The breastmilk study is really interesting. When Toddler E was 2 months old she and I both got the flu and our pediatrician sent us immediately to children’s hospital. They kept us there for a few hours running tests and observing her and in the end the doctor said she thinks 2 things kept her healthy enough to not be admitted: 1) I got the flu shot while I was pregnant with her, and 2) I had it as well and I was nursing her. She said the antibodies in the breastmilk were almost definitely helping to keep her healthy enough to breathe well and to keep her oxygen levels up.
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Glad to hear you are all feeling better!
My fever broke and I started feeling a lot better within hours of starting antibiotics. So I’m pretty confident mastitis was the right diagnosis!
Still getting a COVID test tomorrow just in case (like you said, if I have it, I’d like it documented for any future effects).
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Glad to hear you’re feeling better!
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I’m grouchy because I had a bowl of chicken soup and a hot chocolate before bed specifically to tank up for the night, and now I’m hungry again at 2am. And I drank two bottles of water. Baby Spore is sleeping. I am not. Breastfeeding is going more smoothly these days but man! I am eating as often as the baby does 
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I got a bunch of chewy granola bars to keep by the bed for this reason (chewy so they are quieter lol). I also have gotten some of those toddler squeeze packs with apple/blueberry/oats from target. They’re only like 80 calories but sometimes in the middle of the night it’s a perfect quick snack!
I’m glad breastfeeding is going more smoothly! We’re having a pretty good week over here as well.
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Love the “quiet food” trick and glad you’re having a pretty good week 
The irony is that I do keep a bedside snack stash, but we’d sent me to the guest room to try to skip a feeding and get extra sleep. My boobs cooperated but the rest of my body kept churning away, demanding water and food and bathroom and…! Now it’s 4 hours later and Spore woke up crying. I thought it was hunger but he ate for 2 mins, spat it all back up calmly, and fell asleep again 
. I choose to believe this is a good sign for future longer sleeps??
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Some of the best advice I got for PP was to set up redundant stations everywhere. A diaper station in your master is great, but not if your spouse is sleeping in there lol. So we had three separate diaper stations (two were just little supply boxes) in our 2 bedroom apartment lol! And then I had nursing stations in a couple places which included snacks and water, and I had “coochy care stations” in both bathrooms. Redundancy was a life saver when I was in the thick of it! And then once a day I’d just go around and check everything was all topped up with supplies. Made it Husbands job to check all my water bottles around were full of ice water lol.
It’s funny, thinking on this, I’m pretty sure BFing hunger is part of why I have such a hard time sleeping after Latte’s snooze button feed (~5:30am, then she sleeps until 7 or so). I think I nurse her then I get hungry and can’t sleep! I haven’t had the crazy hunger swings in months so I didn’t really think about it, but now I’m like oh duhhhh.
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Yeah! Not the reflux gagging hunger anymore, just the insidious low-level hunger that I thought I could ignore but really can’t.
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Someone in their journal was talking about momma strong and I wanted to share this because this website has helped me with my pelvic dysfunction. I still need pt and pilates in like 2024 or whenever, but this is for now
NB I don’t think I have diastasis recti, but I do need to fix my core and pelvis to stop the back pain.
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I DO have dr, and I really appreciate the share!
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Thanks! I’m starting some virtual pilates tomorrow (we’ll see how long I can keep it up) and hoping it helps.
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Anyone have a baby allergic to cows milk/soy for their first? For the second, did you assume allergy again and trial later, or assume no allergy until proved otherwise? I will also ask my medical team once I work out who will be able to answer it…
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Not me, but friends—assumed nothing, but gave dairy a try, recognized the signs sooner, and made changes sooner.
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In the NICU the baby who moved in next to mine was on formula, and screamed at every feeding for 2 days. Eventually a nurse who’d been there for 30 years started muttering “something’s not right” and called the dad who said mom and older brother both had dairy intolerances, and older brother took soy formula. They switched the baby’s formula to dairy free and voila, whole new happy baby.
I wonder if bc it was an intolerance and not a true allergy, the doctors didn’t notice or care. Reinforces my belief that nurses know what’s up.
I’ve found specialized formula (preemie stuff in my case) to be out of stock often in my local shops. Not sure if it’s because covid supply chain, but could be worth getting some in advance.
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Ok, this is good. I will assume that if Pumpkin has a similar nursing pattern to Duckling, we will cut dairy quickly, and if not, will continue as we are. I can get a couple sachets of dairy and non-dairy formula to try before we buy a whole tin. I will keep the bits of dairy I’m currently having in my diet for now and have a chat to the paediatrician who checks her in hospital while we’re there. I like having a plan.
Next up: any favourite resources (Instagram, websites etc) for nourishing, hearty postpartum meals? It will still be quite warm here in March, so summery is good but anything is fine! I have an urge to browse recipes.
Post partum as in, take well to freezer meal prep, or as in classic for PP mother’s/nutrient dense/etc?
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That one! I will have a Personal Chef in the form of my mum coming over once a week. So - anything you got, breakfast/ snacks/ dinner! Prep ahead is good, but we seem to do better with prep & freeze ingredients => cook & eat for the next 3 days, rather than cooking a meal and freezing it.
Partly I’m also just really enjoying being interested in food again after many months of avoiding it.
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For nutrient dense PP food, I LOVE lily nichol’s website. I’ve made four of her recipes so far I think? And they’ve all been delicious:
I made this recently and it turned out really well: https://lilynicholsrdn.com/real-food-postpartum-recovery-meals/
A lot of her meals are very compatible with the instant pot so I lean heavily on it haha.
I also really liked cucumber and seaweed salads, I didn’t really use a recipe I don’t think, but the iodine is great to have (pending medical conditions where you need to reduce your iodine, but deficiency is far more common). I do wakame, cucumber pieces, then toss with some tamari, rice wine vinegar, sesame seeds, and some ginger and garlic powders. If I’m feeling very lazy, furikake on cucumber is also delicious haha.
Eta and of course lots of egg dishes. Choline is so important esp if you’re breastfeeding. So I leaned heavily on egg salad, deviled eggs, ramen eggs in soup, so on.
Chicken and wild rice soup, beef stew, lentil soup, enchiladas, and congee with pork shoulder were some of my favorite meals that were dropped off by amazing friends. Oh, and an entire double-decker cake. For some reason (that science can probably explain) I really, really wanted plenty of fats and salt. And for the first 6 weeks or so, blended soups were great for sipping from a mug while holding a very floppy newborn head in the other hand.
Usually I like spicy food but it was at least 6 weeks before I wanted anything spicy. Also, it might depend on season & climate – I gave birth right as autumn started and wanted lots of warm soups & stews for late-night slurping. But you’re upside down and all, and cucumber & seaweed salads sound wonderful for hot weather.
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Oooh blended soup in a mug! That sounds excellent! Soup is probably the one thing we are good at doing the freezing/defrost properly on, too. I can definitely have a batch of pumpkin soup made up & frozen in the correct portion sizes.
Thank for the heads up on spicy food - I have only just started to want food with real flavour again, so I’ll keep in mind that I might feel like going blander/ craving different flavours postpartum than I am right now.
This idea is also a stand-out one. Yes. Yum.
@Bracken_Joy thanks for the tip on eggs. I can get someone to make & deliver a batch of hardboiled eggs for me, so that works really well. I do like knowing someone’s already tried some meals and found them delicious so I’ll have a gander through her website. I’ll double check with my doc on the iodine but I think I’m on the “take more of it” end of things, so that works out.
Mmmm this is making me very happy. So many tasty ideas to write down.
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