Moms Off Script
Megg & Mere | Two Moms, One Podcast, Zero Manual | A Community for moms who don't always have it figured out and are writing the script as they go.
Moms Off Script
MOS E25: "Fed is best"
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**DISCLAIMER: The Moms Off Script crew encountered technical difficulties with the audio on this week's episode. We sincerely apologize that the audio quality is not to our usual standard. Thank you for understanding!**
Welcome to Moms Off Script, a podcast for moms who are just trying to figure it out. This week Megg & Mere share their experiences with breastfeeding their children. Tune in to hear them get into breastfeeding, formula feeding, pumping, weaning, and everything in between.
CREDITS: Original content: Megg Abelein & Meredith Finch
Set design, videography: Megg Abelein & Meredith Finch
Music: Matt Beebe
Photography: Michelle Montinieri
Graphic Design: Alexia Dulieu
Editing & Production: Megg Abelein
Thank you so much for talking about that because I think a lot of people struggle with exactly what you said, that stigma of like, I am the mother. I'm supposed to be able to feed my child. I've got the milk. Why isn't this happening? And we said at the top about how Fed is best, right? And I think people may resist other alternatives for themselves because of that stigma. So thank you for talking about that and just being open about like what you experienced.
SPEAKER_03Sure. Let's do a podcast. All right. I'm done.
SPEAKER_02Cheers.
SPEAKER_03Hey guys. Welcome back to another episode of Mom's Off Script. I'm Meg.
SPEAKER_02And I'm Mare.
SPEAKER_03And we are your hosts.
SPEAKER_02We're so excited to talk to you about a really important topic tonight, important to both of us at least. But before we do that, how was your day?
SPEAKER_03My day was great. I ran to yoga this week. Yeah, you did. So proud of you. It was great when I saw your car booking the outside. I was like, where are you? You made it so far. That was pretty exciting. But yeah, I'm doing pretty good. I have made it to book three. I'm in the middle of Prisoners of Azkaban.
SPEAKER_02My favorite one.
SPEAKER_03It's very good. I'm probably about a third of the way through, honestly.
SPEAKER_02Amazing.
SPEAKER_03And the audiobooks, the audible.
SPEAKER_02You're doing the dramatic reading, right?
SPEAKER_03Like the so good.
SPEAKER_02Wow.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, and I think that I'm finally at the parts where in the series that one of two things is happening. Either I don't remember the movies at this point. Yeah. Like I remember movie one so clearly, right? And book one matches the movies. Yes. I'm either in the part of the series that starts to differ from the movies quite a bit, or I just don't remember the movies, so I'm like getting it kind of firsthand. But they are so immersive. Yeah. Have we talked about this on the podcast?
SPEAKER_02We mentioned it when I think it was your New Year's resolutions. You talked about how you were gonna read Harry Potter this year and you were gonna do the audiobooks.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, and I know we've talked about it off the podcast, but they're so immersive. When I read the first one or listened to the first one rather, it was hard for me to differentiate between the movie and the book. Yeah because I want it so true to the movie, but also it's the reading is just so cool. But I am getting to the point where the images of who the characters are is sticking. Yeah. But I'm starting to recreate like the leaky cauldron is in my head. Yeah, the way I want to imagine it versus the way it is in the movies and like things like that.
SPEAKER_02I am so happy that you're reading these books. The third one is absolutely my favorite, and it is definitely the one I think that they left the most out of the movie. Like watching that movie back, I was like, but what about this? And what about this? What about this? Like it was still a good movie, but I missed so much of it. I have to ask if you have any theories about the ending. I'm assuming you don't remember.
SPEAKER_03I don't remember, and I have no theories at this moment.
SPEAKER_02Oh, I'm so excited for you to finish it. Text me when you're done. I am also reading a book series. Actually, I just literally before we started recording this episode, finished the third book of a series. It's the Knock Em Out series by Lucy Score. Okay. They're like, it's like the things, the things we never got over, the things we hide from the light, and the things we left in the past, or something like that. Okay. But they all take place in this fictional place called Knock Em Out, and it is a kind of classic romance novel. Each book in the series follows a different uh female and male main character, but they're all friends, so you kind of know each each character as you're going through it. I will say the first like quarter of the first book, I was like, this is the cheesiest cheese I've ever cheesed. I'm not gonna be able to get into this. And then I it like turned a corner and I was obsessed. So shout out to my friend Shannon who recommended these books to me. I devoured them while I was on my trip to California. I just finished the last one. Then there was a bonus chapter that was a little 10 years later epilogue that was just like everything was tied with a perfect little bow and my heart was just exploding with joy. It was so cute.
SPEAKER_03I love that. Is that the last book in the series?
SPEAKER_02Yes. She's written a ton of other books. I might read more by her, but I loved this series. It was so cute. The the male man characters, and this the steamy smuddy scenes, woo, they're amazing.
SPEAKER_03So it's just a little bit of a smutty.
SPEAKER_02Yeah. Yeah. I mean, it was it definitely was not holding anything back in this in the smut department. But there's a there's an overarching plot of each book, and then there's one kind of connecting all three stories together. So there's like some backbone to it. You're not just like smut for smut's sake.
SPEAKER_03Amazing.
SPEAKER_0210 out of 10. Recommend.
SPEAKER_00Yeah.
SPEAKER_02So, Meg. Yes. Tonight we are talking about breastfeeding.
SPEAKER_03Yes, we are talking about breastfeeding.
SPEAKER_02Something that we both did with our children. I want to give a little bit of a disclaimer at the top, just for clarity of language, that when we're talking about breastfeeding, we're talking about feeding your child human milk from a boob or in a bottle, however, you're delivering it to them. We're talking about breastfeeding today, but we also want to recognize that formula feeding and other methods of feeding are completely valid ways of feeding. I think you've had experience with formula feeding as well. So, like that is best. Exactly. However, you are feeding your baby is valid and good. And as long as your baby is fed, you're doing it right.
