The Piggy Bank Method of Expressing and Storing Breastmilk

If you express your breastmilk in the early days after your milk comes in, you will probably get more than your baby needs for a feed – indeed, you might feel you have enough milk for all the babies in your ward! You head home confident that expressing is quick and easy and start to plan for the extra freezer you will buy to store all that expressed breastmilk in.

So you are really disappointed when you try expressing for the first time after the early postnatal period and only get a few mls for your effort. If you are expressing to have a supply of milk for your return to work or a special occasion away from your baby, you will probably start to panic and worry that you need a different (better) breast pump or you have a poor milk supply.

Guess what? Everything is okay!

Once breastfeeding is established and milk production is in sync with the baby, the breasts no longer stockpile excess milk, just in case it is needed. Instead, baby’s feeds are made-to-order, with just a little spare kept on hand in case it is needed.

So, instead of you having an endless supply you can call on whenever you want – like an unlimited credit card – now you are living a credit-free life where you need to save up for what you want. Just like the financial world, now you need to think about a savings plan and how much you need to put away each week to meet your goals.

You might like to think of these first few goes with your breast pump or hand expressing as practice sessions, where you learn the tricks and tips to maximise your expressing skills. Then, once you have worked it all out, you can start banking your milk towards the future. Most mothers find it takes about 15-20 minutes after the let-down to pump each breast and they can collect more milk earlier in the day than in the afternoon or evening.

If you just want some breastmilk in the freezer for a “rainy day”, then you can just express whenever you have a little time between feeds. But if you have a set goal in mind – enough milk for the first week or two back at work; two or three feeds to cover your sister’s wedding day or one feed each week while you are at yoga class – then you will need to do a little maths and work out a plan.

Say you find you average about 20-50mls each time you express and you work out your baby will need about 70mls each feed, then you will know it takes you roughly two sessions to save up one feed. A few practice runs with your partner or other caregiver feeding your baby EBM will help you estimate how much you might need. But remember breastfed babies take varied amounts at each feed and you can never accurately guess an exact amount, so divide your “piggy bank” into small amounts of frozen milk until you get an idea of what he needs. You can buy Breastmilk Freezer Trays which hold 30mls per section and this is a good amount to work with.

So, just as you did when saving for your childhood hearts-desire, get in the habit of putting a little bit away on a regular basis and you can be confident you will have enough when you need it.

See also: ABA booklet Expressing & Storing Breastmilk $5.00

My Happy Place

I have had a really BLAH couple of weeks - the normal come-down after a holiday, plus a misery-making cold and a visit from the MS fatigue fairy.

However, I could not resist the draw of the sunshine today, as I left my MS support group at 2pm, the afternoon stretched ahead and there was only one thing for it - I drove home, grabbed the dog and our assorted walking gear and headed to the beach.

We are so blessed to live in a beach-side town, on the edge of the metro area. While we don't live within (reasonable!) walking distance, it is only a few minutes drive and we are there. I often fantasise about a beach-side cottage, where the waves lap gently only a few steps from the door - but then we have a massive storm like we did this week and I am thankful we live up the hill!

Celebrating the final two weeks before the doggy curfew kicks in next month, Molly and I were able to enjoy the daytime beach, along with visitors making a day of it. The sand was host to lots of those little tent shelters and just a couple of umbrellas, while most people bared their lily-white winter bodies to the full sun. The boats were out at the yacht club, the jet skis disturbed the peace at Olivers Hill and small children shivered in wet towels - the water looks inviting, but it is still early in the season for full immersion - although the usual teenage boys and young men were doing their macho act in the cold.

We stopped for gelati - Molly and I share, to the wonder of passing children "That dog is eating ice cream!!!!" and then continue our walk. We are stopped often -  "Can I pat your dog?" - and Molly paddles up to her self-imposed tide line. The skeleton of a freshly-filleted Schnapper tempts her in the shallows, but not enough to get Too Wet!!!

The beach is my happy place and the sunshine, salt water and sea air work together to wash away the BLAH. It is time to go home, even though Molly actions a Sit Down when we reach the point where she realises we are leaving, clearly not ready to leave. but I am, so we do.

Like they'd been hit by a train.

On my recent trip, I was able to talk to my uncle about a family story of which I had little detail. On my return, I received his written account, which I share here.

