Tahnee: {almost} 12 month milk journey

Since birth, Tahnee has had her fair share of feeding issues. At the beginning it was difficult to wean her off a continuous milk feed she received via from an IV. Then it was hard to get her to tolerate feeds every hour, then every 2 hours and every 3 hours. It all culminated in being forced to "suck or starve". Thankfully she was up for this challenge and came home fully suck feeding and breastfeeding using a nipple shield.

During her hospital stay, I expressed milk for Tahnee that the hospital was more than willing to store and freeze for me. Now in the milk room (room with expressing equipment and comfortable chairs) there was a sign that read "when your milk store gets to 16 bottles, we will let you know and ask that you take some home". I never got a call telling me, so naively I assumed I hadn't ready the 16 bottle limit (however much 16 bottles equated to).

After the initial week after Tahnee's birth, I had huge success with expressing milk. I remember that the most amount I expressed in one sitting was 400ml!! I averaged around 200ml each time towards the end. This supply dropped off dramatically once Tahnee started to feed from me herself.

My milk store was used during our time at PMH. It was fed through the continuous milk feed IV and was also fed through her NG tube. I remember at one point, one of the nurses feeling very bad that she hadn't used a small amount (around 100ml) in time (once defrosted, to be used within 24 hours) and I told her not to worry.

Upon discharge from hospital, we were asked to collect the stored milk. We received many comments about the supply we took home! I worked out later that we came home with 40L of milk!! Unfortunately I was unable to donate any milk to the Milk Bank at PMH as they are very strict on donations and one of the criteria was to not have had any immunisations recently and I had the whooping cough booster at KEMH.

Yep, it filled 4 coles esky bags and a Styrofoam esky and
we borrowed a freezer to store them in

After Tahnee came home, I was a little concerned about the use of a shield. I spoke with a few people and was told there was no reason I couldn't feed with a shield long term, but that Tahnee may well wean herself off it. She didnt wean herself off the shield though and actually thought the milk came from as one day she moved while feeding and the shield moved to my arm and she was continued frantically trying to suck! :)

We slowly started to use the supply of frozen EBM too. We used it in her food, mixing it with rice cereal. And we also gave her the occasional bottle. One day we left Tahnee with my mum so we could attend a wedding. At that stage, Tahnee was happy to drink milk through a bottle.  However, she started to refuse a bottle in March 2012, when she was 7 or so months old. It was a pity, as I was going out for a night and really needed her to take a bottle. We couldn't even get her to drink formula! (coincidentally, Lucas despised formula to and actually spat it back at the midwife when he was a few days old).

By 2 months Tahnee had stopped feeding during the night. By 4 months she had weaned herself down to 4 feeds a day. By 8 months she had reduced down to one side. By 10 months she was down to 3 feeds a day and by 11 months was down to 1 feed a day.

Sadly, last week Friday Tahnee had her last feed from me! Fully weaning her was accidental, as I had planned to get to 12 months, but Saturday morning I was very busy and her feed was skipped. Sunday morning I was sick in bed and didn't feed her, and after going to see the after hours GP at the hospital, he said to feed her while wearing a mask to ensure I didn't infect her. This morning I decided she had been happy to go without her morning breastfeed for the last few days, so I wouldn't offer it again. Its a bit sad as it was sudden, but at least it was a gradual weaning and so far its hasn't resulted in any mastitis.

And last weekend we made the decision to throw out the remaining milk supply. We ended up throwing nearly 20L down the drain!!

The second layer of the above photo - the top later only had 12 bottles
The taller bottles are 500ml and the smaller bottlers are 250ml

In short, I was able to feed (and express) both kids for 102 weeks (just 2 weeks short of 2 years). I managed to feed with a shield for 11.5 months, neither of the kids drank formula and I never got mastitis with either child. It truly is a blessing that I was able to do all this, as many women are unable to fulfill their dream of breastfeeding.  

