I cannot believe in two days Stella will be a year old. People don't lie when they say time flies when you have kids. I seriously feel like I blinked and the whole year was gone. The past year was my biggest year of growth. I feel like I always say that however this year truly has been. There were so many tough obstacles I never knew I would be strong enough to overcome, but I did. Mentally this is the strongest I've ever been. I knew that a mother's love for her child was strong, experiencing it first hand was so different than what I had anticipated. Stella really is my whole world. Everything I've gone through and decision I had to make were all for her benefit. As long as she had everything she needed and was happy that's all that mattered to me. After our bumpy start I know things can only progressively get better like they have been. The goals I have for Stella and I this year aren't extravagant or anything but they are semi-big ones. Fingers crossed they get accomplished. So this is a pretty controversial topic, depending on who you ask. I'm not going to lie I 100% was against co-sleeping before Stella was born. I would always tell myself that I wouldn't do that because my sister did (Hi Julie! Lol.) But here we are almost a year later and I am a nightly co-sleeper. The way this all started was back in August I had just returned to work and was exhausted from trying to balance everything and readjust to it all. I was struggling with the closing shifts. I would get home around 9:30pm, eat, bathe than had to nurse Stella right after. I would be exhausted and started falling asleep mid feeding. Having her in bed was so much more convenient for us both. We could still stay in bed cuddling and she would get her late night/early morning feedings without having to fully wake up. However during the day for naps Stella would always sleep in her crib alone. So she wasn't super dependent on co-sleeping. I wanted to make sure that while I was at work she would still be okay to sleep alone if she needed to. Usually I am home before her actual bed time so this has been working for us...except for once when I had to work on Thanksgiving. My family told me that she refused to lay down with anyone else except me for bedtime. We are on a semi co-sleeping schedule with no intentions of changing that anytime soon. I absolutely love the extra cuddles I get with my baby bee every night and sometimes during the day.
As the 9month mark reaches us I am happy to say that we are still consistently breastfeeding. Woo! Let me tell you I did not expect to make it this long. Trying to keep your baby exclusively breastfed is such hard work when you're a working mama. This experience has made me have so much more respect for my mother. Even though she was a SAHM she still had such a struggle nursing my triplet little sisters, but she made it to a year with all three. If I'm being completely honest she was my motivation when I had Stella. There were so many times I wanted to give up but she encouraged me to keep trying for Stella's sake. We went through so much to finally get to where we are now. Thrush (twice), a dip in my supply, stress..., etc. From everything I've learned a few major helpers. Never give up no matter what. There were days I'd be at work trying to pump and I'd cry because I was only able to pump 2oz. Thankfully I had a decent amount stockpiled in the freezer from my time off to help supplement what I was currently pumping. That helped soooo much in be beginning. As far as the fenugreek pills go they weren't a significant help with boosting my supply. But the fenugreek combo bars and milk water tea from www.mrsmilk.com helped so much! Within a day I saw a vast improvement. My milk was thicker and I had jumped at least 2oz at each pumping session. However I did have to change my nursing pads after each feeding or pumping. Not that I recommend automatically jumping to lactation boosters, but they helped me when I really needed them. Now I don't use them often but I do think they helped save me from going "dry" and aided in my continuation in breastfeeding my little bee. My ultimate goal was to make it to one complete year BF, I think we will achieve it and then some. This little girl shows no signs of weening anytime soon. She is such a milky babe she wants to nurse the second I walk in the door from work. Lol.
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Mama+bebeSanDiego,CA | est.2016 |