My supply took a big hit after I started working again.  Here’s what worked for me (thank you to all my friends at My Mommy Time who helped me with this!):

-Drink a ton of water. This is by far the most helpful. I drink about 100 ounces a day.
-Eat old fashioned oatmeal.  I make a big batch every Sunday and it keeps until Friday.
-Add flax seed meal to foods. I put it in my oatmeal every morning.
–Brewer’s Yeast (a supplement that can be found at GNC or Whole Foods) **Brewer’s Yeast is different than active or dry yeast** I also add a bit of this to my oatmeal every morning.
–Fenugreek (a supplement that can be found at GNC or Whole Foods)
-Blessed Thistle (a supplement that can be found at GNC or Whole Foods)
-I took a supplement called More Milk Plus that has Fenugreek, Blessed Thistle, Nettle Leaf, and Fennel Seed. The capsules are WAY better than the tincture. Expensive but worth it!
–Pumping for 10 minutes AFTER you stop dripping milk. If pumping while away from your LO you should pump for 5 minutes after milk stops dripping to maintain your supply. I pump for at least 20 minutes at a time while at work. If you don’t have it already, invest in a good handsfree pumping bra.
–Lactation cookies!! The active ingredients are the oatmeal, flax seed meal, and brewers yeast. I substituted coconut butter and applesauce for the butter-YUM. Only problem is I can’t stop eating them so I just add the elements to my oatmeal so that I don’t get HUGE.
–Try not to stress. I found that stress is the number one issue with my milk supply. I make sure to do something that isn’t stressful when I’m pumping (like write posts-HA!). If I work I don’t get nearly as much milk.
–Nurse as much as possible. I nurse Lucy as soon as I get home. Then right before bed. During the weekend nurse, nurse, and nurse and try to throw in one pump session a day.

I hope this helps!

This weekend I made blueberries, peas, green beans, prunes, and mango.

Here they are cooking away!

The blueberries were a frozen bag from Trader Joes and they did not turn out.  They tasted like dirt so I ended up throwing them away.

I’m not going to feed Lucy something that I wouldn’t eat.

Prunes

Prunes are really easy to make.  I got organic prunes from Whole Foods this time but I think I prefer Newman’s Own Organic Prunes because they blend up to a much nicer consistency than the Whole Foods prunes.

For prunes, place them in a bowl and cover them with warm water to reconstitute them.  I let mine soak for about 30 minutes.

Once they are nice and plump throw them into the food processor with some of the leftover water.  Blend.  Add water until the consistency you desire is reached.  I had to add all the water to these prunes this week to get to this consistency:

Lucy loves her prunes and Mommy loves what they do for Lucy ;-P

Prunes are just dried plums.  I’ve been looking for organic plums but no luck so far!

Green Beans and Peas

Green Beans and Peas are staples in our house and they are the biggest pain in the booty to make.  They taste SOOOO much better than the commercially prepated baby food so it’s worth it to me.  I get the frozen versions of both peas and green beans.

Green Beans

Peas

Organic green beans are really difficult to find-in fact I haven’t seen them since I started making Lucy’s baby food.  The frozen green beans are great because they’re already trimmed and there’s nothing I hate worse than trimming green beans!  And have you seen fresh peas?  Yeah…didn’t think so 🙂

I steamed both veggies until just done.  The green beans got a tad bit overcooked because Lucy woke up unexpectedly-I turned them off but didn’t take off the lid and they steamed about a minute too long.  They had just changed color but were still nice and plump-not mushy. I wish they were a little more vibrant but they still tasted really good.

I toss them in the food processor with a small amount (2 Tablespoons or so) of the cooking water:

Process for about 1 minute.  Until they look like this:

Green Beans

Peas

Then I go through the process of straining them.  I use a mesh sieve and push the peas/green beans through with a spoon.  I do a small amount at a time-if you add to much it doesn’t really squish through very well.

Green Beans

Peas

After I push them through with a spoon I run a spatula on the underside of the sieve to get the vegetables off.