SPEAKER_03Feed your baby.
SPEAKER_02So I want to get into it by talking about before you had your son, did you have any goals or expectations around breastfeeding before you had him?
SPEAKER_03It's hard to say. I can't really remember too much. I know that I wanted to try breastfeeding. My goal was to breastfeed. I got the punk, I got all the stuff. We went to the breastfeeding class, like I learned all I was supposed to learn or the baseline stuff that you learn in the baby classes and things like that. But I I mean, I knew I wanted the opportunity to breastfeed if that was what was right for me and baby. And yeah, I mean, I I really kind of like I dug into it, like I learned enough about it. And yeah, my plan was to breastfeed. And I think that I thought I wouldn't get too bent out of shape about it if I couldn't breastfeed. That kind of took a little bit of a turn for me. Um but my plan was to breastfeed, but I didn't go into it with too many expectations or like planning around it.
SPEAKER_02Did you have any like, oh, I want to do it for three months, six months, or anything like that, or just like let's see how it goes?
SPEAKER_03I I mean I wanted to do it for a year. That was kind of my plan. If I could get maybe through a year of breastfeeding and then switch into whole milk, like that would be great.
SPEAKER_02That was exactly how I felt about it too, in terms of the timeline, right? Because at the time, I think the American Academy of Pediatrics now says aim for a year up to two years, like if it's mutually beneficial. I think that guidance changed like while we were in the midst of it. Okay, you might be right.
SPEAKER_03I feel like I do remember a change, but I always that the year two is what like sticks with me.
SPEAKER_02I remember having the goal of a year because of the AAP recommendation, and then they changed it to two years, and I was like, oh my god, I can't. Like I was like, no, no, no, no, no. One year isn't a monumental goal. And I was like, that's nice that you changed it, but we're we're not going for two. Absolutely not. So I felt similarly in terms of timeline. I really, really wanted to breastfeed. I felt like if I wasn't able to breastfeed, I would have been really disappointed. It would have been something I would have had to work through with my doula and my therapist and all those things. I had very high hopes for being able to do it. I'm very grateful that I was able to breastfeed. And I had a similar goal around timeline that was like, let's aim for 12 months. I think my doula did a really wonderful job of preparing us for that experience, a from just like a technical standpoint of like, here's a class you should take to learn how to do it and like what it entails and blah, blah, blah. But also saying, like, doesn't always work out for people. Like, that's nice you have a goal, but let's be realistic. It may or may not happen. And just like try not to tie your feelings of success around motherhood to whether you can breastfeed or not, because it's not the be-all end-all. Right.
SPEAKER_03And it sounds like based on like your tone and conversations that we've had on the podcast and off the podcast about for your experience, this was something that you weren't necessarily gonna hang success on, but it was something that you were thriving for from a motherhood standpoint. Yeah. For me, it was more of a like practicality standpoint. Oh, true. Of if I could produce the milk and baby will take the milk, whether it was financial or whatever, like we didn't have to mix and buy the formula. I think so. Like my goals around it were more like practical or financial versus it sounds like yours were more like holistic and like motherhood and birthday.
SPEAKER_02Yes, that is a great way to sum it up. I also didn't think I had much of appreciation for the fact that like you sometimes can't, like either the supply doesn't come in or your mental health tanks, or it just doesn't happen, or you hate it. Like, there's a lot of reasons why you might end up not. And for me, I think I just saw like, of course I will breastfeed. And then as I went through the class and learned a little bit more and educated myself, I was like, oh, like this could actually be really difficult. And I was glad that I had kind of eyes wide open heading into it because I didn't have that knowledge before. So you had goals around a year, but more around practicality purposes. Once the baby was here, how did it go? Did it match reality?
SPEAKER_03Or yeah, for me, it was like it was a mixed bag, right? So I if I remember correctly, and obviously, like once you have a baby, like it's all floor. I know it's all of her. We're thinking back like five years now, right? I remember my son latched like the first opportunity that there was to latch, and then that night was the first night was miserable. Oh no, like screaming, wouldn't latch. I had a traumatizing nurse who just kept shoving babies' face on my boob. There was just a lot that went into like the first 24 hours of breastfeeding. We ended up doing colostrum syringes in the hospital, and my husband got to do a lot of those, which was so nice. So I pumped quite a bit in the hospital and I got used to pumping pretty quickly. I was doing breast milk, which is kind of what I wanted to do. We all know baby ended up in the NICU and did have formula in the NICU, which again was what baby needed to do, like what we need to do, and I was totally comfortable with that because we hadn't had um my full supply coming yet, and it just it's what we needed to do. Yep. So he had formula in the NICU, and that's just what we needed to do. And then when we got home, we kind of tried at it again. He had just a lot of issues when it came to breastfeeding, but I ended up, I don't know why, whether it was physiological or the fact that I started pumping colostrum so early after he was born, or what the situation was. I ended up with an oversupply. And I ended up becoming kind of obsessed with pumping, not in a sense that I liked pumping, but like I don't know if it was unhealthy, but I definitely had an obsession with like producing the milk and making sure that there was enough supply for my son and enough of a freezer stash for my son. I don't know where that came from, but it happened. The things that happened in postpartum life that we like cling to. He struggled with latching, so we ended up on this schedule of we wanted him on a schedule. We were feeding every three hours, but he was not latching well, I was overproducing, and he had reflux. So it's this like nasty combination where I would nurse and then pump while my husband was bottle feeding him the pumped milk from the previous cycle, and then he would have to sit upright for 20 minutes before we laid him back down in the bassinet. So it was about like a 45 to 75 minute cycle every three hours, and it was fine, like it worked, like we knew we were gonna keep at it. I ended up on nipple shields. Um, for those of you who don't know what a nipple shield is, it's a very thin sheath, similar to like a bottle cover. Okay, um, but it's a it's significant and thinner. Yeah, and it mimics your nipple, and you essentially just put it over your nipple, it mimics a bottle and your nipple at the same time, and they latch to that.
