The Best of Both Worlds

In Neil Gaimon’s novel “American Gods”, he includes a minor character who, while nursing her own infant, wet-nurses a second. The character’s own child becomes sickly because he is always nursed after the other child, and gets only the leftover, second-best milk.

While Gaimon is generally an excellent writer, he didn’t do his homework on breast milk. He made two errors. The first is that during a nursing session, the quality of the milk does change from start to finish – but it is the milk at the end, the “hind milk”, that contains the most fat. This tells the baby that it is time for him to feel full, so that he will stop eating. An infant who doesn't get hind milk won't thrive.

The second error he made is that the breast is triggered by suckling to produce more milk. The more that is demanded of a breast, the more milk it will produce, after an initial delay. This is why mothers of twins can breast-feed.

Chris and I have finally figured out why Gabe is so cranky in the evenings – and also why he doesn’t really get down to the business of serious night-time slumber until eleven – if we are lucky. It is because he is not getting enough to eat late in the day. Overall, he is getting ample milk from me, as was determined at his recent weigh-in. It just happens that the typical lactating mom produces more milk in the morning than in the evening. This explains why his feedings get progressively more frequent in the afternoon, why he sleeps so long and so well in the mornings, why he gets progressively more inclined to fuss in the evenings, and why when he first nods off at a reasonable hour, he is up again less than an hour later, frantic for food.

At his recent visit to the doctor, I asked for advice on shifting Gabe’s sleep-schedule forward. I was advised to get him awake and active early in the day, and to try giving him a bottle of formula before bed. The nurse who gave me the advice pointed out that a well-rested mother will produce more milk. This was *very* refreshing to hear, because, sadly, proponents of breast milk typically say that any use of formula will diminish the mother's supply of breast-milk. Even nurses trained as lactation consultants get so caught up in their opinion that they say this without any caveat about breast-pumps or sleep deprivation affecting milk supply.

On the second night after I delivered Gabe, I might have given up on nursing if it hadn’t been for the nurse who suggested using formula. She set us up with a syringe and tube device which allows the infant to nurse naturally at the breast, while also getting formula. This allows for the baby’s sucking to trigger mom to make more milk, while at the same time getting calories into the baby. I used it that night for the purpose of getting Gabe to sleep for a bit longer than he otherwise would have been inclined, because the lack of sleep was clobbering me. He slept for four hours that time, and I was able to get enough rest to continue on to another day of nursing.

The next day I was scolded by the lactation consultant for resulting to such a measure. (And the same lactation consultant scolded me for using a more advanced nursing position out of desperation. She also tried to get Gabe to nurse by mashing his head onto my breast, which just made him shriek an fight; but nonetheless she was certain that forcing him was the way to go. Her method hasn’t worked once since, and Gabe and I have never successfully used the two most basic nursing positions.)

Last night Chris and I repeated this experiment with a bottle of formula. I used my sister’s fabulous milking machine to add to our growing stash of frozen milksicles. Gabe gulped the formula down, promptly went to sleep, and stayed asleep for five hours.

Five hours! I have been getting by on five hours of sleep a night! I’m about to go sleep for another three or four hours, and it feels like a luxury.

With any luck, this tactic will keep Gabe’s schedule shifted forward once (or if) we discontinue the evening formula. I’ll be able to build up that emergency frozen milk stash. And there is the possibility that I won’t run low on milk late in the day if I can consistently get more rest like this.

Formula isn’t as good as breast milk, but I will say it’s right up there with birth control as a method of freeing women from the prison of biology.