"My father Harry had two '27 model Dodge cars that they had cut down into utilities, the utes were always driven by George as Dad had an accident with a car and lost his nerve. One day in 1950 they had a social trip to Ilabo where they were to have a few beers and a yarn to the stock and station dealer. they swapped rego plates on those two utes to which one was running best at the time, on the way home they were driving beside the railway line. About three kilometers out of Ilabo they made a sharp right hand turn to cross the line. As the gates at the crossing had been incorrectly left open, George kept going straight and the Riverina Express 38 classic locomotive doing 100kph and the canvas hooded ute hit the connecting rods on the main driving wheels. This swept the ute between the 38 loco and the gate post. A gap of about 1.2 metres. As the gatepost was made of two pieces of railway line the car was smashed to bits. The Express was put out of action and when it stopped the guard's van was level with the gate. the guard stepped down from the train, saw Dad standing near the gate with very little left of the car. The guard asked "are you alright?" "Yes" Dad replied "but I can't find my brother" so they had a look about and found George in the grass looking for his pipe. A piece of the car went through the gatekeepers water tank, spilling most of his only water supply, another went through the window of the house which was over 100 metres away. Their injuries were a grazed nose to dad and a cut to George's right elbow tendon. This injury caused his little finger to wither away, this never bothered George as he never went for any treatment." Alan Buckley 2011

Just a short while before my visit, Uncle Alan had found parts of the car wreckage at the site, more than 60 years after the event! He gave me a piece to bring home.

 Curious, I Googled both the car and the train:





You can see from this photo of a similar car the section that my uncle is holding in the previous photo!

So, now the story is told - although I am sure both George and harry would have a lot more to add!

Road Trip 2011: Epilogue

I learned a lot over the past two weeks:

• Four-poster to futon: I slept on six beds over eleven nights and had comfortable, uninterrupted sleep in them all. Two nights home in my own bed, all my aches and pains have returned. We need a new mattress, stat. Either that, or the dog, cat and husband need their own room!
• You do not need to have previously met people IRL for them to be friends. Spending time with people I had only known online was great - thank goodness for ABAChat and Facebook.
• Solo travel is great. Solo travel as a female is still great. The single downside is there isn't anyone to watch your carry-on luggage when you go to the loo at the airport, so you have to squeeze it into the cubicle with you!
• Apps are ace: I used two apps on my Android phone which made everything so managable:

1. Tripit was amazing - it even tracks your flight details for you: it knew my gate had changed before I did! (If my phone hadn't been flat on my return trip, it might have told me Qantas had issues!)

1. Packing List  was terrific: I was able to work out all I would need to take, divided up into various bags and then just gather it all ready to go - and check I had it when I left each stay.

• If you are going to use your mobile phone as a GPS in a rental car, yes - do pack your dash mount. I didn't.
• Audio books on CD make long drives much more enjoyable, as does your whole music collection on a memory stick.
• My aunt once queried the modern trend to carry drink bottles of water everywhere. I have worked out this is because we don't tend to punctuate our days with multiple pots of tea! It is much more hydrating than you think.
• B&B accommodation wins hands-down over motels at much the same price and cuts out all the middle-men - your money goes directly to the owners.
• Cousins morph into your aunts, uncles and grandparents over the years - quite disconcerting when you haven't seen them in a while!
• I much prefer art to depict real life in a way I can see it - abstract is too abstract for me.
• Second-hand bookshops are always staffed by people with a passion for books, a tendency to chat and piles of books they are getting around to shelving. The best ones have a resident cat or dog and the ultimate also serve tea!
• It is much wiser to post your book purchases home by mail than try to squeeze them into your luggage.
• The Goodreads app is essential to prevent doubling-up! There are two - I prefer this one
• The BEST gadget I had with me was a last-minute purchase at Coles before I left - basically a double adapter with two USB points - I could charge my phone, Kobo and laptop all at once with access to only a single, standard power point. I think it was $15.
• Don't take your tripod and really don't lug it to dinner at Parliament House, just in case - you won't use it!
• Do use the Facebook check-in feature - it keeps the family informed you are safe, let's hosts know you are on your way/made it safely and is fun for everyone else to track your travels!
• Finally - I could so make this a regular habit! Which State should I visit next time????

