hindered our breast feeding at all. At the doctor's visit, I was encouraged NOT to start solids until at least 6 months since it was obvious by the little chubby boy on my lap that breast feeding is going so well. This feels SO good after having such difficulties with my older two. I now know that the reason I lost my milk was because of misinformation, fear and stress about the whole situation. Moms-to-be who may be reading this, remember these points: 1. Forget schedules. Forget making baby sleep through the night. A baby should eat when he wants, as often as he wants, and as much as he wants. Don't...

3 months and I'm still breast feeding exclusively and on demand! Who knew going exactly by the nature God created would make for success thus far and all the man-made "advice" would lead to failure!? LOL! While I did buy Baby Boy some pacifiers last month, he hates them all and won't use them. I only bought them because he likes to use me as a pacifier and sometimes I just can't lay there and let him pacify. Sometimes, I do need to go to the bathroom, get something to eat, care for my other children, etc. So, I thought for those times I'd let him suckle a pacifier. I did buy the pacifiers with trepidation that doing so would kill breast feeding as some advocate groups assert. Never minding that, Baby Boy won't take them. Instead, he loves his Mommy and discovered his perfect little fists for sucking. Otherwise, he likes the meaty part of my thumb and my forearm which bears a tell-tale hickey. He's chubby, as a baby should be. I still have goo...

Every evening Baby Boy fusses and grunts in pain and discomfort from gas in his system. Every morning he wakes up farting up a storm. It doesn't seem to matter how often hubby and I burp him. Gas seems to build up in his lower digestive track. Last night had me looking through some resources and I found that if I take vitamin B6 it should help not only his gas issues, but his developing cradle cap, too! I'm on it! He's only a month old, so I don't want to start shoving supplements and anything other than breast milk down his throat. Therefore, I'm looking for things I can take that'll get into my breast milk and help him. I think I'll start drinking the mother's milk tea, too. He seemed to have fewer gas issues when I was drinking it after he was born. Any other advice or suggestions?

A panic started rising in me. Baby boy spent all of yesterday evening fussy, and nursing. He never seemed satisfied. The old fear popped into my head. I'm losing my milk. Then I took a deep breath. I calmed down. And I reminded myself that he is probably having the 3 week mark growth spurt many babies have. After all, he slept all day except for waking just long enough for regular feedings. I noticed that more of my baby weight dropped suddenly and I'm suddenly a LOT more hungry. So, I let the little guy nurse and nurse and nurse to his heart's content. I'm really hopeful that 3rd time's the charm and I can breastfeed past 3 months. I'm already thankful that he's had NO formula or bottles or pacifiers. (It helps that he really is an easy-going baby. My daughter was more high strung and that pacifier was better than an international peace treaty!) The only supplementing I did was during his jaundice when he could be too sleepy to finish feeding,...

Baby boy gained back 60% of the weight he lost after delivery! Thanks to Renee's suggestion of www.kellymom.com/bf/index.html, I got some great info on everything breast feeding. Things are going well now and I have plenty of milk. Now, baby boy is asleep and I should be as well.

It is funny how some women, no matter what, can make milk like crazy. For me, breast feeding is a delicate matter. I dried up within 3 months after the birth of my oldest and my middle child. Yesterday once again proved that I have to be mindful and careful when it comes to my milk. Big brother and big sister were rather disobedient and difficult and it caused me great stress. It felt like every time I put baby to breast a fight broke out...a fight bad enough to need physical intervention to tear them off each other. My milk was reduced by half and my let downs were fewer and much weaker. So, once the older kiddos were tucked into bed, I made every effort to relax. I also nursed baby boy on demand, as I've done since he was born, and turned out from 5 pm to 9pm, he nursed every hour on the hour. Then, overnight, he nursed every 2 hours until 3:30 am when he obviously had a good, full feed and was able to sleep for 3 hours until the next feeding. I am fuller this morning. B...