This transcript is AI generated.
[00:00:00] Emma Pickett: I'm Emma Pickett, and I'm a lactation consultant from London. When I first started calling myself Makes Milk, that was my superpower at the time because I was breastfeeding my own two children, and now I'm helping families on their journey. I want your feeding journey to work for you from the very beginning to the very end, and I'm big on making sure parents get support at the end, too.
Join me for conversations on how breastfeeding is amazing and also sometimes really, really hard. We'll look honestly and openly at that process of making milk, and of course, breastfeeding and chest feeding are a lot more than just making milk Thank you very much for joining me for today's episode. I'm talking today to Alice Lacey-Campbell, who is from Liverpool, and she's a public health doctor, and she's also a mother of two.
So we're gonna be talking about some tandem feeding, and we're gonna be talking about breastfeeding older children and, and celebrating Alice's journey and getting the intel on. Alice, thank you very much for joining me today, Alice. I really appreciate it.
[00:01:07] Alice: Thank you. Tell us
[00:01:08] Emma Pickett: about your family.
[00:01:10] Alice: Uh, so I have two daughters, um, I've Asha, who is turning five next week, um, and Kaida, who's five months.
And they are both breastfeeding. Um, and we also live with their dad, my husband, Brendan, who is incredibly supportive.
[00:01:27] Emma Pickett: That's what we like to hear. Yeah. That's great news. Yeah. So, so let me do a deep dive, first of all, o- on Asha's current breastfeeding patterns. So Asha is turning five next week-
[00:01:36] Alice: Yeah ...
[00:01:36] Emma Pickett: and at school as we speak.
[00:01:38] Alice: Yeah, she
[00:01:38] Emma Pickett: is. Um, what does a typical breastfeeding 24 hours look like for her?
[00:01:43] Alice: So it's not every 24 hours anymore, and I actually thought we'd stopped, and it ended up being a false stop. She used to be every single day. She used to be, like, very, like, obsessed, to be honest, completely obsessed until really recently.
Um, and then I think it was three days before Kaida was born, she stopped asking for it, and I was like, "Oh, I don't know what's happening here. Is that okay?" And then I went into hospital, and we were in hospital for nearly, for I think four days 'cause, um, I had to go to NICU and stuff. And so we were apart for quite a while, and then when I got home, she just still didn't ask for a little while.
And then I said to her a few days later, I was like, "So do you think you've, you've finished now?" And she said, "Yeah, I think I'm done." So I thought we were over. We had a chat about it. I said, I said, "How do you feel about that?" Um, and she said, "I feel really proud and happy." And I was like, "Oh, that's wonderful that we've, like, done it on your terms," and that's exactly how I wanted it to be.
So I was really happy about that. And I did say to her, "If you change your mind, it's fine." I was like, "I'm really happy and I'm really proud for you too, but if you do change your mind, then I'm still here, and it's still okay. Just want you to know that just 'cause Kaida's here, and she's feeding doesn't mean that it's not yours as well."
And then it was, like, I think we went a month, a couple of months maybe before she said, "Can I please?" She calls it feed on And she's like, "Can I have a feed on?" So I was like, "Oh, yeah, okay." And since then it's been like maybe once every five days or so, maybe not even. Sometimes it'll go three weeks, and she won't have any, and then she'll ask for some.
Tends to be when she's having like big feelings, when it's like a tantrum or, and she needs, she needs a bit of regulation. So it's not every 24 hours anymore, it's just very occasionally that she asks for it.
[00:03:29] Emma Pickett: Gosh. Wow, that's fantastic. I mean, it's really interesting to hear that, that version of affairs.
Normally it goes the other way. When the baby arrives, they, they want to feed more. But it's fascinating that she, you know, just didn't feel the need. And I love the way you leave it so open and, and talk to her about it so openly. I think lots of people would be like, "Don't mention it." Like, you know, "Don't mention the war.
Don't talk about it." Yeah. Maybe she won't ask. But that's so special to hear how you just really left it open for her. So when she did eventually latch on again- Yeah ... after that kind of, what, three and a half week gap, how was her latch? 'Cause lots of people are worried that older children lose their latch when they haven't breastfed for a while.
