Milk... Milk... Milk...

Milk... Milk... Milk... For me, it's a special sound that my girl makes when she had her night feed when she was one month plus. I am glad that she had stopped night feeds since one and a half months, but the "milk... milk... milk..." plays so clearly in my mind and that's what keeps me going - pumping for the sake of feeding her.

It's been four months and I am still breast feeding via pumping... While some people struggle with their breast milk supply, I have been lucky enough to have sufficient and extra to store since my milk supply was established.

More and more, breastfeeding has become more comfortable for me. This includes the softening of the breast. Most of the days, the breast milk engorgement does not result in very hard and uncomfortable breast. Gone are also the days where pain will shoot through my breast every now and then.

I realised that my supply has stabilised in recent days and I am grateful that my employer is allowing me to pump during working hours. After I returned work at 2.5 months after my girl was born, my pumping schedule is as follows 6.30am, 12noon, 4pm, 8pm, 12 midnight. For the six hourly pump, my yeild will be about 300ml (10oz) while the four hourly pump yeild will be between 200ml (6oz plus) to about 240ml (8oz).

My girl drinks about 125 to 130ml every 3hrly at the moment. As long as I pump religiously, my girl will have enough milk and will not even touch the store of EBM I have. Recently, I wanted to let my ger drink the Similac FM but my hubby told me this in Chinese "You pump until so hard got so much to store already then you let her drink formula for what? Not like you got not enough milk for her!". Well to some extend it's true, mothers spend money buying formula and I spend money buying milk bags to store. :P To prevent wastage, I have given about 2 batches of milk to different mothers.

The mother who took my 2nd batch of milk was so kind to give me things in return... Now, I have another batch to give away... Actually I am glad that I can provide milk for my girl (except that she drinks too little according to my PD). As you can see, this is how my fridge looks like when it's too full... 

Here's a reminder to all mothers not to give up breastfeeding from the start! The first time my milk came in, there was only a miserable 20ml but I was so excited, I took a photo of it. So do not be dissapointed if the initial supply is less than 1 oz. You need time to build up the supply! :)