SPEAKER_02What's the benefit of that supposed to be?
SPEAKER_03I think it so it mimics the bottle, right? So if you had a bottle in the NICU, okay, and it there's just an easier latch. Okay. That little piece of material would actually be able to get in and stimulate the roof of their mouth to cause that latching effect, and then they would be able to latch, and then it would kind of do a little suction thing with your nipple and get all the milk out. So it took us about four months till he actually latched, and in that time we figured out the reflux stuff. But again, I had an overproduction, so it was fine because we were working with tons of frozen milk and all the things. But yeah, what about you? Like right away, like, baby is here. How did that go for you?
SPEAKER_02I'm gonna say this, and I want you to know, I get what is coming to me in this story, okay? Because it was glorious with my son, Teddy. He immediately latched. It was so nurturing and cozy. When the lactation consultant came in the hospital and saw me, she's like, Oh, are you a second-time mom? I was like, No, this is my first time. I'm just so good at this. Like, I thought I was the best thing that ever happened. I was the worst. I was probably insufferable to be around. And I was like, Did you know you can hear me? You still are. I literally I was like, Did you know you can hear your baby swallowing? You should listen for the swallows. Like, I can't even believe who I was as a newly postpartum mother. It was disgusting. But it went really well. Like, truly, all jokes aside, Teddy was awesome. He was he was the kind of kid that like got comfort from it. I was doing really well with it. It was a bonding thing for us. I had a lot of supply, but it was not an oversupply. I wouldn't say like we had the right amount for us. He didn't have tongue ties or lip ties or any problems latching, didn't have reflux. Like it was sunshine and rainbows version of breastfeeding for sure. There was the normal learning cover of like, you know, I'm breastfeeding for the first time. I was like, why do my nipples hurt so bad? Like I remember texting my girlfriend and being like, is this like riding a bike where like the first two weeks your butt is really sore, but then you get used to it? And she was like, Yeah.
SPEAKER_03I was like, okay, sounds kind of pretty good. I've never heard anybody compare it to.
SPEAKER_02That's what it's like. Like you're sore for the first couple of days and then get used to it. So, you know, my nipples were sore and I was getting used to that. You're you're leaking everywhere. I think that was one thing. I was just like leaking everywhere, just like, oh my god, like and getting out of the shower and being like quickly trying to pad everything up before you ruin everything again. So some of that was just normal first-time mom adjusting to breastfeeding stuff. But on the whole, we had a very smooth journey. I will talk a little bit about my second, which was not as smooth, spoiler alert. But what was the journey like for your second? Was it any different from the first?
SPEAKER_03So with my daughter, it was much easier from the get-go. I kind of had the experience, so I knew what you were doing. What I was doing, I knew what I was doing, I knew what we were getting into. She was also in the NICU, but I also knew kind of how to pump, and that I was somebody that was an oversupplier. So I went right back into that like mindset of being obsessed with getting breast milk very quickly. She latched, she was much easier. I don't remember having struggles with her. I'm sure I did, but I don't remember nothing, nothing notable. Again, I had an oversupply, so we were just getting milk. We did a lot more regular nursing with her. She also had some reflux issues now that I'm remembering, because I do remember putting her on Fomodidine as well. But I they were not nearly as serious as my son's. And I think our issue with her feeding and why we uh explored reflux and ultimately went on the Fomodidine was because my son had been on it. We knew it worked, and it was something that for our peace of mind, our mental health, and to get her into a better feeding rhythm that we just kind of went straight to. It worked. She was not on Fomodidine for nearly as long as my son was. So yeah, it kind of yeah, she's no notable smoother sailing. Smoother sailing, yeah.
SPEAKER_02I'm glad it's like you got the hard one out of the way and like learned all your lessons early. And then for the second one, you were like, okay, this is easier, right? Like you, you know what you were doing. She seemed like she had an easier time, and it was like smoother sailing. I unfortunately had the opposite experience where my first one was the easy one. The second one, I came in there being like, Oh, this is gonna be great. I already breastfed, I know what I'm doing. Oh my God. It was first of all, she had lip and tongue ties, so that was really difficult. Even in the hospital, they were like, Yep, she's got lip and tongue ties, you're gonna have to get these released. We worked with a lactation consultant who said, No, you don't need to get them released. You have to work, you can work with a chiropractor if you don't want to go that route. So we were driving down to a chiropractor 45 minutes away multiple times a week to work with her to have that worked out. She was the worst to burp, the worst, every burping position. Oh my God. Teddy was like, you lift them up and just like boop boop, and you're like, blitz. Both my kids were hard to burp. Oh my God. She was so difficult. We tried everything. Yeah. Same thing with having to keep her upright. I don't know if she necessarily had reflux, but we definitely had to keep her upright. That she would spit up a ton. I used to call it the angry suck. She would be so hungry and I'd get her on the boob and she would, she would latch so aggressively. I'd be like, ah, ah, and she'd look at me with these dagger eyes, like, how dare you take so long, you asshole. Like her eyes would be boring into mine, and she'd have these like furrowed brow as she's sucking, like looking at me like she's pissed at me. I'm like, can you calm down? Like it's literally in your mouth. It's fine. But she, I used to say that she would eat my boob like a sandwich. Like Teddy was like a calm, gentle little snuggler, and she would two-hand my boob and like go in. Like she was aggressive. So it was not a like loving, calming, nurturing thing. It was extremely aggressive. She was difficult. I honestly think now in retrospect that I might have had a little bit of an undersupply with her and I didn't know. She was gaining weight and everything and all of that, but like as soon as we started solids with her, a lot of things changed and improved. And I was like, I think she might not have been eating enough. Like, she was never behind on weight or anything. No one ever raised any concerns about it. But we saw such a difference once she started eating solid food that I was like, I really think I perhaps had an undersupply with her.