[00:04:05] Alice: At first she said there's no milk still, 'cause she, we, we were feeding during her pregnancy and my milk dried up, and she was like, "There's still no milk." I was like, "There definitely is 'cause I've got a newborn. There's definitely milk." And, and it turned out she'd forgotten how to get it. And then I was like, "No, there is milk.
Maybe you can try again." So she tried again, and then she sort of remembered it a bit. And the latch was absolutely horrible, but it wasn't painful, and it wasn't for very long, and it was sort of, I think it was more of a try and see if I still can, see if I still like it. So it wasn't after ages anyway.
And again, like when she has a feed now, it's generally like 30 seconds and she's off again, and that's it.
[00:04:45] Emma Pickett: So today is, is a Wednesday. When was the last time she fed before today?
[00:04:50] Alice: I think it was the weekend. I think it was Saturday.
[00:04:52] Emma Pickett: Okay.
[00:04:53] Alice: Probably.
[00:04:54] Emma Pickett: So it's very likely that you're not going to know when your last feed is with, with Asha.
Yeah.
[00:04:59] Alice: Yeah.
[00:04:59] Emma Pickett: It's
[00:04:59] Alice: very,
[00:05:00] Emma Pickett: and, and that's it. How does that feel?
[00:05:02] Alice: Do you know what? I don't mind because I went through this slight grief when I thought that we'd finished. When she said, "I'm done," I thought we'd finished then, and I was like, "Oh, I don't even know when the last feed was. That's really sad. I, I didn't get to savor it."
And also, I'd been gearing myself up to tandem feeding the whole time we'd been feeding during pregnancy, and I, at first, was like, "I don't think I want to tandem feed," and then reconcile myself with the fact that I'm tandem feeding, then started to be excited for it, and then I was like, "Oh my God, I can't believe I missed out on tandem feeding by three days.
How unfair is that?" So I had, sort of went through a little bit of grief, and then she fed again anyway, and I was like, "Oh, that's a surprise." And now I sort of feel like I've already been through the acceptance part Before it happens kind of. So when it is the last feed, and I don't realize, and I, and she's stopped laughing, I don't think I'll mind because I think I've already been through that, that emotional journey.
[00:06:02] Emma Pickett: I think I've heard the phrase pre-grieved at some point. I don't know if that's ever a real thing, but you, you pre-grieved. Um- Yeah ... and this is all a bonus, isn't it? It's all, it, it's the extra bit you didn't think you were gonna get. Um-
[00:06:12] Alice: Yeah,
[00:06:13] Emma Pickett: yeah. Yeah. Um, tell me a bit more about your experience of pregnancy, 'cause lots of people find it difficult to get information about breastfeeding and pregnancy, and there are lots of myths flying around, and everyone says different things and thinks that their experience is the universal experience.
What was your experience?
[00:06:29] Alice: My milk did dry up, and I knew, I was prepared. I knew that that might happen. I wasn't worried about breastfeeding during pregnancy. I know I've read people say, "Oh, they get, it may increase the risk of miscarriage and things," and I'd read research- Yeah, no, um, yeah, you have, with your doctor hat on, tell us about the reality of that.
Yeah, so that, I am aware. I'm, uh, that that's not the case, that there is research that bears that out, and I am, as you say, I'm a doctor. I'm a public health doctor. I am part of, um, a group of, um, doctors who breastfeed called Milk, which I know you mentioned before in a podcast and spoken to some of the admins of that group.
They're amazing. So I get a lot of information from that as well, and there had been a lot of discussion on that previously that I'd seen on other people posting about the risk of miscarriage and breastfeeding, and I was very satisfied from, from reading that information that it wasn't a risk, and that I could keep going.
Um, and I'm also, I'm type 1 diabetic as well, so I have a higher risk of miscarriage than most. Um, so I will do literally anything I possibly can to maximize my chances of success. So if there had been any worry, then I would have stopped breastfeeding. But there wasn't, and I knew, I was confident to keep going.
Um, so I felt really safe Can I ask you a little
[00:07:49] Emma Pickett: bit about, about diabetes and miscarriage? I didn't realize there was that thing. Do we know why that is?
[00:07:55] Alice: Um, partly because of high blood sugars affecting very early development of the embryo, uh, and that can have really significant effects. You've got a much higher risk of heart defects, of, um, spina bifida, um, and the spinal defects.
