(This post will contain breastfeeding related information – skip it if you’re all skeeved out by that.)

We’re still feeding Tristan by way of me (almost) exclusively pumping and then feeding the milk by bottle. He’s still taking around 4 oz. per feeding every 3 hours or so – sometimes a little more, sometimes a little less, but usually spot on. From what we understand, that amount is supposed to stay fairly constant for a few months, too.

Pumping has been far more tolerable – my supply is established so it doesn’t require so much time sitting attached to the moo machine to feed the kid. I’d say I now am spending 2 hours per day in 3 sessions, and that has provided plenty of Dragon Quest IV time – I’m getting close to beating the game and will need another game soon! Anyway, that’s quite an improvement over the beginning where I was spending close to 5 hours a day expressing as close to every feeding as I could finagle. Now it’s once upon waking where I usually get about 18 oz., once sometime in the middle of the day where I get 5-10 oz., and once upon retiring which nets maybe 5 oz. total (but I do it so I won’t be completely leaking in the morning). The right side outproduces the left almost 2 to 1, and I’m a little concerned that there may be lopsidedness in my future. Whenever I put Tristan up to the breast, I start with the left to try to stimulate more supply on that side, but it’s not really doing much.. it seems like that was established by some early favortism prior to pumping and even before the milk came in.

We’re still opting to pump and bottle feed to measure what he’s consuming. Also, it does help in trying to establish a schedule, although I’m sure that plenty of pure-breastfeeding types managed scheduling just fine. I’m still keeping ahead of Tristan’s eating habits and freezing about 5 oz. every other day. I think that Tristan may end up being the type to be permanently attached to my boob if we weren’t able to feed him a little bit faster than that, though. Whenever I do breastfeed him, he never is satisfied and we end up breaking out the bottle anyway – or it’s just a snack after a bottle when he wants a little more and we don’t feel like preparing and warming a bottle. I’ve taken to preparing feedings ahead of time so that they’re just grab and go from the fridge, and we have a ghetto-fabulous bottle warmer on each floor now to get that just-refrigerated chill out of them.

We haven’t supplemented with formula in quite some time now. Of course, we now have one wasted canister of powdered formula and quite a handful of prepared formula bottles mostly meant for being out and about. He also hasn’t fountain-vomited since we quit with the formula. Of course, it kind of sucks because he will eventually need to be on formula of some sort – the breastfeeding thing will be a success if we make it to 6 months, and cow’s milk is not advised for kids under a year old, so something will need to fill the gap unless I end up marathon-pumping – and that will depend on a few factors.