SPEAKER_03It sounds like from our last episode when you talked kind of a little bit about possibly wanting an epidural with her. Now it was so much more difficult nursing issue we got going on, or nursing complication, whatever you want to call this. That your daughter is humbling you a thousand percent.
SPEAKER_02You know what? That's actually a great way to put it. I like to say she's a hard mode baby, but maybe I need a little humbling. And she's giving that to me. Yeah, no, she has absolutely put us through our paces. And I think now here's the thing. Joey and I used to joke, we have our dog Poppy, who is basically a cat in dog form. She's the easiest dog we've ever had. She's so lonely and she's the best. Teddy was such an easy baby. We were like, oh my God, this parenting is so great. We had our eyes wide open. We were like, listen, we're going for a number three addition to our family. There's no way lightning strikes three times. Like we've had the easiest dog and the easiest baby. We're getting what's coming to us. Like we knew, we were not so stupid to be like, we're just the best parents and we have the best children. We were like, we know this is how this works. And sure enough, she's put us, she has put us through our pieces in every way. One day she will rule the world, but today, holy fucking shit.
SPEAKER_03That's the hardest thing with these girls, these daughters, man. Like, I feel the same way. Sometimes I like look at my daughter, I'm like, this, this that you're doing to me right now, keep it. Keep it, keep it, but not to me. And use it when you're 25 years old, all the men. Yes. Not to me right now. Yes. That's where I'm at. That's daughters and girl motherhood to a tea. So did breastfeeding or kind of that postpartum life lead to any like personal struggles with you?
SPEAKER_02Actually, no. You would think that me knowing me that I would have like spiraled and been like, oh my God, blah blah blah. It was definitely hard. Don't get me wrong. There were nights where I was up crying, I can't burp her, she won't go back to sleep, she's still hungry and I don't have anything left. Can you go make a bottle? Like, you know, the there were hard times for sure. But Joey and I did a lot of work after Teddy was born to make sure that I didn't struggle the way I did the first time with anxiety and other kind of perfectionism issues. And we had really good systems in place to help me with this. So we both were leaning on each other a lot more. We were being more open about what our struggles were, and that made it a lot easier to deal with. So I didn't have the same kind of high bar for myself that I did the first time, where I was like, everything needs to be perfect. I need to knock everything out of the park. I was like, this is really freaking hard. And I'm not doing anything wrong. It's just freaking hard. Right. And that made it easier. Did you experience anything like that too?
SPEAKER_03Or what was it like for you? So I definitely experienced a little bit of maybe a lot of it of most part of depression after my first. And I do, in hindsight, really feel like that came down to a lot of the feeding because as I said before, it was this. 60 on average minute cycle. So, like I said, anywhere between 45 and 75 minutes of nursing, pumping, all this like cycle. One, I think I was exhausted, and two, I really wanted it to work. I didn't realize how much I was gonna want it to work when I was pregnant. But once he was here, I wanted it to work because I did have such a big supply. And there were a lot of glimpses of hope where he would latch to my natural lipple and he was latching to the nipple shield. So every once in a while I'd sneak it out and he'd have a good feed. So I think that my experience with PPD really came out of the feeding cycle. To your point, with our second, like we put a lot of systems in place around feeding, which is probably twofold in the sense of that's probably why it was easier for lack of a better term, in quotes there, to feed my second as well as manage any postpartum depression symptoms, which I didn't experience nearly as much with my second. I mean, I remember with my son one day, it was actually my birthday, so he was born in June. I my birthday was in July, and I just remember my mom was driving up and my husband was at work, and he was screaming because I couldn't get him to latch, and his reflex was acting up. And I just remember this moment where I'm like sobbing, and I can't let my mom see me like this, and I can't call my husband for help, and I just have to put him on the floor, and I finally just called Alan and was like, You have to come home. Like, I am not okay, and you have to be here before my mom gets here, which of course my mother got there, and moms know their daughters, and it she saw right through it, and neither one of them understood how bad my situation had gotten, as far as like just not being able to grasp what was going on and not being able to ask for help. I will say from that day forward, being able to ask both of them and either one of them in whatever situation I needed was there and I was able to start working on getting better. But while I was silently suffering, I do in hindsight believe that a lot of that had to do with the feeding system that we had. And I'm sure there were lots of other things with hormones and all the things that also translate into postpartum depression, but that idea of lack of sleep and I don't I don't know that I looked at it as a failure, but my ability to overproduce and under physically comfort or physically do what my body was supposed to do in those moments, like there there was a stigma and a pressure around trying to get this baby to latch that I think I felt too much pressure in that moment. And the moment I finally was able to say something, it lifted a little bit and we worked on ways to figure it out. And I do remember, like, my husband got home, and in that meantime, like once I said something to him, like I was able to hold my son and figure it out in the 25 minutes it took him to get home. My mom got there, she was able to comfort me, and we went out and we had a lovely dinner, and we ended up having a great weekend because it was my birthday, and we you know, we we enjoyed that celebration and my first birthday as a mom, but it did take me that like six weeks to like maybe five weeks to go through that process and finally break down enough to say something, but I definitely believe that it had to do with the feeding, which again put those systems into place for the second one.
SPEAKER_02Thank you so much for talking about that because I think a lot of people struggle with exactly what you said, that stigma of like, I am the mother, I'm supposed to be able to feed my child, I've got the milk. Why isn't this happening? And we said at the top about how Fed is best, right? And I think people may resist other alternatives for themselves because of that stigma. So thank you for talking about that and just being open about like what you experienced. How did you work through that? And where did you ultimately end up with your son? Did you make it to the year or what did that look like?