Um, th-there's this sort of a higher risk of, of everything in pregnancy with type 1 diabetes, to be honest. So miscarriage is much higher, and to the extent that I was-- when we did get pregnant with both of our girls, actually, I was saying to my husband, who's not medical, "Don't get attached because this is-- we are a very, very high-risk pregnancy, and we can't expect this to, to continue positively."
And we've been very, very lucky that both of our pregnancies did, and I haven't actually experienced a miscarriage, so I've been really lucky in that sense. But, um, I was obviously monitoring my blood sugars really carefully and preparing, doing lots of preconception work to make sure that we had the best chance of conceiving and then of that pregnancy going well.
So, um, so that did help. But also the knowledge, I think, that it might not be positive also helped us to sort of prepare ourselves. So yeah, we were kind of being sort of very cautious early on, and that did mean that we didn't tell Asha that we were pregnant with Kaida for quite a long time because we were still aware that the risks were really high.
So when the milk dried up before we wanted to tell her, we were happy telling her, and she said to me one day, "There's no milk. What's going on?"
[00:09:33] Emma Pickett: How, how many weeks pregnant were you at that point?
[00:09:35] Alice: Probably, uh, probably nine weeks.
[00:09:39] Emma Pickett: Yeah. That's- I think ...
[00:09:39] Alice: that
[00:09:40] Emma Pickett: absolutely fits with my experience of working with people.
It's often from about week seven, eight onwards that people start to notice a reduction, um, very
[00:09:48] Alice: clearly. Yeah. That, yeah, I think that's what we had. She said there was no milk before. So really nothing. Um, and I tried to sort of hand express just to see, 'cause normally I'm quite, I'm quite the producer, um, and that would normally work for me even when we weren't feeding very often anymore.
And she said, "Yeah, there's nothing." And I said, um, "Oh, well, it might be that you're feeding less now that you're getting a bit bigger, you're not feeding as much, and that's the way that milk works. The less you feed, the less it'll make, so it might be because of that. Um, are you, do you still wanna keep going?"
And she said, "Yeah." And then I found that the dry nursing was really quite painful.
[00:10:24] Emma Pickett: Yeah.
[00:10:24] Alice: So I had a chat with her, and I would say when she'd ask for it, 'cause she still fed to sleep at night to get to sleep at night. We didn't feed during the night. We night weaned a long time ago by accident, so we didn't do anything at night, but it was always to get her to sleep at my bedtime.
And I would say to her, "I'm really sorry, babe, but I need to have, I need this to be a short one 'cause it's actually making me quite sore. Is that okay?" And then she suggested, "Can I just put my mouth on and not try to get the milk?" Aw. Um, and so that I don't hurt you. Um, and I was, "Oh, that's really kind of you.
Yeah, that's a, that's a lovely idea. Let's do that. Thank you." So that's how we had, so for the pretty much the entire pregnancy, that's how every feed was. It was just her putting her mouth over my nipple and as if she was feeding, but she wouldn't attempt to- That's so kind
[00:11:11] Emma Pickett: of her, isn't it? I'm just thinking the self-control that takes when she's got that kind of muscle memory of latching on and, and actually to, to consciously think, "No, no, I don't want to hurt mommy.
I'm gonna switch off all those impulses." That, that says a lot about her character. That's
[00:11:24] Alice: very special. I was so, so, so proud of her. It's so, and it was so lovely. It wasn't even my suggestion. My su- my suggestion had been just make it short, which neither of us would've been happy with, um, 'cause I'd still be in pain, and she wouldn't have had what she wanted.
So she was the one that came up with the solution that, that meant that it wasn't sore for me at all, and she got all the comfort she needed, knowing that she was only having it for comfort and not milk anymore
[00:11:47] Emma Pickett: Yeah. And then when colostrum came along, I guess it didn't change anything because she wasn't necessarily trying to extract the milk.
So probably there was colostrum there, but she didn't- Yeah ... necessarily get it out because she wanted to, to protect you from being uncomfortable.
[00:12:00] Alice: Yeah, I was, um, hand expressing antenatally. My colostrum, um, it's particularly important with diabetes as well. So I was-- I started hand expressing when I was, um, I think 35, maybe 34 weeks I started.