I put the veggies that don’t push through the sieve into a bowl and process them one more time and go through the process again.

Left Over Green Beans

For both the peas and the green beans I steamed 2 pounds and got 1 pound of baby food-and a crampy hand!  I’ve tried just adding more water and not straining them and they make Lucy gag. You wouldn’t believe how much ruffage is in a pea or green bean.  When I make the baby food I always try to swallow it without chewing it.  If it gets stuck in my throat then I know it’ll cause Lucy issues. Both unstrained peas and green beans get stuck in my throat! Here’s what they look like when they’re done:

Green Beans

Peas

The fruits (ha!) of Saturday night’s labor:

Mangos

Unfortunately I didn’t get any pictures of the mango making but it was super simple and Lucy LOVED mango.  Yesterday was the first day I gave them to her and she ate an ENTIRE mango all by herself!  For the first batch that I gave her I just mushed with a fork.  It wasn’t super smooth but she “chewed” and got them down just fine.

The one thing to keep in mind with mangos is that the skin can cause rashes in some people so I make sure to wash my hands throughout the process of making them.  I also make sure to not get ANY skin into the puree.

The great thing about mangos is that you don’t have to cook them.  Just get a ripe mango, cut it up, (here’s a good tutorial), put it in the food processor (for a big batch-otherwise just use a fork) and process until smooth.  I found organic mangos for $1.30 each yesterday-I got 6 of them and I may go buy more since Lucy liked them so much.

A Tutorial on Sterilizing

I sterilize so many things now that it seems like common sense how to sterilize. I remember though, frantically Googling how to sterilize when I had to do it the first time. I had so many questions-Do I wash it first? Will the plastic melt? How long do I do it?

When you become a Mom you become a sterilizer! I sterilize probably once a week-new bottles, toys, pump parts, baby cubes-the list could go on an on.

This past weekend I bought more bottles for Lucy. I used to “only” have 3 sets for daycare but the washing of her bottles gave me major anxiety (it was yet one more thing I had to do in my already jammed packed night) so Shaun told me to go buy enough for her to have all week. I was trying to save money but Shaun reminded me that my sanity was worth more than a few bottles. So now we are the proud owners of 20 bottles-it sounds (and is) wasteful but I figure I’m saving water resources by not washing bottles every few days-nice way to rationalize it, huh?

Anyway, onto the tutorial!

Sterilizing is a good thing to do with any new plastic product unless the package says “DO NOT BOIL”. You never know what the product touched before it got to you and babies basically put everything and anything into their mouths.

First take the product out of the packaging and disassemble it (Lucy’s bottles disassemble into 5 pieces-no wonder I hate washing them):

Get a big pot of water on the stove and boiling.

Next wash with soapy water and rinse-make sure to get all the soap off:

When your pot has come to a boil, put the plastic pieces into the pot-my bottle sterilizing this weekend took 2 batches-it wouldn’t all fit into one pot:

Bring it back to a boil. Set the timer to 5 minutes and start it:

Boil, baby, boil! No your plastic will not melt!

After 5 minutes, take everything out (I use metal tongs) and put on a clean towel to dry:

Voila! Sterilized plastic goods!

I try to make all of Lucy’s baby food. It’s really very easy to do and it ensures that I know exactly what is going into her food.

I want Lucy to try butternut squash this weekend so I decided to make some tonight and I took pictures of what I did.  When I bought the butternut squash it was a work night and I didn’t have time to bake a squash for an hour so I decided to get organic frozen squash from Whole Foods.  That night ended up being a bear so I didn’t get to make it. I would have preferred a fresh squash but this was really nice quality.

I followed the instructions on the bag for cooking it on the stovetop. I prefer not to microwave her food because you never know what those microwaves do!

I said to boil on the stove for 5-6 minutes. This is what it looked like going in:

As it boiled I got her baby cubes ready.