SPEAKER_03I ultimately kept working at it. We kind of had this idea of like, let's work one day, one week, like all goals at a time. Eventually, around four months, he did latch to my natural netball. But it did take that three more months for that to happen. So we worked through it because of the supply that I had. We never switched to formula. I also then went back to work in that time. So there was a lot of bottle feeding going on, but I still ultimately like wanted to try to make it work, but I was wanting to make it work with less pressure. Yeah. So we figured that out. I did not make it to a full year because I got pregnant. And I got pregnant when my son was 10 months old. And at that point, because of what I have gone through, and because of our belief that the feeding may or may not have played a role in that, we decided like I am a host, I now have two parasites, and only one of them will be leaching off my body from here on out. I also stopped pumping at that point. So it was a full stop as far as my production of breast milk. And I dried up pretty quickly because I was pregnant and I was able to kind of like taper off on the pumping, but we had a freezer stash that got us to about 11 months and change. Wow. So, which was fantastic. And what we did with that freezer stash was we took it to 12 months. So we put him on formula around 10 and a half months and alternated formula and breast milk feed. So he was still getting breast milk through 12 months. With that came the formula shortage of 2022. Yes. So not only was I pregnant. I put my son on formula, which was the best decision for our family. I had a freezer stash that we could get him to like, we probably could have gotten him to like 11 months and one week and switched him to whole milk. But I was also afraid of that. Switching them to whole milk before they were one, like I know here's here's the thing. I know that like baby turns one and they're physiology, doesn't think okay. But the idea of formula or breast milk or like infant feeding to age one is like really what's best for them. I wasn't just ready to switch to cow's milk. Like formula to me was a significantly better option than cow's milk. So we did a lot of trying to find formula at that point, which is crazy. It was literally crazy. Talk about that because I didn't have to deal with that. The formula shortage was wild. I remember we found generic brands of formula that helped with our budget. Okay. So that was a big thing formula is very expensive. And so we found formula that worked with our budget that our baby liked. We wanted to use a gentle formula because we knew he had reflux, but I just remember store hopping, literally, physically store hopping. And my husband and I would go to different stores on the same days and just like check that case, check stop and shop, check target. Like, we don't shop at big Y, but like we're gonna go to Big Y, we're gonna go to ShopRate. And like we would literally go to two or three different stores in a day to find formula, and we would have to know, like, okay, we have a week's left of formula to start the hunt. Wow. Luckily, like I said, we had breast milk, we had the option to switch to cow's milk. At no point were we ever in a situation where we were in danger of not being able to feed our baby, and stressed out more than we needed to be. We were stressed, it was crazy. But we could get our baby fed. Yeah, and that ultimately, like had we had to switch him to cow's milk at 11 months, we would have switched him to cow's milk at 11 months because that would have been the best option. Fed is best. So that was kind of where we were at. It was a little wild, and then I grew my daughter, and what'd you do for her?
SPEAKER_02Did you make it to a year for her? That's amazing. Wow.
SPEAKER_03Um again over supply. So we had a nice little freezer stash. I actually still still think I definitely still have breast milk in my freezers every year. I feel like we find pockets of them every once in a while. But I made it to 14 months with her, and I donated over 900 ounces of breast milk over my two babies.
SPEAKER_02That is unreal.
SPEAKER_03With my obsession, something good came out of it, and I'm very proud of that.
SPEAKER_02That is amazing. You should be really proud of that. You should be proud of everything that you just said. Because, like producing that much milk, working so hard to get it, planning what to do for your son, figuring out formula, figuring out cow's milk, sticking to it with your daughter, donating all the extra, like that's so much that you dealt with. And to do all of that on top of just like normal, I have a one-year-old and I'm pregnant with another baby. Holy cow.
SPEAKER_03And just for reference, this is all within a 17 months period. Yeah. I guess 17 plus 14 months. Yeah. Whatever that is. Crazy. Period. Um, what about you?
SPEAKER_02Did you meet your goals? I did. I made it to 15 months with Teddy and 14 months with AJ. AJ, we had to work through a lot, like I said. We we dealt with latch issues, we got through all of that, and it got a little bit better. As her digestive system matured too, it wasn't so difficult and we we got into a better rhythm. It was still never like a cozy, snuggly thing. Like she was like, this is a utility, give me the food. Like that was her mentality. Teddy, we also struggled with some bottle refusal, which was really challenging because I was getting ready to go back to coaching at that time. And I was really worried that when I left, because he'd only been exclusively feeding from me, that we would have no way to feed him. We worked with a lactation consultant to deal with that. And she was really super helpful. And we did eventually get him to take a bottle, thank God. So we were using exclusively breast milk the entire time. We were using bottles so that my husband could feed and take turns feeding. And we made, like I said, we made it to 15 and 14 months respectively. I did not realize, and this is where I want to go next. I didn't realize when it came to like weaning and being done breastfeeding that you didn't just stop, right? Like when it came to be time, we hit 12 months. I was like, so am I done? And they were like, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. Oh yeah. Like, don't just stop. You'll like you're you'll get mastitis or something. Like that's not the way to do it. Like you've got to slowly drop a feeding at a time. And I was like, oh my God. So here I am at 12 months thinking I can just be done. And it's like, no, no, no, you've got to wean. And because for Teddy it was such a comfort thing and he was so attached to it, it took three months to wean. Like that's how long it took. And now, granted, I the approach I used was don't offer, don't refuse. Right. So we started by dropping one feeding occasionally. And by the end, we were using don't offer, don't refuse. So I would not say, like, oh, it's time to eat, whatever. But if he wanted it and would signal that he wanted it, yeah, milk, milk, milk, squeezing their hands, or he would poke my boobs. I remember I went on a trip. It was maybe like a month after it was like a couple months after his birthday. We were nearly done. Like, I was like, we're so close to being done. And I went on a trip for a bachelorette party. And everyone said, This will be it. You'll go on your trip and that'll be the end of it. I swear I came home from that trip. I picked him up, I gave him a big hug. He looked me in the eye and he poked my boobs and made the sound that he made when it was time to eat. I was like, Are you kidding me? Are you kidding me? I've been gone for three days. That's the first thing you want, but fine. So it was a long weaning process to get off of it. And I wasn't gonna force it. I was very much just like, let's go at a slow pace or whatever he's comfortable with. AJ was a much easier, again, not a comfort feeder. She was a utility feeder. And as long as we were giving her solid food and that was fine. It was funny with Teddy, his like last feeding, like the one he held on to was the one right before bed. For AJ was the opposite. She always wanted the first thing in the morning. Yeah.
