Adventures in Breastfeeding and Sleep Conundrums

A little while ago, I decided to try an experiment with regards to pumping. Gaz only nurses on one side at a time, and drinks little of the expressed breastmilk (EBM for short) I leave for her while I'm at work. This, after six months and a freezer full of milk, led me to think maybe I was going about this pumping thing all wrong. I decided that instead of double pumping, I would pump on my usual schedule, but only one breast at a time, alternating. Long story short, the experiment has taken a serious toll on my milk supply and Gaz has taken a similar toll on me. I'm chafed and sore (still!) and not going to try to out-logic my body ever again. I'll just have to throw out the surplus milk. I've already thrown out close to 200 ounces of milk that's been in the freezer long enough to be considered past its prime. It's not been easy to let go of all that milk, but Gaz won't drink it and I'm apparently not a good candidate for donation. Oh, well. I tried. The important thing is that Gaz is still getting all the milk she needs and is thriving.

Sleep. It's been difficult lately. As I mentioned, the night terrors are mostly a thing of the past, but we have other problems that need constant attention. Things like Gaz resisting naps and being difficult at bedtime. Last night it took both me and Mark together working for a total of two hours to get her to sleep. There are many contributing factors to all this, one being that the bedroom CD player finally kicked. Gaz has always liked music, and there are a handful of CDs that soothe her to the point of easy bedtimes. For about a week now we've had no music and just the humidifier to send her off to dreamland and she's not having it at all. Tonight we're making time to go shopping for a replacement, and then hopefully everything else will fall into place.

We're still also trying to figure out a bedtime routine that works for all of us. Now that we don't have laundry facilities in the basement Mark has to run to the laundromat down the street. It's not far away, but it does take more time than we're used to and he can't go there until I get home from work, which is anywhere from 6:30 to 7:30, depending on when I got to work and how many hours I was supposed to log on that day. There are a billion little things that make sorting out when to do what tricky. This was all so much easier when she was not mobile and farther from asserting her will upon the world. Not that I'd go back, of course. We've just got more things to suss out now.

The good news is that today I got Gaz to nap for a solid hour before I went to work. She woke up just as Lisa was hanging up her coat. We heard her on the monitor and when I went in to check on her, the little minx was sitting on my pillow, trying to get the tap light attached to the headboard and smiling away at me. This would be the bad news, that now she a) doesn't fuss when she's fully awakened and b) goes right to crawling all over the bed to search out things to entertain herself with.

Yep. Lots of shopping tonight.