These are great for daycare because it only gets one container dirty and the lid is connected so they (and I) can’t lose it. I prefer the 2 ounce cubes because Lucy has taken to solids and eats A LOT. The one ounce cubes just don’t do it for her. Plus the lids don’t stay closed as well as the 2 ounce containers.

Back to the squash. This is what the squash looked like when it was done.

And into the Cuisenart it went:

I processed it:

Until it looked like this:

I spooned it into the Baby Cubes:

Make sure not to go past the max fill line because the lids will pop open in the freezer when the food expands.

I mark the tops of the cubes with an erasable marker so I know what’s in them.

(It was fun to write “BS”)

Then put them in their freezer trays:

And into the freezer they go with the other food:

The food is good in the freezer for up to 3 months-it doesn’t last that long in this household!

I know I had so many questions about sending Lucy to daycare with bottles when up until that point she had been exclusively breastfed (EBF). I talked to her daycare to see what they suggested and I went searching online and here’s what I did and now do.

For Lucy’s first day I sent 4 ounce bottles.  She was 4 months old and 4 ounces seemed like a good starting point.  I sent enough bottles for her to eat every 2 hours (like she did at home), with an extra bottle just in case.  My daycare has a rule that if a bottle has been out for an hour they can’t offer it again, so I always include that extra bottle.

By the end of the first week daycare requested that I send 5 ounce bottles.  Lucy was still trying to suck after the 4 ounce bottles were gone but was only eating once every 3 hours. They quickly asked for me to send 6 ounce bottles.

According to my Lactation Consultant (LC), there have been studies that show that a breastfed baby rarely drinks more than 5 ounces at a feeding and that anything more than that could be considered over feeding.  With that in mind I tried to back Lucy back down to 5.5 and then 5 but she was still sucking after 5.5 and was becoming a cranky baby.  I figured that since she ate every 3 hours at daycare vs. every 2 on the breast that 6 ounces was okay to send-especially since she’s such a tiny baby (she’s in the 10th percentile for weight).  She now takes 3 6 ounce bottles and 6 ounces of solids at daycare.  Before we started solids she was routinely eating 18 ounces of breastmilk a day.  I still send an extra bottle just in case we get stuck in traffic or something happens where we can’t get her when we originally planned.

The moral of the story is-follow your child’s cues and talk with your daycare provider.  They’ve done this many times before and should be very knowledgeable.

A good tip is to number the caps of the bottles and the labels. Tell daycare to feed them in order, that way you know that your child is getting the oldest milk first and you can keep track of how old milk is. If one of the bottles has to go back in the fridge after being offered for an hour and refused then that one would be labeled number 1 for the next day.  It’s useful to label the lids because those can easily be switched out.  If I need to dig into my freezer stash of milk, those bottles are labeled lower than fresh milk since it probably has a shorter “shelf life” than milk you pumped that day.

I tend to freeze my milk over the weekend since I had to dump 12 ounces one Monday morning when my milk went bad. I literally cried.  Milk can last up to 10 days refrigerated but I’ve found that mine starts smelling and tasting foul after the third or fourth day-everybody’s milk is different-and yes I’ve tasted it.  Since it’s literally liquid gold I play it safe and freeze it every Friday. I just stick any bottles she has left in the freezer and then my pumped milk goes in Medela Pump N’ Save bags. All the milk that gets pumped over the weekend goes into the fridge. On Sunday, I take the bottles and whatever amount I need from the  bags out of the freezer and put them in the refrigerator to defrost.  If I remember to take it out in the morning, I can prepare her bottles on Sunday night.  If I forget, I have to make her bottles Monday morning-and that’s a pain.

One last tip-I have 12 bottles for daycare and 12 bottles for pumping.  That way I only have to wash bottles twice a week.  It’s a huge time and energy saver.  Plus-I HATE WASHING BOTTLES-it’s the bane of my existence.

~~~

I bought my Eye-Fi and it should be here on Monday.  Know what that means? More pictures for you (and me)!