SPEAKER_03Isn't that weird? Both of mine were the last that the night be, but that that wasn't their preference. That was the way we weaned them.
SPEAKER_02Yeah. I I didn't with Teddy, I did wean more intentionally of like dropping specific feedings. With AJ, it wasn't as structured. I was just like, Yeah, we're just gonna kind of slowly wean off. And like that was the one she wanted and held on to and was like the most eager for. So I don't know, kids are weird.
SPEAKER_03Kids are weird, man. Kids are weird.
SPEAKER_02No, what did you do for weaning?
SPEAKER_03Weaning felt fairly easy for us in the sense of my both my kids were on bottles. Yeah. And I had gone back to work full time. So for weaning, we dropped feedings. And what did we do? We dropped feedings for both of them. We had already put a system into place as far as like what they were supplementing breast milk with. Okay, right. Because my son had a formula that he was supplementing with. Yeah. And then my daughter, she was 14 months by the time we leave the house. So once she was 12 months, we had already involved cow's milk. So we had the supplement. So what we did, because they were on bottles, was we removed breast, like skin, like boob feedings. What do you call that? At the breasts. I don't know. Meaning from the breast. I let them stop sucking out my nails. There it is. During specific feedings and made them drink from bottles. Yeah. And then we switched what was in the bottle. Okay. And then we started removing the bottle. Okay. So it went from like boob to bottle, bottle with formula or breast milk to bottle with cow's milk, which was the same bottleneck bulb. Yeah. And then we did one of two things with that. We either removed that time frame that we were feeding them, or we switched that cup to a straw cup.
SPEAKER_02Got it.
SPEAKER_03So it went from bottle to straw cup with the same liquid in it. Yeah. Or just removing it altogether.
SPEAKER_02Yeah.
SPEAKER_03So we kind of had a we had a structure there, and now they actually are down to one cup of milk a day, both of them. They both get milk with breakfast. And sometimes they don't even drink it, and we don't offer them cow's milk the rest of the day.
SPEAKER_02It sounds like your overall weaning process was like pretty smooth. You had a game plan, you executed it.
SPEAKER_03All that I will, yeah, I will say the other thing that we put into place early with my second kind of going back to the question about like what did we do different? I said to my husband, this baby is getting a bottle within the first month. Yeah. Period. Okay. Unfortunately, she was in the NICU, so she got a bottle in the first week. But like I was pretty set on, like, when I say first month, like I really wanted that baby to have a bottle by week two. If that baby had not had a bottle by week two, I was putting a bottle in their mouth. Um, and I do think that ultimately helped with the weaning process. Okay. Because the baby had options and we were able to kind of do that staging as far as making sure that they had other options besides the breast fed.
SPEAKER_02How did you do with the weaning, like mentally, physically, emotionally?
SPEAKER_03Dude, I had no fucking clue that that was a thing. Yeah. When I weaned off my first, you were also pregnant. That I was pregnant, it was not pregnancy hormones that hit me. I got hit with the post-breastfeeding hormones hard after my first. Luckily, I was prepared for my second, but the come down is insane. I don't know about I don't know. Um, but I remember calling my sister after like a couple days and being like, what is wrong with me? She was like, Yeah, that's that's a thing. Yeah. Like when you're done breastfeeding, your hormones shift so rapidly that you get these like crazy wave of emotion effects. And that happened for me. And again, also I was pregnant, so I was getting these pregnancy hormones and post-breastfeeding hormones to just like all over the place. And I was working, and I was just I was just a hormonal physical disaster. Did you experience that after your daughter, too, not being pregnant? I did, yeah, but not not as bad. Not to the extreme. With my second, I knew a little bit more. Everything that could have caused any sort of shift in my mental health that I knew about with my second, we approached a little bit differently. Yeah. It's a a different approach and a communication in place. So whether that played a role in my physicality or not, I had no idea. I had no idea. So I don't know if my hormones were different because I was not pregnant or if we had just a different systems in place. What about you? What was your come down like after breastfeeding?
SPEAKER_02It honestly wasn't that bad. I don't know if it was because it was so drawn out for me, like three months of waiting, it was just so gradual that it didn't feel that dramatic. I honestly, the thing that stands out to me was being so grateful I could wear normal bras again. Like after people don't wear normal bras. After months and months and months of nursing bras and just being like, like they look so sad in there and being able to put a normal bra on again and be like, oh yeah.
SPEAKER_03Remember when you went bra shopping the first time. And you were like, And I was like, yeah. Good for you, girl. Yeah, yeah. I retired my nursing bras, but I'm like, give me.
SPEAKER_02I missed normal bras. I can't believe that those words are coming into my mouth. I missed normal bras. I miss normal clothes. I missed sweatshirts. I like couldn't breastfeed in a sweatshirt. Like it bunched up around my neck. Oh God, I was so overstimulated. And so I would just, I catered every outfit around breastfeeding and just being able to whip out a boob at a moment's notice. So to be able to just like put on clothes that I felt like putting on because I liked them and not being like, can I get my boob out in this? Yeah. I was so happy to be done with that part of it. And I think with AJ especially being done, part of me, of course, was like, oh my gosh, I'm done with this forever. And like this is such a weird era to be ending, and like, you know, all of that. But because she was not like a snuggly breastfeeder, I was just like, I'm done. Thanks very much. You could stop sandwiching my boob every day.
SPEAKER_03That's so funny. Do you remember either your last feeding with both of them?
