Grace and Wen

Did you know that a private lactation consultant charges about $150 for a home visit that will maybe take 1 or 2 hours at the most? That’s $150 I was considering paying when I suffered from nipple infection after being a little too enthusiastic about increasing my milk supply. The consultant herself was trying to discourage me from making the appointment and instead suggested that I attend their free mommy gathering at her place.

Or is it?

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Pregnancy was a breeze compared to the breastfeeding saga. Not even the swollen cankles and gestational diabetes caused me as much grief as trying to feed my baby with breast milk (BM).

In Singapore, doctors are not supposed to distribute formula milk (FM) samples for newborns and there are many support groups for breastfeeding. As a result, the nurses would usually rather hold off feeding a newborn any formula unless medically required. In my case, Cayden needed to be fed FM because of my gestational diabetes condition. I must say that it helped give me some peace of mind when I couldn’t get my milk production up to speed because I knew he was getting his nutrients elsewhere. The nurses were very encouraging of breastfeeding and there was always a lactation consultant nearby if I needed help. But it got a little extreme when on the last day of hospitalization, I asked the nurse for a few FM samples so that my baby could try different formulas (they say baby reacts differently to different formulas) and the nurse gave it to me grudgingly while saying these FM are better fed to dogs. I kid you not.

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It’s been over three months since we welcomed our little bundle of joy into our lives on 28th June. Going back to work and not seeing my boy as much as before has been difficult. My 10 weeks of maternity leave went by so quickly and the remaining 6 weeks of maternity leave are taken so that I have 4-day work weeks. My plan of working half days every week was abandoned before I even tried it because it was just too much effort to dress up everyday for 1/2 an hour of work. The 4-day work week allows me to set aside one day for errands and future play sessions/classes with Cayden.

One of my largest challenge has been planning my work schedule around pumping sessions. Back when I pumped every 3-4 hrs, it often seemed like it was barely an hour ago when I was pumping before I am getting ready to pump again. Each pump session takes nearly an hour from the time I start to massage the breasts with a warm towel to the time where I place the storage bag of milk in the fridge. So each day I was spending at least 4-5 hours on pumping. That’s 4-5 hours of less time with Cayden and for sleeping.

Fortunately I have now moved to a 3-pump schedule so that I pump approximately once every 6-8 hours. That means I only lose 3 hours a day to pumping. Ironically, I’ve also been trying to nurse/latch more often than before. I think it’s because nursing is my special time with Cayden that no one else can replace. Not even the helper who spends so much time with him that his eyes follow her whenever she’s around.

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