My Walks of Life

Yesterday, I visited a long lost-contact friend, Ena. She just delievered her 2nd baby. We chatted as if it is an endless day beyond, which the topic lingers around motherhood and parenthood life.No more gossiping these days,okay!So, she asked me how shall she could exclusively breastfeed her 10 days old daughter. To me,I have a breastfeeding system that really works!! Well, actually, the system is universely practised world wide:)by working mom who wanted to continue breastfeeding.

Here goes the system :

1) DETERMINED & MOTIVATED
At the very 1st day you knew you are pregnant, you must have a great determination and motivation to breastfeed your baby. I had a bad experience with my Abir.I was only able to breastfeed him only for 3 months.Consequently, he is an asthma boy now. So upon knowing I`m pregnant my 2nd child, I started to determine that I have to succeed to breastfeed this time,no matter what. I reflected all my mistakes and other external problems that failed me before.

2) KNOWLEDGE
You must have lots of knowlede about breastfeeding. Believe me, brestfeeding is not a so-called natural thing, it need knowledge and skill. Get all you need to know about breastfeed from books and also the internet.I love my "What to expect in the !st year" book. It is a complete book for a mom who wanted to breastfeed. Aside from that, please ask around mothers who successfully breastfeed their child.As for me, I always discuss with my sisters in law, namely Kak Cho & Kak Ngah. They are the natural expert in breastfeeding chores.I also refered with the Hospital Lactation team who really help. Not to be forgotten, I once had a detail explaination through phone about Breastfeeding and working from Rita, Moms Little Ones.

3) FAMILY SUPPORT
This is very vital. You shall include your husband and parent in your major plan for exclusively breatfeeding. This is because, without their support, you will lose breastfeeding very shortly.Breastfeeding is not an easy decision.It needs a lot of commitment from everyone.I made my husband crystal clear that I wanted to breasfeeding and he have to support me no matter what.So, we put breastfeeding the baby as the major item in any decision.Alhamdulillah, I already moved to Teluk Intan and Abang is working at Sitiawan, when we have Aufa. So, during confinement we stay in my mom`s house and Abang was there to aid me in any problem. My experience with Abir,Abang had to return to work in JB, and left me with my parent during confinement.It was a very sad-sad moment though:(

4) NO BOTTLES
In order to succeed, please ensure that bottles are not offered to the baby especially during the early weeeks. No matter what the problem may arises, such as complains like "Susu tak cukup...sebab tu nangis aje" or "Jaundice baby...so needs add more milk" or "Baby tak reti hisap la.." or "Puting inverted.." or " cracked nipples "...which the lists go on.... Remember, offering a bottle will only confuse the baby and deficits the milk supply.I encountered all the problems mentioned with Abir, particularly jaundice. I gave up breastfeeding when he had a prolonged jaundice (his jaundice remains until day 26th), so finally after going in and out from hospital,we admit him to a private specialist center, where the Paeds told us to leave him at the center, but I shall stop breastfeed him. Ironic, we just agreed
:(, he was then bottlefed for 2 days and after that he prefers bottle nipple. So, when jaundice came to Aufa, we spent RM100 for an advance cup feeder by Medela. The special cup feeder avoids baby to get nipple confusion. Bottle are only offered to the baby when breastfeeding is already establish that is at week 7th. This is when the baby can differentiate 2 ways of sucking, a mothers nipple and the bottle nipple.

4)BREAST PUMP.

You shall have a good pump in order to get the maximum expressed breastmilk (EBM)for your child. Start pumping your milk after confinement, so that you have plenty of EBM for 1-3 days when you resume to work, where that is the time where you are adjusting to work life.Pump before and after of each feeding, and store 3 oz per bottles.I bought Medela Harmony from Fabulous Mom, which has 2 phase expression that mimmicks natural baby sucking.Aside from that, I also equiped myself with Coleman Cooler Bag+ice brick in case I have courses that travel is required. Other preferred brand for breastpump is Avent and Spectra.

5) PUMP AT WORK
It is very important that no matter how busy you are, you must take at least 5 minutes break to express your milk,which is routine for every 2-3 hours. Well, now is where you will find that a good breast pump will help you so much. With my medela harmony, I am able to get 3-4 oz of milk in less than 5 minutes. I also brief my colleagues about me having to stop every 2-3 hours to express milk. So, eventhough there are bunch of patients still waiting outside my room, I have to sneak out to the diagnostic room to pump milk.So, during 8am-5pm, I had 3 sessions of pumping, that could store 6 bottles of EBM.




Well....that`s the system that works well for every working mum!Good Luck to all mothers who believe in breastfeeding miracles!!