SPEAKER_02Yes. Yeah, I do. Yeah. I remember sitting with AJ and being like, I think this is probably the last one. It wasn't intentional. It was just like because we were so close to being done with her, and I knew the morning feedings were her last ones, I was kind of savoring every single one and being like, this could be the last one, this could be the last one. And I have a pretty vivid memory sitting in her room in her rocking chair, looking out the window and feeding her and being like, I think this is it. And that was it. You mentioned that when you were weaning, part of one of the things you said was that you went back to work. And that was something that you were like, okay, I went back to work. So that was like impacting how I was doing things. What was your approach to breastfeeding, pumping at work in public? Like, what how did you think about that?
SPEAKER_03Well, so for work, I mean, I was lucky in the scenario I was in with my first, but my second was a little different. But with my first, I had my own office space. So I was able to shut my door and put a like a note for like nursing and cover my window. It's fine. As far as like breastfeeding in public, I had no issue with it. I feel like to your point, like you were talking about like you always had clothes on that would you could access easily. I always wore like longer baggy shirts on that, like I could just stick right under there. All the things um I had no issues breastfeeding in public. I felt like it is what it is. I have a baby, and I'm gonna deal with it. Yeah. Because my kid was on such a scheduled feeding, I was able to work around being in public when I was going to be feedings. And both of them had bottle options. So I I had a mixed bag of stuff. It would be if I need to feed my kid because he's screaming, like I'll feed him. If we're going somewhere that was going to be an extensive amount of time, I knew to pack a bottle or kind of I planned my outings around like when baby needed to feed and kind of worked on whatever I was in the mood for that day. What about you? What about breastfeeding in public? Yeah. Back to work stuff.
SPEAKER_02We were definitely not on a schedule. It was a little bit more like if he wants it, he gets it. I mean, a little bit before nap time, we had some certain kind of set things, but it was definitely much more loosey-goosey. So there were plenty of times where we were out and about, and I was like, oop, gotta whip out a boob. And we saw your nickel out public. Oh, a thousand percent. You're not the only one. But I also felt pretty strongly about breastfeeding in public and wanting to be able to breastfeed in public and this attitude of like, you can deal with it. Like if you have a problem with my boob being out, like you can move then. Yeah. I felt very strongly about that. And many times not go out of my way to feed, but certainly not ever like excuse myself to a back room or whatever. I'd be like, oh, I'm whipping it out here. Here we go.
SPEAKER_03I love it. It's kind of giving, it's not the same at all, but it's giving similar vibes of like bringing your baby or your kids on an airplane. Okay, sorry. Like, do that.
SPEAKER_02There's kids in the world. This is a public space. Yeah. Yeah. And I I it even extended for me to work, right? So I went back to work around. Four months part-time at first. And I have a fantastic manager. I work for a great company that's very supportive of working mothers. And it was COVID. So we were working remotely and we had a full-time nanny at home with our son. Right. So I'm home. My son's home. We're all remote. My boss is amazing. I'm like, I'm feeding this baby. Like, I'm not going to switch to pumping. Yes. I think you touched on this in our work, in our in something, somewhere along the way.
SPEAKER_03Oh, I think you touched on this in our child care episode.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, we did because that was a nice benefit of having the nanny was that like I didn't need to switch to pumping. I was home. So and she would just bring me my baby when he was hungry. It was usually like after nap time and before nap time, they're kind of like the set times, but other than that, she would still be like, he seems really fussy. Like, can you feed him? I'm like, sure. And I have the type of job where I'm spending a lot of time on Zoom calls and I would just feed him on Zoom calls. And depending on who the audience was, I would maybe turn off my camera. Like if it was like all men that I didn't know very well, I would turn off my camera. But most of the time, especially if I was meeting with another woman, I would just tilt my camera so you couldn't see my boobs and just be like, hey, just so you know I'm feeding my baby. And then at the end, I'd be like, You want to see him? Like, here he is. Right. I felt like I was almost standing on a soapbox of it. I'm like, I'm not gonna hide the fact that I'm feeding my baby. I'm not gonna switch to pumping just to avoid someone being uncomfortable. I'm going to feed my baby. And if you have a problem with that, that's a you problem. That's not a me problem.
SPEAKER_03I do think like that whole idea of like it's my baby, I'm going to feed him when you're out in public makes a lot of sense. I totally agree with it. I also like your sentiment of when you were on a Zoom call of being like, depending on who the audience was. Yeah. Because nursing your baby at work might be unprofessional. Yes. And I'm not saying what you were doing was unprofessional. I'm saying like you were mindful of like there's a difference between a man at a restaurant where you need to feed your baby and a man on a work call where you need to feed your baby. And you recognized that and respected that while you still said in an empowering way, I'm going to feed my baby on this call. Or I'm going to feed my baby because my baby needs to be fed. You recognize the difference of the situation you were in and respected the other human.
SPEAKER_02You know what? I think it's actually less about that, although I think that's a valid way to think about it. For me, and I actually had this conversation with some working moms the other day at work. We were at a conference and we were debating something that a speaker had said about when it's okay to be vulnerable with a boss or with somebody else. And the point that I made that I still think about and I was thinking about at this time was there are times where I realized I have the privilege to be able to do something. I had the boss, it was a male boss, and I was privileged enough that I had a boss that I was so comfortable with that I knew I could breastfeed on a call with him. Yeah. I was not showing him my boobs, just to be clear. But like I was comfortable enough and I was privileged enough to have a boss in that situation, or be in a meeting where I was comfortable enough to do that. And I saw it as my way to pave the way almost. Like I'm gonna do this so that the next time it happens, it's not weird. And I can do it because I'm comfortable. I wouldn't do it in a situation where I wasn't comfortable. Like if I'm presenting to like executive leaders, I would probably have closed my door and been like, hold on for an hour, right? But like that's not a situation that I felt like I had to pave the way. But if we're in a team meeting and I'm with my peers and my boss and we're having a conversation and I felt comfortable, I said, you know what? Let me break down this stigma a little bit by doing this for myself so that the next person doesn't feel as weird. Or the next time it happens, someone else says, you know what? I saw her breastfeeding in a call, so I'm gonna breastfeed in a call and I can do that. And I felt like I had the privilege of being comfortable enough to do that, and so I should. That was how I thought about it. I love that. Thank you. I have one last topic I want to talk about, and it's kind of a tricky one. Okay. So, as we were talking about like having the privilege to advocate and blah, blah, blah. Here's another thing that I think, in some ways, is a little bit of a privilege, and I personally go back and forth on a lot, and I really want to hear your thoughts on. Obviously, breastfeeding has physical impacts on your body. Your boobs do not look the same after breastfeeding. I don't think there's anything you can do. Like you can work out, you can do all you get all the things. It just changes you. Yeah. How do you feel about that? How do you reconcile it? Have you ever thought about getting a boob job? How if you did, how do you how do you plan to talk to your daughter about that? Like this is something that bounces around in my head all the time. Tell me your thoughts.
