Lactogenic Foods

I was reading this article about lactogenic foods (foods that are supposed to increase milk production). I made some barley water this evening by boiling a cup of barley in about 3 quarts of water for roughly 2 hours (until it had boiled down by about 50%). I strained out the very soft barley and just finished a cup of barley water. It tastes kind of like very thin oatmeal. It's not awful, but it's not something that I'd pull out of the fridge for fun.

I also read this blog post about a woman whose milk supply increased after drinking raw milk. I decided to check it out. The farm that supplies our eggs through our CSA also has two cows and a herd of goats. We went out to their farm today, met the cows and goats, and picked up three half-gallons of milk (two of cow, one of goat).

Raw milk is awesome (although the woman who wrote the blog post seemed to think it was pretty gross). I was expecting it to taste thick like grocery store whole milk does. It actually tastes less fatty than whole milk, which seems counterintuitive. At least an inch of cream separates out off the top of the milk when it's stored in the fridge, but it's easy to mix back in.

I'm guessing that neither of these things will have any effect on my milk production. I'd say that for women who have plenty of glandular tissue, but that tissue isn't producing optimally, might be able to "jump-start" milk production using a food-based approach. However, I'm pretty sure that neither will grow more tissue or help me out. However, both foods are nutritious and supposedly very healthy regardless of their (lack of) effect on milk production.

Potty Time!

We're doing Elimination Communication with Sterling. What that means is that we are trying to teach her to go in a little potty. At times when we think she's likely to potty, such as right when she's woken up from a nap, we put her on the potty and make Pshhhh Shhhh noises at her. Eventually she's supposed to associate the potty and the noise with going potty and she should basically potty on command. The other half of that is that we should eventually be able to recognize the cues she makes when she has to go.

We've had some success with getting her to occasionally pee on the potty. However, I've found that about equally commonly, she pees as soon as the diaper goes back on her after she's come off the potty. This could mean that we've trained her to pee in her diaper (as one would expect). We'll just have to untrain her again.

But today, she had her first poop in the potty! Admittedly, it was right after two other poops, but it still counts.

Tongue Update

It's three weeks since Sterling had her tongue and lip ties revised by the ENT Dr. I took her back in to the lactation consultant today just to check and make sure that everything looked good. She said it looks perfect and has healed fabulously. I was somewhat worried because I didn't do as good a job as I thought I should with the post-revision exercises. Now we just need to continue to do her tongue exercises so that she improves her range of motion.

I also picked up more lactation tincture as well as some herbs while I was there. I've been transitioning off most of the capsules I was taking in favor of the tincture. I felt like Sterling might be taking more supplement since I stopped one of the capsules, so I looked at the ingredients and found that the one thing I had been taking a capsule for that isn't in the tincture I'm currently taking is marshmallow root, so I got some capsules specifically of that. Marshmallow root increases the quality of milk, making it creamier and richer. It apparently doesn't have an effect on milk volume, but if the milk she's getting is creamier, she might need to eat less of it to feel full.

We also went for some good walks today because the weather was sunny.

Wonder Weeks - 12 week jump

I think Sterling is going through her 12 week mental development jump. She's been much crankier than usual, is totally refusing to nap unless she's nursing, and also refuses to be put down. Awesome.

Rolling and Pride!

Sterling has a new trick - she can roll into her right side. I'm very proud.

The first time she did it (June 16th), I had put her on her back under her play structure and gone into the kitchen. When I came back, she was laying on her side. So of course, I took a picture:

The next day, she rolled from her back to her side 5 or 6 times. She hasn't done it again today, but she hasn't had much chance for free-range wiggle time.

Rather than allow our child to practice her new-found rolling abilities, we went to the gay pride festival and watched a little bit of the parade, went for lunch, and then wandered through the booths at the festival. Sterling slept through the parade, woke up for lunch (ours and hers), then took another nap while we wandered through the festival.

Lunch at Cafe Yumm

Nursing at the festival with my Lact-aid.

Baby Dandruff

Sterling has a little bit of cradle cap. I had decided not to do anything about it because it was pretty minor, but it's been getting worse over the past week and I decided it was time to take action. This was mainly because I tend to want to pick at it when she's nursing or falling asleep and it wakes her up (besides being a somewhat unsavory thing to do). It's my grooming tendencies coming out.

Last night, I rubbed her head down with coconut oil and then let her marinate for 30 minutes or so. Then, I took her brush and brushed against the direction of the hair to loosen up the cradle cap scales (ick). Her hair ended up looking much like someone who you probably wouldn't call back after the first date - messy, oily, and full of big chunks of dandruff. So much for adorable baby heads.

I gave her a bath and washed her hair with her body wash / shampoo. Normally I don't use soap on her, so this was a change. I didn't manage to quite wash all the oil out of her hair, so it's a little greasy looking this morning and is sort of standing up in a point on the top of her head. It's also hard to tell how much of the cradle cap I got off because her scalp is sort of oily. I'm going to repeat the treatment tonight.

