Let’s talk about my boobs, shall we? I’ve been wanting to put my own nursing history/experience out there as a middle-ground nurser for quite some time. There are many who talk about how much milk they produce and how awesome their kids are at nursing - then there are those who don’t produce milk and who’s kids don’t nurse well if at all. I’m somewhere in the middle.
My boobs have never been the best milk-producing boobs around. I tried pumping with LilZ and ended up drying up when I went back to work when he was a few months old. I tried pumping with NikkiZ but failed again (I could pump an hour and get maybe ONE OUNCE) - so I had to drive to her daycare to nurse her every 2.5 hours. That worked fine for her because I worked close enough to her daycare to be there in five minutes. I’ve tried pumping again this time around as well, to no avail. And yes, I’ve tried that pump you would recommend. Or, something similar. I just had to accept I couldn’t pump because if I kept trying EVERY DIFFERENT PUMP or STYLE or TIME OF DAY to try to get results, I would have made myself crazy. Instead, I just accepted: My boobs can’t pump milk. Amen.
Since I don’t work that close to daycare anymore, I only go feed AndyZ at lunch. The other two meals of the day are formula. Which he takes beautifully from a very boring and cheap bottle. I only mention the boring and cheap parts because we spent GOBS of money trying to find a bottle and nipple NikkiZ would take. She never took any of them. Whereas, I think AndyZ would drink out of a coke can. He’s low-maintenance that way.
Anyway - so my boobs? Not that great with the pumping. I don’t even leak, which indicates that I don’t produce as much milk as the average nursing Mom. I only wore nursing pads in the beginning to keep the lanolin from getting on my bra. I’ve only leaked a handful of times, and those times weren’t even bad enough to warrant a change of clothes. Hell, even my first day back at work, when I went 4+ hours without nursing, I just felt kinda full. Didn’t really leak or anything.
Essentially? My boobs are the equivalent of a C-student. They do enough to pass the class and graduate, but no one is going to be offering them an scholarships to college.
Love the idea of sending boobs off to college (whether on scholarship or not) just to be done with them for awhile! Oh, do I look thinner? It must be because I just sent the Ladies off to get some higher learning.
So, what you are saying is that you never just started shooting milk out of your nipples as your husband watched in horror? My boobs? Yeah… Over achievers. Me? Not so much.
I am sorry, but the idea of C-student boobs made me laugh so hard. I would have never thought to phrase it that way. I am going to have to remember that line.
Thank you for posting this. I have C boobs as well. I can pump better than I can nurse - I swear! I pump enough at work for DD to eat while at daycare (12-16 oz). But then from the hours of 6 - 10, NO MILK. It’s been this way even before I went back to work. So, crazy as it is, once she gets HOME, she gets 2 bottles of formula.
Then, magically, my boobs do the trick for the overnight shift.
And I should mention that actually only one of my boobs is a C student. The other? F. As in does not make milk EXCEPT that it will leak just enough while nursing the other boob to leak through my bra/shirt . But no milk otherweise. So yeah, I’m crazy lopsided.
My first was 8 1/2 weeks premature. I pumped before I ever got to nurse and was an over-achiever (12 oz in 10 minutes, it was crazy!) For my second I nursed first. When I tried to pump, I would only get 2 ounce total with several sessions. Then I did a surrogacy and pumped for 2 months which lasted him 4 months. So I guess the boobs said you can have one or the other but not both.
I love that last line! You’re too funny.
I feel better now. Two year associates’ degree, maybe.
I never would have thought the ‘girls’ would do the job of nourishing my two through their first year. They’re small. As in, I could probably get away with a training bra, small OR I need padding to fill an a-cup small. They stepped up when it came time to nursing and pumping so I never had to supplement. Mine, I’d have to say, are pre-teens with early admission to ivy league.
You’re hysterical. Loved the c-student analogy.
Hehe! C-students…
My tatas are the annoying students in class that keep shouting out the answer when a question wasn’t even asked. I leak all the time, everywhere. My baby is 1 year old! I don’t pump at work anymore! We only nurse three times a day! And..my shirt gets wet pretty much every day (usually while nursing). And yeah, I don’t change clothes either. Kinda goes with that gross thing you were talking about earlier.
I made enough milk to nurse my son without any problems and with very little leaking. But while there was clearly enough for him, I couldn’t find a pump that could extract it. If I didn’t nurse for 4-6 hours I could *maybe* get 2 ounces - on a lucky day with the stars and planets aligned appropriately. So my boobs are also only C-students. Love that analogy!
This post and the comments are so darn funny. I love it when women share. What would we do without the internet.
I have a question. If you nurse do your nipples go back to being normal sized afterwards?
My nipples never got bigger, thank goodness. My breasts are, I would say, B minus or C plus students. I leak a little sometimes, especially overnight, but I’ve never sprayed milk spontaneously. I don’t have to supplement, which is good. I pump once a day, at about 9:15 p.m. which is a couple of hours after my 4-month-old son goes to bed. I get about four ounces total which gets pumped directly into freezer bags.
I would rate my boobs a solid B. I have enough to satisfy the baby, and sometimes can pump a little extra here and there. But I never leak after the first two months or so. Once I settle into my supply, no leaks, even when nursing the other side.
I know I make enough milk, though, because when we went away for the weekend a few times, I have pumped and replaced every ounce consumed.