SPEAKER_03Okay, no, I do not plan on getting a boob job. That is just my personal preference. I love my body, I love what it's done. I've never felt like the pressure to change kind of my physical attributes. I also have a great rack already. Yeah, you do. So there's that. Um, the only thing I would do is like a lift. I would totally do that. Yeah. If I had the opportunity to get like a lift and it made sense, I would do it. I do think there's like so many other ways to do that, like with your bras and all that. Yeah, yeah. If that's what you want. It's just when you're naked. No, I don't plan on getting a boob job. I would get a boob lift. And if I ever got any sort of cosmetic work, it's hard to articulate how I would talk to my daughter about it because there is no shame in it. Right. And I don't ever want her to feel like she has to change her body. Right. So it's this like odd dynamic of I'm choosing to change my body. If she chose to change her body, I would fully support her in that. But she is beautiful and I am beautiful. So it's just kind of this this back and forth tug. And that's probably why I would never do it because I would have a hard time trying to articulate how I would want to. Thank you. That's exactly how I feel too. Yeah, I think if I did choose to do like a lift or any sort of augmentation to my body postpartum or post babies, before I did that, I would have to know my why. And my why would have to be convincing enough to articulate in a healthy way to my children.
SPEAKER_02That is so true and so powerful. I love how you articulated that and saying that, like, if I did it, I would want to have a strong enough why. Because this is a thing to me I absolutely could see myself arguing both sides of thoroughly. Yeah. Right. Like, and to me, I kind of put boob lift in the like when I say boob job, I mean like anything. Like is Tommy Tuck in there too, or like any sort of like I'm talking specifically boobs, but like any sort of cosmetic procedure, right? Like if there's your body just changes from having kids, from breastfeeding, from life, right? So, like on the one hand, you have the argument of like you deserve to feel good and your body worked hard, and you deserve to have your outside match how you feel on the inside, right? I think that's so true. On the other hand, your body is perfect as it is, and you shouldn't need to touch to change it at all. And there's no need to change anything about you because you are perfect. And I love the mentality of learn to love the skin you're in. You don't have to change yourself to love yourself. Both those things feel so true to me. And I'm like, which one do I, which one do I want to instill in my daughter? Is it both? And if it is both, how do I navigate that with her? And I love how you said if I did it, I would want to have a strong enough story to articulate to my daughter that I feel good about. That's exactly how I feel.
SPEAKER_03Are you going to rapid fire some lightning round questions at me? I sure am. I think it's my turn to answer the lightning round, isn't it?
SPEAKER_02It is. Okay. I feel like we talked about so much now, we're gonna bring it back to breastfeeding. Ready?
SPEAKER_03I guess. I don't have a choice.
SPEAKER_02Okay, pumping, boob, or bottle? Boob. Favorite nursing position.
SPEAKER_03Oh, this one's tough. At what age?
SPEAKER_02Babies, newborn.
SPEAKER_03Um, like the like the football.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, good one. Nursing bras or nursing cammies? Nursing bras. TV or reading during late night feedingslash pumping? Scrolling. Did you breastfeed in public?
SPEAKER_03Yes.
SPEAKER_02And be honest, did you ever go to the bathroom while breastfeeding your baby? I don't think so. Oh, I definitely did.
SPEAKER_03I I like was that the last one? Yeah. So I can't remember. So I'm not saying no, but I don't You don't have a memory of this.
SPEAKER_02I absolutely I remember feeding my baby for so long and being like, my bladder is going to explode.
SPEAKER_03You're talking about like taking a shit or are we talking about like peeing?
SPEAKER_02I've done both.
SPEAKER_03Okay. Yeah. But I I there is there's no doubt in my mind that I have probably pooped or peeed while feeding my baby, but like I don't have a vivid memory of it.
SPEAKER_02I have a vivid memory of my bladder like going to explode and finagling off my outfit to sit down and pee. Yeah. I also know I used to bring the dock a tout with me into the bathroom so that like when if I had to, if I was going to the bathroom and then I had to put my baby down, I had somewhere to put things so I could just thing with a staple in it. Oh my god, classic. All right, socials. You can find us on TikTok and Instagram at moms off script. You can see behind the scenes, you can see trends. If you just want more of these two beautiful faces, that's where you need to go. Write to us at moms offscript at gmail.com. We'd love to hear your breastfeeding stories, your formula feeding stories, your pumping stories. How did you feed your baby?
SPEAKER_03We want to hear all about it. Or anything that we've discussed on the podcast. Yeah. We want to hear about it. Or what do you what do you want to hear about?
SPEAKER_02Oh, yeah. Tell us what you want to hear. And then lastly, you can also click on the send us a text in the show notes. So if you want to text us, that's the other way you can reach us.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, we love those texts.
SPEAKER_02Yeah. Reach out however you want.
SPEAKER_03All right. I think that's it. That is it. Thank you guys so much for tuning in. We will see you guys next Thursday. Bye.
SPEAKER_01Really good. Mobile script is created and developed by Meg Adeline. Music Matt Beat. Photography is helpful. That's it definitely let's be able to do it. This episode is edited and produced by Meg.