She had an excellent time in the bathtub last night. She started kicking her feet and seemed very interested in her toes. She hasn't had a lot of chance to interact with her toes because she's usually wearing socks (her feet get cold). The warm weather this summer should be optimally timed - she'll just be at the stage of development where she really discovers her toes when it's warm enough for her to be sockless.

She laughed at me!

After changing her diaper this morning, I was blowing on her tummy and making a silly noise. She looked at me, smiled, and laughed "ehh ehhh!" It was totally a laugh and not just a cooing noise. It's the first time I've definitely heard her laugh.

Hearing Test

Today, Sterling had her hearing test. They took us into a tiny, hot, vaguely smelly room and attached electrodes behind her ear and on her forehead. She was fine with those, but got disgruntled about the probe they stuck in her ear. At that point, she got mad and started wiggling and whining, so Mike gave her a bottle which she sucked down quickly and looked for more. They can't do the test until she's quiet (and sucking is too noisy), but we were finally able to get her to quiet down and nurse for long enough to get the test completed. She passed.

The second test involved sticking yet another probe in her ear to look for movement of the eardrum. She passed that one too, although she was really not happy about the second round of probing.

Holding up her head

We haven't done much tummy time with Sterling laying on her stomach on the floor because she usually doesn't like it. She does spend a fairly large amount of time laying tummy-to-tummy with one of us, which is where she does her head-lifting exercises. She's doing quite well, I think.

Feeling Positive

This is what nursing looks like with the Lact-aid. 

This morning when I woke up, my boob was leaking! For most people, this wouldn't be cause for celebration, but it hasn't happened to me for a while. She nursed this morning, then I pumped 1.5 oz (0.5 from the side she'd nursed on and 1 oz from the other side). That's more than usual. I'm hoping it means that milk production is on an upswing. We've done some really quality nursing with the Lact-aid in the past couple of days. Sterling suckles really well for much longer than she used to because she actually gets milk out. It's a little bit fiddly to use; I keep having to adjust it because when she moves her mouth she sometimes moves the tube to a place where she can't suck milk through it anymore. She's much more effective at milk removal from the breast, though. I'm not sure if it's because she's suckling longer or if she's actually more efficient now that her tongue and lip have been snipped, but if I pump shortly after she's nursed I don't usually get much out. I used to pretty consistently pump about 0.5 oz after she'd finished.

Mike and Sterling reading together this morning.
Not related to nursing, but much cuter than
what I'm talking about in this paragraph.

I'm choosing to not look at the other possibility - that nothing has changed. It had been quite a few hours since she'd last nursed from the boob that was leaking this morning, so it's possible that it had longer to fill up than it normally does. For a couple of days after the first appointment with the LC, the amount of supplement she was taking went down by about 3 oz. That doesn't sound like much, but really it's one whole extra feeding that I was producing (or that she just wasn't eating). The last two days, it's been back up. I think that might be because she enjoys nursing more than she enjoys the bottle, so she'll just drink more that way. And it's possible that I'm not pumping anything after she nurses because production has actually gone down.. but I'm choosing to not focus on any of the things in this paragraph.

Follow-up with the Lactation Consultant

We saw the LC again today and she says that Sterling's lip and tongue look great. We learned how to do some stretches to keep them from healing back together again, as well as some exercises to get her tongue all trained up for expert nursing. Mike just called them suckercises.

Note: not my boob or baby.

I also got a Lact-Aid Supplemental Nurser. It's basically a bag for milk storage with a tube that goes out to the nipple. It's kind of like a baby straw. I can thread the tube into her mouth when she's nursing and she can suck the supplemental milk at the same time. It motivates her to keep nursing longer, which should stimulate my supply to increase (as much as it's going to). We also get special bonding nursing time.

She slurped up a bag of milk about an hour and a half ago, then fell asleep on my chest. I know I should put her down in her swing and go get something done... but she's so warm and cozy.

Tongue Tie Resolution

We just got home from having Sterling's tongue and lip ties snipped. The Dr was very nice. He examined her, then numbed her lip and under-tongue area with cherry flavored topical numbing stuff, then we chatted for a while and he explained exactly what he was going to do. His two assistants came in and one held her head and the other held down her arms, then he numbed the area with ice and then again with the numbing stuff. The lip snip looked gorier to me (I watched, but couldn't bring myself to actually participate by holding her down), but I couldn't really see the tongue snip. She bled into some gauze and cried vigorously for what seemed to be a really long time (but was probably a minute or two), then they handed her to me to nurse. She cried and bled onto my boob for another really long time (5 minutes maybe?) then settled down and nursed a little bit. She had a bottle and by the time that was finished, she seemed to have forgotten about the whole experience (except for a bit of bloody drool smeared on her cheeks).