Oh, and I so want a new car! I hired a Kia Sportage and fell in love! 

Dear Santa, I have been a very good girl ...

Road Trip: Day Twelve

After a good night's sleep, a shower in the wonderfully-rainbow-tiled bathroom, breakfast of pancakes, I was on the road again for my final day.

My rental car needed to returned at the airport at 2pm and my flight checked-in at 3pm, so I had a few hours to play with. I headed straight to Glebe, to visit the book-mecca of Gleebooks, famous among used-books buyers and Bookcrossers. What I wasn't expecting, though, was to find the suburb of Glebe so much to my liking! With multiple book-shops along its strip, including one with a cafe where I drank chai, and the absolute bonus of a huge outdoor market where i browsed happily until I headed to the airport.

All went well with my flight and it was only as I and the other passengers waited for our bags that we found out we were, in fact, the last flights to touch down with Qantas for some time, as the news spread that the company had gone into lock-out mode in defiance of ongoing strikes and stop-works in recent months. I had just escaped being stranded in Sydney and while I would have, no doubt, plenty of beds offered, and a three-day buffer til I need to be back at work, others were not so fortunate. My shuttle bus home included a woman who should have been flying home to Macau, but was - instead - returning to her friend's home while alternate flights were found. This is the news  on a global stoppage which will affect many. Thankfully, I was headed home to bed!!!!

Road Trip: Day Eleven

Waving farewell to my cousin Bruce, I set off to catch up my cousin David! Bruce is my father's nephew, while David is my mother's yet it turns out they both live in the Parramatta area! David an I caught up over tea in the local shopping centre and he told me we hadn't seen each other since my daughter was born in 1987: I told him she turns 24 this weekend, so it had been that long!!

To ensure I didn't go too long without tea, I headed straight off to visit my friend Linda for her birthday!

(Yes, I changed shirts in between, due to the heat!)

Then I set off for an unexpected, but delightful addition to my trip: an invitation from Nicole to take part in her group's Movie and Dessert night and an offer of a bed overnight! She and her family made me so welcome - and I was thrilled to see the wonderfully decorated home they share, which is painted with my favourite primary colours and decked out with Ikea furniture! In fact, their home is to be featured in an upcoming Ikea family magazine and, by coincidence, Nicole and her lovely baby Quinn, were featured in the Sydney Morning Herald the day after my visit!!!

Photo from SMH article

The evening was wonderful, such a vibrant group of mums and babies - and desserts! This group take their home-baking seriously!!! I was made so welcome and it was fantastic to see the breastfeeding DVD I had heard about but not seen - Baby Baby Oh Baby which you can preview here. I am going to buy a copy for the Breastfeeding Centre as it will be great for the classes we run there and the mums who visit.

Road Trip 2011: Day Ten

I spent the day driving around Sydney, first visiting the NSW Branch office of ABA - the Sydney equivalent of my own workplace, where I caught up with Liz and Linda and drooled over their extensive refurbishment since my previous visit in 2005. Inspired by our own Breastfeeding Centre, they recently established a Breastfeeding Lounge and have rearranged their office space to provide private and public consultation spaces to support breastfeeding mothers. You will notice they also embrace purple as a theme colour!!

There was a slight detour to a bookshop and the bonus of just the orange backpack I have searched for for ages - half price! - and some lunch, then back on the road.

Next stop was to see  my lovely friend Anne and give her the the crocheted hat I made just for her. Chemotherapy is her focus right now and I was so happy she was up to a visit. We talked and laughed and she loved her hat, then showed me her beading, giving me a beautiful necklace of purple and just a hint of gold-orange. Before we knew it, there was only time for her husband to take photos of us giggling like school-girls, she bedecked in a purple jacket and scarf and her new hat, setting off her jammies just perfectly! And she donned Winona, her new wig, which made her look like a wild, young thing.

This is how Anne made sure I saw her house, with a string of Helpline stickers, which I completely missed as I was giving way, along with all the other traffic, to a slowly strolling Brush Turkey crossing the road!

(I don't drive with camera in hand, so this is someone else's turkey!)

Back to my cousin's house and then out to dinner at Darren and Amy's and more baby cuddles :)