Friday, September 13, 2013

Breastfeeding with Khye - Part 4 (11 months)

Wow, 7 months has passed by since my last update.
And there is so much to update! Khye is now almost a year old

First of all, I'd donated about ~150 or more bottles of 5oz ebm to a mummy friend whose baby has some reflux problem. All in all, that was about 750oz of my precious milk. I did not give her all in one shot of course. I usually gave her 20-30 bottles every 2 weeks or so, and it was in a span of a few months.
Now I've stopped giving because I don't express much anymore.
So how do I feel about this? I feel simply great, to be able to help a fellow mummy friend's baby. :D

My little sunshine cutie pie is now officially an only-direct-latch baby.
He suddenly decided at about 4 months old that he doesn't like the bottle and only wants mummy's boobs, and that's it. Sigh.
No amount of coaxing or forcing will make him take the bottle.

We'd tried asking other carers to feed him (and not mummy!). We'd tried going way past his feeding time so that he would get more hungry, and hopefully take the bottle. But nope.
After some crying and whining, but hungry yet stubborn little baby would just suck 1/2 oz or 1oz and then stop sucking. He took just enough so that he won't starve and that's all. Nothing we did could make him suck more.
And when at last I offered him my boobs, Khye took it like a little piranha and suckles like crazy! Whoaaaa!

Ok, some people says that we are not forceful enough. We didn't let him 'starve' longer.
Well, to tell the truth, I hadn't the heart to do that to my baby. I'm not the type who can practice 'cry it all out methods' on my kids. My heart's too soft for that. It's just not my style.

So since I'm not on any fixed 9-5 job, so I actually had no problem letting him latch on all the time. And when I do go out, I'll just make sure to nurse him before I go, and to come back within a few hours.

I don't really know how much Khye drinks, because I feed on demand. But now that he is bigger, he don't drink as often as a newborn. He can go without milk for 4 hours or so without fussing.
There was once when Khye wasn't feeling very well and was fussing and refusing even my boobs that I had no choice but to bring out my Avent Manual Pump, and I was surprised that I still managed to express about 5oz.

Anyway, my MIL was asking me why Khye drinks the same amount of milk now as he did when he was so much younger? Isn't he supposed to drink more?
Well, for formula-fed babies, yes, most people upped the amount of milk as the baby grows.
But for breastmilk, as baby grows, the nutritional composition of our breast milk changes to best meet the baby's needs. Breastmilk is uniquely suited to meet our growing baby's needs, and thus not necessary the baby needs to drink more.
Impressive, right? That's the awesomeness of breastfeeding.


And as I'd mentioned, Khye eats really little solid, so he is still 99.9% on breastmilk. I'm a bit concerned over this, but not too much, as I know he will eat when he is ready.
It's just that I need to be aware that I'm still his main source of food. :)

As of now, I'm loving the bond between Khye and I. His giggles when he sees his 'food' and how his head nuzzles against my chest when he wants to suckle.

Ok, and that's how my little sunshine cutie pie looks like at 11 months, 99.9% on mummy's milk.

2 September 2013 - 11mo

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