I didn't notice a huge, amazing difference with her first nursing. Her tongue felt like it was doing the same thing it usually does (i.e. rub on my nipple somewhat painfully) and my nipple was its usual misshapen self after she was done. Her lip did flange out (like a goldfish) on its own without me having to pull it out, which has never happened before, so that's positive.

She's having a nap in her swing and I'm sitting her, also exhausted. We go back to see the lactation consultant tomorrow afternoon, so we'll see what she says then. Tonight, I get to cool down my finger with ice water, then run it up under her lip and under her tongue to keep it from healing back together.

Grabbing!

Sterling has advanced past hitting things into grabbing. She's gotten quite adept at grabbing her hanging ball. Recently, she's even gotten enough pull that she can turn on the musical bug that we've attached the ball to. It plays "if you're happy and you know it," which is now perpetually stuck in my head.

She hasn't gotten to the point where she'll grab at something that we offer to her, but I'm sure that's not far off now.

She's also developed an interest in wringing her hands, folding them in front of her chest, and chewing on them. She can nearly fit an entire fist into her mouth.

This is what I take in a day

This is the schedule of supplements that the lactation consultant recommended:

• Domperidone - 30mg capsules 4 x day
• Motherlove milk plus (ordered from amazon) - 1-2 capsules 3 x day
• Malunggay 350mg 2 capsules 3 x day
• Shatavari 400mg 1 capsule 3 x day
• custom lactation blend tincture - 2-3ml 3+ x day:
• contains: goats rue, fennel, fenugreek, blessed thistle, shatavari, lactva virosa, vitex, schisanda, yellowdock, saw palmetto, milk thistle, borage, nettle

So first thing in the morning, I take allergy medication (2 pills), then 5 or 6 capsules, and several droppers-full of tincture (which tastes pretty vile). Then at noon, I take a second domperidone capsule and another couple droppers full of tincture. At 3pm, I take various capsules and more tincture. About 6, I take another domperidone. Last thing (11 or 12), I take more allergy medication (2 more pills), 5 or 6 capsules, and more tincture. 

Here's what it all looks like.  I put the pills out in two tiny dishes  because they all sort of look similar: full of brown herby things.

I've been trying to pump at least twice a day and ideally more like 4 times. It's difficult to time because I don't want to pump right before Sterling wants to eat, but it's hard to determine exactly when she's going to want to eat. It's easier with the supplemental nursing tube since she's going to suck all the pumped milk while she's at the breast. 

When I'm going to be out of the house in the middle of the day, I leave with my pockets stuffed full of pills.

It makes my pee smell like I've eaten asparagus.

Hitting things

Stuff other than nursing issues is happening with the baby. She's really getting into batting at things with her hands and she can grab at her ball now and catch it fairly regularly. She spending a lot more time interacting with her hanging toys by trying to hit at them. She's doing an awesome job.

Lactation Consultant

We went to see a lactation consultant yesterday (Melissa Cole at Luna Lactation). She was fabulous and I wish we'd gone to see her right after Sterling was born. Here's what we got out of the meeting:

She agrees with me that Sterling has a tongue and lip tie. These are tissues that are supposed to have disappeared during development, but never did. She's the first medical professional that I've seen who actually agrees with me. I've thought Sterling had these issues since shortly after she was born (after I figured out that those were things that could affect nursing). I was certain that she had a lip tie, which is pretty easy to see (below):

Here's Sterling's lip tie (it's hard to get a picture of it because she moves).

She thinks that Sterling's lip tie is probably between a class III and IV.

I also thought that she had a tongue tie due to the way the end of her tongue looks and the fact that she "clicks" when she nurses (which is apparently the sound that babies make when they break suction due to the tongue not cupping correctly). Dr Liz said her tongue frenulum was sort of tight, but didn't think it would make that much of a difference nursing. Maybe it doesn't, but maybe it does. I haven't been able to get a picture of this because it's pretty far back. We're going to go talk to an ENT doctor about this and hopefully get her tongue tie cut (which is apparently not as traumatic as it sounds for a baby).


Melissa helped me optimize the herbs and things that I'm taking to try to increase milk production. She made me up a custom tincture to take along with the things that I'm taking now.


She gave me a feeding tube thing to use as a supplemental nursing system at the breast. One end of the tiny little tube goes into a bottle and the other end gets slid into the corner of baby's mouth while she's nursing. The suction she creates sucks milk through the tube from the bottle. We had tried a "starter SNS" supplemental nurser when Sterling was about a week old (maybe less). It was sort of fiddly and hard to deal with. It leaked and had to be attached to something at the same level as baby's head so it drained at the right speed. It was a pain and we gave it up after trying a couple of times. This works much better.. or I'm not so overwhelmed by everything else and just seems to work better. I like this. It makes me feel like my breastfeeding is accomplishing something because she gets to nurse AND she gets enough milk. It's also good for strengthening her sucking muscles. 


Overall, it was a very positive experience. We were there for about 2.5 hours and I'm going to recommend her to anyone I encounter who's having trouble with breastfeeding.