But the most I have ever been able to pump is 8 ounces, after sleeping eight hours, first thing in the morning. That’s from both sides, though.
Glad you aren’t stressing about pumping. You do what works, especially with more than one kid!
oh man….that last line is a gem.
you are lucky in the leaking dept!!!
thanks for putting it out there that it’s okay to be a hybrid, a nurser and a formula feeder. Bottles and boobs. It’s all good.
Baby #2, the mere thought of feeding her would sprout a leak and by leak I mean gush. Nursing pads be damned. So, I envy your boob’s keeping the status quo.
Seriously? Book deal. Your post made me laugh out loud, and all the comments just continued the giggles.
I give mine maybe a B-. I could pump, but never had any leakage. And no milk squirting. I feel like I missed out.
As a 2 week old noob to this whole breastfeeding thing I say: WTH? Milk squirting? Just like that?
I see I have been spared - so far.
I think your boobs and mine might be BFFs. My kid’s daycare is IN MY BUILDING. I have a flexible boss who lets me go down as much as I need to. She still gets 2-3 bottles of formula a day, because my boobages only support one or two good feedings. And I can pump until I bleed and only get enough to get the bottom of the bottle wet. If I roll it around so the liquid stretches to cover the dry spots. And if lanolin didn’t leave grease marks, I never would have even opened the box of nursing pads. So tell me why I’ve been a DD since high school? Sigh… I’m still at it, though, and the bebe is 8 months. With bebe #1 we were done at 10 weeks. So maybe my boobs are working on their GED?
I know NOTHING about this subject, but you made me laugh at 1) boob scholarships and 2) your baby drinking formula from a Coke can.
Boobs are magical. That’s all I have to say.
My boobs are like B- students. I could only get 5 oz at the most while pumping. I stay at home with the kids so its not a big deal. I mostly just nursed on demand.
I added an extra feeding at night by pumping soon after the baby went to bed. That way I built up milk in the freezer so I could leave the baby with some one every once in a while. But it took two pumping sessions to get enough milk to satisfy Lily for one feeding.
I could never work and pump and all that. I just never pumped out enough.
Grading of the boobs. Oh what a way to start the morning!
I am able to pump exactly what the baby needs during daycare. Not any more than that. Not even a drop over that magical ounce line. So I’d still rate them an A- because I’d really like to have more for a freezer stash so I can leave the house alone sometime. Yep, I want it all thanks. LOL.
Anyway, I say do whatever works. All this talk of feeding babies made me think of the stage coming up: solids! Can’t wait for some of those stories.
OMG… I am a day late but I am in hysterics over here @ C-student boobs.
Let’s grade mine: actual nursing - F. Big fat FAIL. Maddie didn’t want to latch and, at closer inspection, my left nipple is not at all similar to my right. Hmm.
Pumping: A. These girls know that when I’m pumping, it’s down to business. I generally get 6-8 ounces per pump, which I’m thankful as hell for.
Late to the party, but my boobs were the burnouts who smoke cigarettes behind the bleachers, sneer at the preppy kids and bourgeois cheerleaders, and then drop out and get their GEDs when they’re like 22. My 10+ lb bruiser was like STARVING TO DEATH, and to tell the truth, I’m still kind of resentful towards my too-cool-for-school ta-tas over the whole thing!
I’m half and half, lol. My left boob started leaking like when I was 6 mo preggo but my right boob had never had the fullness the left one has. It’s actually kind of annoying
Hm, I’d say that boobs that overproduce and leak and so forth are not better students than the ones who correctly complete the assignment.
My boobs do fine but my baby is only a C nurser. She only just recently (at 4mo) figured out how to nurse while lying down and she often foils herself by grabbing the boob and moving the nipple away from herself accidently. Have you ever tried Fenugreek or Nursing tea? My neighbor swears by it to increase production at work and it smells like maple syrup.
our boobs are like twins. also c students.
couldn’t nurse my boy worth a damn, was supplementing by 6 weeks. this go around, i’m having far more success. but i work HARD for my milk. and if i were going back to work, we’d be right back to where we were.
Mine were doing pretty well. I’d say managing B’s until they fell in with the wrong crowd and decided to both develop abscesses that needed to be surgically drained and put me in the hospital for 11 days. They were expelled after that. (Did I just take the metaphor too far?)
My boobs wrote their own curriculum. The left one is still in resource class, but the right one might be on the honor role now.
If we are grading on pumping though, they both fail. If it isn’t the real deal, they aren’t interested at all. Classes have to be interactive in order for them to participate.
My boobs would have been in the special needs classroom down the hall. But with perfect attendance
I ended up in the emergency room with the worst case of mastitis ever. OSU is a teaching hospital so *all* the medical students came in to see my bright red, cracked, painful, incredibly still-milk-producing jugs. Good times.
You are hilarious.
I don’t have the constantly leaking kind of boobs, no overachievers here! I could pump if it was a feeding time but I was away from the Kiddo, and I could definitely FEEL when it was time. I used to borrow a friend’s office (since I was teaching and it made me feel better to use an office where I could close the door) and one time she said, “Hey, I appreciate that breast pad you left for me!” SO EMBARRASSED. Thankfully she really thought it was funny.
I just wrote a post about breastfeeding, but it’s a ranty one. Be forewarned.