And once I had my first child, my thoughts about food extended (bordered on obsession) toward feeding that chubby cheeked little baby. Breastfeeding was my priority and while I had gone into that journey knowing it would be hard, I had not intuited how hard it would be. How the very act of striving to feed this tiny human could be at once so empowering and dis-empowering. How every other hour I was full to the point of engorgement with nourishment, confidence and doubt. And then came the pumping. I was planning to go back to work and S would be 5 weeks old. But no matter how much time, effort, begging, bargaining and denial I put in with that sucker (pun intended), I was not producing anything worth writing home about in those bottles. I contacted my lactation consultant again (and again) to no avail. "Just do it" she would say, Nike commercial style. And the night before my first day I had a whopping 3 oz bottle that took two weeks of pumping multiple times a day to fill. I called the pediatrician. We were told to supplement with formula and when I contacted the aforementioned lactation consultant about this, we had a messy 7th grade style over the phone break up. I cried and cried and cried and went to work with puffy eyes leaving behind a tiny baby who ate and grew nonetheless. And continued to breastfeed until after the age of two, when (ironically during National Breastfeeding Week) he self weaned. Three weeks before I finished work for the year, I realized my pump was defective. It wasn't me. It wasn't something I could "Just do it" through. I'd been pumping every single day for nearly a year on a broken device.
With Y, I embarked on my second breastfeeding journey. I had such an oversupply at first that he couldn't latch. I called in the troops--a new lactation consultant, this time going in with a bit of precaution to avoid any messy emotional breakups. Things went much better on that end, but I had to pump again (on a new device) to decrease supply. And the freezer stash was growing to the point of overflow with Pesach drawing near. I made some calls and was connected through lactation consultants to another mother with a baby about the same age with chronic low supply and a thyroid condition. Her son refused to take formula and she was down to her last ounce of donated milk, literally praying and crying something would come through. And it did--a whopping stash of my freezer overstock. After that, thank G-d, my supply stabilized and Y continued to breastfeed until (doubly ironically during National Breastfeeding Week) he self weaned at about 16 months.
And then came little C, so little in fact that she could not yet coordinate sucking and swallowing so efficiently. And pair that with a low supply this time, another pump and another visit with the lactation consultant. But by this go around, when we had to supplement with formula and expressed milk bottles, I didn't care so much. I just want to feed my kid; it doesn't matter what it takes and how that has to happen. And no, it's not always easy. I hate pumping. I am a couch prisoner right now, nursing on the hour throughout the morning, supplementing with bottles through the afternoons and evening and, thank G-d, getting a lot of night help from my husband. By next month, she may be able to exclusively breastfeed. She may not. And I am reminded of one thing I learned so well in college (even with my unique talent for scoping out well catered campus events): There ain't no such thing as free lunch.
In other words, the beginning is just that; the beginning. The battles over mealtime don't go away, they just evolve. In the photo above, you can see my two fully weaned sons' eating habits in a nutshell, or rather, atop a pizza crust. There is Boy Who Eats Only Cheese and Dough and Boy Who Eats Just About Everything. S knows what he likes and likes what he knows. He won't touch a chicken nugget with a ten foot pole, but he will drink green kombucha with chia seeds floating in it. The only thing Y likes more than his food is your food. And the only thing he likes even more than that is covering it with a hefty portion of ketchup.
So as I sit here, prisoner to my couch, with a football hold on C that has given me the confidence not only to get through this season of our lives but also to potentially join the NFL, I give a shout out to all the parents feeding tiny humans out there. At all stages, ages and in all possible ways--TANSTAFL but here's some food for thought: we're all just thinking about our next meal. On my wedding day, I wasn't thinking about whether I was bottle fed or breastfed. I was thinking about the fact that I'd put a lot of thought and planning into the catering and while I got up from my seat, the overly efficient caterers had whisked away my unfinished dinner plate. When I was in labor with all three of my children, I was not thinking about how many fights I'd had with my parents as a "picky eater" growing up. I was thinking about how my current level of starvation must be why other mammals eat their young and what I wanted to eat once this baby was out of me. And if you think I was hungry through pregnancy, labor and delivery, no one knows hunger like the kind when you're feeding a tiny nursling around the clock. I've eaten granola chunks, jello, even yogurt off my babies' heads (no crumb left behind) while breastfeeding. So if this meal isn't the one, there's always next meal. We've all bitten off more than we can chew at one point or another, but when it comes to feeding the tiny humans in your life, whatever it takes to do it (and please know that I once attended a Thanksgiving meal at the home of two pediatrician parents who got their children to try turkey by allowing them to act like cats and crawl under the table, meowing while being hand-fed chunks of the new food)--YOU'VE GOT THIS!
Bon Appetit & Happy Playing!
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