I Make Milk, What's Your Super Power?

  WARNING, THIS POST IS ABOUT BREASTFEEDING, IF YOU ARE SQUEAMISH THIS IS PROBABLY NOT FOR YOU ALTHOUGH IT WON'T BE AS GRAPHIC AS A BIRTH POST!  :)

  Did you know that Aug. 1- 7 is Breastfeeding week?  I did not know that, but I've been thinking about writing about this very thing.  What perfect timing!  Although I am not currently producing any milk, I have breastfeed 5 babies, so I figure I qualify in sharing tips and info!
  Each baby is different, and each of my babies was a wonderful breastfeeding experience.  Some had ups and downs but perseverance always wins!
  With my first baby it took me a good 3 months to get a good handle on the technique.  I had worsened my situation by trying an electric breast pump, from which I received cracks.  OW, OW, OW!  I was in tears nursing him it was so painful and I almost quit.  And I would have, had it not been for a great supportive team of Mamas around me, cheering me on.  I kept nursing, being disciplined in not letting baby "slide down".  A couple weeks all was healed and nursing was going great!  I loved not having to wash bottles or prepare formula.  Plus Josh was just beginning his apprenticeship so funds were very low and formula very expensive! Well compared to breastfeeding anyway!
  Baby Number 2 was a breeze!  Sadly I only nursed him for 9 1/2 mons.  I was in a car accident and he had to stay with Oma for a week, I only got to nurse him during the day, and by the end of the week he was done. 
  You see bottles aren't bad, they can be good, but a smart baby knows they don't have to work so hard for that sucker!  There's no problem with proper latching and you can chew like there's no tomorrow without someone screaming in your ear!
   Babies 3 and 4 were pretty much the same.  No repeats with blisters and cracks like the first one. 
  One thing that I was blessed with was good suckers, or as we call them Barracudas.  If you have a baby with a weak suck or no suck you may need to hand express while they nurse.    There are some tricks to help them get better.  Read here for some help.  It may or may not be lots of work, but oh so worth it for baby's immune system and so much more than that!
  Now baby #5, she was a different story.  You see with a 6 year gap in nursing babies I was really out of practice. 
  I had heard about a new thing (and this always seems so funny to me because these "new things" were so common before hospital births, anyways) called natural latching.  Or that's what I call it, I don't know if it has a technical term.      This is where instead of grabbing baby and some nurse squashing your boob mammaries and shoving the little guy/gal on there, you just let them find their own way. 
You will find a great article about that here.
   I tried this very thing with Madi and she bopped around for about 2hrs, happy as a lark.   I did give her a little nudge up the "mountain".  She open her mouth and latched on perfect all on her own.  My Doc. Dr. A, watched in amazement and we both thought it was the greatest thing!
  Now later the next couple of weeks I'm not sure what happened but I was sore.  A wonderful, lovely doula friend directed me to the Breastfeeding Guru, Jack Newman.  I learned so much from this website.  I got the most from this article about latching.   After that it was a breeze.
     That's all the info for today.  I'm going to try and post about Breastfeeding all this week.  I'll let you in on some of my regrets and mistakes.  And some of the best things that worked for me. 
 
Note about the title.  I saw this message on a nursing T-shirt once and I thought it was the funniest thing!  I really should have bought it! hahaha