New Feature(s)

WATCH THIS SPACE! I've started to play around with a few features on our blog. For starters, here is one that enables you to subscribe by email and receive an email each time the blog is updated. The link is at the bottom, LHS of the blog, feel free to subscribe :)

Lucas: muddy puddles

One of Lucas's favourite TV shows is Peppa Pig, a family of 4 pigs whose favourite thing to do is jump in muddy puddles. But I think he is watching too much of the show as yesterday it was raining here and he came up to me saying "mum, I go jump in muddy puddles!". 

It was raining quite heavy yesterday so I said no, but this morning it was relatively clear, with a few drizzles here and there. I got Lucas dressed in pants and gum boots and let him play outside. The first thing he did was ... you guessed it ... jump in a puddle!!

Just because...

This week has been tough for me and Chris decided to cheer me up. He came home with this:

A pie maker! Something we have been talking about getting for a while now ... and we just had to try it out! Chris whipped up an easy apple pie which was yummy!

We are looking forward to trying many different pie fillings. The only problem is now I don't know what to get Chris for father's day :(

Favourite Weekend Snap Link Up

So a blogging friend has started a Link Up ... and I thought I would give it a try for something new as I never done one before!

Our favourite weekend snap is of the kids enjoying the leaves in the back yard. They had a ball throwing the leaves, eating the leaves, sliding in the leaves and generally doing what kids do :)

Tahnee: 11 months

Yesterday our daughter officially turned 11 months! Or as Chris likes to say, yesterday Tahnee was 1 month off being a 1 year old.

This month Tahnee:
~ has learnt a few words and can now say Bye-Bye, Opa, Mum, Dad, Hi and we have gotten her to say Ta once
~ for a while she has been starting to copy actions and recently she has started to copy some of the actions we use in songs. She can "clap her hands" and attempts to "blow a little kiss" when singing "Open, Shut Them". She is also starting to move her hands up and down for rain and flood for the song "The Wise Man Built His House Upon the Rock". And she nods her head and moves her body like crazy when we sing "Horse and Rider"
~ has been weaned to only 2 breastfeeds a day, morning and night. At lunch she has a cup of milk which she usually drinks
~ is loving her water bottle and will drink from it without any problems
~ has also figured out how to crawl properly!! Although she does this only a few times, as she gets somewhere faster by army crawling ... we also blame the vinyl flooring for being quite slippery and not giving her enough grip.
~ sleeps very good and often does 12-14 solid hours overnight and at least once a week requires me to wake her up. As I write this its 930am and Tahnee is still asleep after going to bed at 730pm last night.

I think that outlines most of the new developments regarding Tahnee. Our task over the next month is to start checking off her developments as listed on her 12 month questionnaire we received from PMH (and which we received at 4 and 8 months). Unlike her previous questionnaires, Tahnee has quite a few things she does not do yet, but her appointment isn't for another month or so, so hopefully she can achieve many of these things in that time :)

Our other task over the next month is to plan for her birthday party! We have made the invitations and had them printed. Now to finalise the decorations and food and agree on a cake. Its shaping up to be a busy month :)

Just a quick note about her weight gain - I know I talk about it a lot, but its part of her CDH condition. CDH kids use so much energy to breathe, and for Tahnee, she also uses so much energy by constantly moving (remember my CHN calls her a fidget widget), so its hard for her to gain weight. Last month I blogged about her dropping to the 10th percentile, but now she is back up and tracking along the same line as she had been before :) She is now over 8kg! {I am not concerned about her weight figure/number, but we do need to know about how she is doing and if she is gaining or loosing)

Tahnee: early present

Tahnee received an early birthday present from her Uncle K, who will be away overseas when she turns 1. Lucas was very disappointed and just didn't understand that Tahnee got a present and he didn't. And then he didn't understand why Tahnee got first dibs on playing with it!! Two years old {rolls eyes} Guess that happens!

Hmm..tastes yummy

This monkey had to get in on the action too