How long can it last?

Since Zac was born, I or should I say WE have never had more than 6 hours of sleep straight in a night. I am just wondering how long our body can last without getting sufficient sleep and what damage it will do to us?

I sleep around 10 / 11pm each night with Hayley and will get up around 4am to express and take over the shift from papa. Papa will sleep from 4 / 5am and will need to get up around 7.30am to get Hayley ready for school (during which I am already on the way to drop off Zac and then to work). After dropping off Hayley at 8.15am, papa will return to continue his sleep until about noon. This routine sort of interrupted papa's work although he works from home.

Hopefully when Zac turned 6 months (just 1 more month to go), we can start training him to sleep through the night without feeds and I can relax a little on expressing and won't need to express so frequently anymore. Hopefully by then we can all get sufficient sleep each night.

Need more breast milk storage bottles/bags

Can anyone please recommend me what's the best method for storing breast milk in the freezer?

I have 8 Avent containers and 4 Avent 9oz bottles and they have all been used up. I need to get more containers for storing breast milk and not sure what's reliable, useful or efficient.

Can someone out there please help recommend me something good?

Inspired by a stranger

During lunch yesterday at the foodcourt in Mid Valley, I saw a lady breastfeeding her child. I know there are many mothers out there breastfeeding their child in public places etc. So why is this one so special that I have to mention it in my blog?

She inspired me. I just don't know how to explain the feeling but after seeing her, I suddenly felt that breastfeeding is not that difficult after all.

When I saw her yesterday, she was multitasking and made it look so easy, almost effortless! She was holding her son using her right arm, the boy (probably about 18 - 19 months old) was latching and she was eating with her left arm. While latching and eating, she happily chatted away with her hubby. She used a napkin to cover the breast and her son's face. My buddy who was having lunch with me (she has no experience in breastfeeding) said the same. She too could not help but look over into the lady's direction every few mins to admire her.

Firstly, I didn't know breastfeeding could be this easy. Maybe it was not but she surely made it look very easy. When I was breastfeeding Hayley, I encountered so many problems. I pulled through for 8 months only because I was determined to. If I was weaker, I would have given up after 1 month.

So what are we lack of? I would say INFORMATION, GUIDANCE and SUPPORT. Where can we find lactation consultants here in KL? Do we even have one? The hospital where I delivered Hayley just gave me a piece of paper with instructions on breastfeeding and I was sent to go. I didn't know who to ask or who to get help from. Even my mom told me to stop when I was crying cause my breasts were so engorged and I was in so much pain.

A friend who gave birth in Abu Dhabi told me they have lactation consultants in the government hospitals in Abu Dhabi whom they can walk in or call to get advise when they have breastfeeding issues. Who do we call here in KL?

A couple of months down the road after I started blogging, I bumped into Busybee's blog. Busybee is my idol when it comes to breastfeeding. I truly admire her. She breastfed her son for more than 2 years. Read her blog if you don't believe me :-). She shares tips occasionally on breastfeeding and through her blog I found out about breastfeeding talks etc. Although we have to pay to attend the talks, I wouldn't mind as I know it would be useful.

Anyway, back to this lady. After watching her for a couple of mins, I was all inspired to breastfeed my 2nd child successfully and I can't wait to have a 2nd child actually hahaha. I hope I too can do it as leisurely and stress free like she can.

The end of breastfeeding, bye bye milk

After exclusively being breastfed for 6 months and supplementing with formula for 2 more months, mummy have had enough. She initially aimed to breastfeed me for 1 year but had to stop at 8 months. She is not proud but she knows she has done her best.

I am not sure if this happened to other breastfeeding mothers out there but mummy encountered several difficulties. Firstly, she couldn't use the pumps. You heard me right. When mummy use pumps (we've got the Avent manual pump) it will take her ages to clear the breasts. In desperation, she tried manual and it was surprisingly much faster. Mummy have since then expressed manually using her hands resulting in bruised breasts (not sure why but I guess if you press your fingers onto your breasts for like 4 - 5 times a day and 20 mins each time, you will end up with bruises). Mummy used to express every 3 hours when I was 2 or 3 months old, so imagine the bruises!

Mummy also lost a lot of weight. We know breastfeeding help mothers to lose weight after giving birth but she wasn't expecting to lose this much weight. She lost 5kg! The miracle of breastfeeding is that she was back to her usual weight during the confinement month (amazing huh) and she lost another 5 kg in the following 2 months. She look so skinny that she could no longer fit into her usual pants, those she use to wear before she got pregnant. Everyone who saw her said she looked frailed and lethargic, probably because of the weight loss. She doesn't look like someone who just had a baby!

The biggest reason why mummy gave up breastfeeding is because of thrush. I developed thrush when I was 3 months old. Not sure when, how or why. I had white spots in my mouth and bad rashes down under, they were itchy. Mummy's breasts were fine. Mummy wasn't even sure if it was thrush but pediatrician said it was. She continued to breastfeed me and pediatrician prescribed Daktarin cream to apply into my mouth and onto mummy's breasts. While her breasts showed no symptoms of thrush, mine refused to go away. The moment she stopped applying the cream on my mouth, it will come back. When she applied, they will go into hiding. Mummy continued to put the cream with hope that it will go away permanently but it didn't. The thrush stayed on until I was about 6 months old. She didn't know what else to do and decided to stop breastfeeding me directly cause we all know that thrush will spread from mommy to baby via breastfeeding or vice versa. She didn't want to continue applying the creams on me as we do not know if the cream will cause harm if taken over long period.

Mummy then decided to express and feed me from a bottle. She also continued to clean my gums and mouth thoroughly every morning and night with clean wet cotton. I love it when she does that as I can bite her finger. Eventually the thrush slowly disappeared, without mummy putting any cream. We were elated. But at the same time mummy's production of breast milk slowly diminished no matter what she do. She continued to drink lots of fluid, taking plenty of fruits and expressing frequently but nothing helped and I wasn't helping either as I refused to suck on it anymore. I prefer teats!

Anyway, mummy convinced herself that 8 months is better than nothing and she is happy that she managed to feed me for 8 months. I am also happy as her breastmilk keeps me healthy. IF she is going to have a 2nd baby, she said she will do the same :-).