April 2009 - Chapter 5 - The one where no-one is allowed to feel guilty (except about all the chocolate...)

[Guimauve]

There will be chocolate fines for the guilty!

Auld, my sympathies. I keep writing something then deleting it as I can't come up with anything useful. It sounds like you need to get the milk frozen as soon as possible after expressing, and then get it defrosted quickly and given immediately, to limit the action of lipase (if that's the problem). You can get small, portable freezers but from looking even the smallest appear to be £300+. Could you leave a little earlier in the mornings and express a little at the CM's and pop that in her freezer?

How goes your kuh situation Boff?

Thanks, Gui.
Not sure I could leave much earlier; I'm already struggling to get there for 8am as it is. Not a bad idea, though.

Those of you who express for NICUs - how is the milk transported to them? Just a cool bag? Do you know whether it is frozen on arrival?

Auld, me too, and I even rang the NCT helpline, but really the thermo electric cool bag is the way to go. And expressing every three hours (just wipe pump a bit and put into coolbag with milk to avoid having to wash it each time). And nuzzling baby a lot when home to get happy hormones going. My milk supply is getting a bit better now.

Glad the goodies came!

I have spent the morning experimenting (god knows when I'm going to get any work done).

My bottle warmer doesn't heat enough to scald the EBM (read a thread on this on t'Internet, seemed like a solution).

Have scalded this morning's milk in a pan. But am not very happy with pouring it straight out of the pan when hot into a plastic storage bag to cool. What do you think? Should I cool it in the pan?

God, I never thought I'd be asking for breast milk recipes online. What have I become?

Boff, the thermo electric bag is probably the answer, though I'd have to pay for it myself. And carry it out to the car at night since I am already laden down with changing bag/my work bag/Alex, etc. in the morning and can never park very near the house. But if my milk is going off within 24 hours and even when frozen, what do I do with it once I've got it home in the thermo electric bag?

Small parcel posted to you this morning in between scientific milk temperature experiments.

Gui What is a kuh situation? (nosy emoticon) From my googling, it seems that milk for milk banks is frozen to -70° asap. Don't know at what stage that happens.

Just that Boff was being milked like a milch kuh (no umlaut, right?)!

Good job you two are here. I was about to defect to NetMums!

I am giving the fennel tea a hammering, in the hopes that it might up the milk production a little. Don't know whether just coincidence, but my let-down has definitely been a little more forceful of late, to the extent that the poor boy keeps snorting milk down his nose I am also snacking at regular intervals, as this is bound to help!

ach so! duh.
Must try to find out about fennel tea. I have decided to stop eating cake and try for a higher protein diet, so have bought a steack hâché (hamburger, really!) from the butchers and am going to have a proper meal despite being all alone in the lab surrounded by milk samples and other paraphernalia house.
And now to eat it!

Very quickly just to reply to question about donated milk: here you freeze it straight away and when you have a litre they send a courier with a bag - they keep it frozen and then pasteurise it

Lovely sunshine here - have a good day all warriors

Not sure whether fennel does any good. Lulu said it made her gush like a geyser (though not in those words), and I've come to rather like it, which is more than can be said for RLT. Also preferable to taking vast quantities of fenugreek daily, plus whatever the other thing is you're supposed to take with it. I don't really want to smell of fenugreek.

Gui the expressed milk is frozen by me - if there isn't enough for a bottle I can combine as long as it isn't over 24 hours old then it has to be frozen. It is then transported to the car in a cool bag and they have one of those freezer thingies you plug into the lighter socket.

HopeThisHelpsTiggaxx

How was your lunch Tig?

Auld, the bag is very light so not too problematic, and could usefully be used for family picnics and shopping afterwards.

TBH and IMVHO I think your milk is probably tainted by something you are eating. It is surely impossible for it to have gone off if you have frozen it straight away. I would suggest a very healthy diet for a bit with your five fruit and veg, chicken, steamed fish and so on, and see what happens. Watch grapes - they sometimes affect milk unhelpfully.

BTW I have just invested in a Tommee Tippee bottle with a more nipple-like teat, and I am going to see if Felix prefers that style, as he struggles with the Avent.

Lunch was lurverly

I have pictures of my friends little girl enjoying desert

HighlyRecommendingTheChocolateMarquiseTiggaxx

Back from an extended stay with Dh and see you've all been posting like mad again... really...we do make it hard on each other

Moo seems to have changed recently. I don't know if it's the thumb in her mouth all the time, or what, but I swear she looks different...is my little baby growing up

So I had a very bad mommy moment today (as posted on FB)...

Very bad mommy was working out in the garden and did not hear her daughter screaming bloody murder for who knows how long... la pauvre was red in the face and all blotchy from all the crying and tears; I had to feed her back to sleep to calm her But now I have more time to do work! very bad guilty mommy

I'm posting that to ensure I get my chocolate for feeling guilty
Off to have a caramel digestive

One measly caramel digestive? You think that's enough do you? That level of guilt requires at least a third of a packet, if not half.

lol

well good cuz i just had another 2

Perhaps you're right about diet, Boff.

It's quiet in here tonight, innit?

Off to pump and then bed, I reckon.

I'm here, just too tired to post....DP away again, children playing up, Orbit wouldn't go to bed and poor DS1 got shouted at....

however, on the Orbit front, the score stands as follows:

Orbit - 2 rice cakes, 2 pieces of toast and butter, one piece of carrot, one piece of cucumber, one piece of pear

Floor - 5 pieces of carrot, 2 pieces of cucumber, 3 pieces of pear, 3 pieces of pasta with tomato sauce

He has learned to chew and swallow already and is ready to chow down on anything larger than a pasta twirl. It's an encouraging start

Wahey Orbit! And how goes the leak situation?

Bebe - I agree with Bicnod. I mean, a normal, non-guilty portion of caramel digestives is at least three (preferably dunked in tea just long enough to soften the caramel). A guilt portion must be 6 or more, I reckon!

No leak last night - I put a booster from one of his daytime cloth nappies inside the disposable. Don't know if it was the extra absorbency or something holding his willy downards, but no leak.

Haven't done it tonight as bedtime was complete chaos, to be honest

Go Orbit! that's amazing - what a little star...

How did you manage the teething by the way? Poor Oscar is miserable he manages during the day when he's distracted but at bedtime he just howls in pain and its so sad he's on calpol every night at the moment.

TIS NEARLY HOLIDAY TIME FOR MEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE

right. off to bed. lots of packing to be done on the morrow.

night all x x

Bicnod have you tried Calprofen instead? I find it works much better on tooth pain than Calpol.