So I knew that I'd had plenty. Um, but she-- And I told her as well, when the milk comes back, I told her, "The milk will come back when the new baby, but when the milk comes back at first, it's gonna be yellow, and it's gonna taste a little bit different." And she went, "Ugh, I don't want that." I said, "Well, if you want, I think you can wait until I tell you that it's back to white milk, and then you can, you can start trying again."
She's like, "I'll do that."
[00:12:38] Emma Pickett: Gosh, she's, she's so clever, isn't she? She really knows what, what, what, what's what. Yeah. Um, for anyone who doesn't know about antenatal expression and, and the link with antenatal expression and, and diabetes, so, so historically, it was the diabetic population who were told to hand express antenatally, and that...
And now it's almost become popular for everybody to, to have a go at thinking about it, and it's become much more widespread. And I would just say very briefly that not everyone can express antenatally, and it doesn't have any relationship to your milk supply after baby's born. And if you can't get any colostrum out while you're pregnant, please don't worry that that means you won't be able to breastfeed.
Um, because despite all best efforts and all best techniques, some people cannot hand express when they're pregnant. But tell us a little bit about why it's important for somebody who's diabetic particularly to hand express antenatally.
[00:13:25] Alice: One of the major reasons is, um, that if your blood sugars aren't 100% perfect, and to be honest, even if they are, during your labor, um, the baby's blood sugar can drop when they're born.
Um, and it's because-- So if your blood sugar's high, and you're having... That, that high blood sugar is transferring into your baby's bloodstream. They've got a pancreas that works unlike you. So their pancreas produces a load of insulin to deal with that high blood sugar. And then once they're born, the high blood sugar stops, but they've still got the insulin on board, so it drops their blood sugar.
Um, and they have what's called a hypo. And the thing that they need really quickly is sugar, and if they don't latch immediately, and they can't get on straight away, then it's really helpful to have that very high sugar colostrum available that you can feed them straight away to treat that hypo. And With type 1 diabetes, the chances of having a normal healthy delivery is also lower.
So, um, that can also affect how well they're able to latch afterwards as well. So I did find with both mine, I had an emergency C-section, and trying to latch them that first feed after, after my C-section didn't work with either of them. Um, and it felt really devastating, and I did have to rely on my colostrum.
I wasn't able to, like you say, I wasn't able to get that much antenatally with Asha. Um, and for some reason it was much, much easier, um, with Kaida. So I had, had a stash of about 20 ml, um, when I had Kaida, so that was really helpful. But, um, I didn't end up needing it all. I donated it to the hospital to give to someone else.
[00:15:08] Emma Pickett: Oh, that's cool. How did you find the experience of expressing antenatally? Um, what kind of techniques were you using? So you started around sort of... So the, the DAME study talks about 36 weeks, but as a doctor, I'm pretty sure you know, you're, you're aware of the risk factors, et cetera. Yeah. So, um, you started, you know, with a little while to go.
Were you doing it every day? How did you get, get the results you wanted?
[00:15:31] Alice: Uh, I found-- Well, and first of all, one of the things that I was thinking was, I know that I'm, I'm tandem feeding, and if Asha wanted to get the milk, then she'd be able to. So what's the difference between her feeding and me hand expressing antenatally?
I've been feed-- I've been, you know, doing everything that could take off the milk antenatally, so I'm quite comfortable going early because I'm already doing it anyway.
[00:15:54] Emma Pickett: Yeah. I don't think the DAME study looks at tandem feeding really. No. I don't
[00:15:57] Alice: think there are
[00:15:58] Emma Pickett: many studies that look at this context
[00:15:59] Alice: of tandem
[00:16:00] Emma Pickett: feeding and, and antenatal expression.
[00:16:02] Alice: Yeah. I, um, found doing it after a bath was the best, so I would do it after a bath or a shower when I was really warm. That would always get me the highest yield I find it's really fiddly. It's one thing, it's like never mind trying to express it, but it's just really fiddly. I have to massage quite a lot first.
Um, I would think about my baby, um, or be like looking at pictures of after whi- when I was hand expressing for Ida 'cause I found that that helped. And then there was... I would find I'd kind of massage one particular area of my boob and squeeze there, and then, and I'd get some out, and then that would dry up, and then I'd go sort of move to a different area of the breast and then, and I'd get some more there.
And so I'd sort of keep, like, going around, and then I'd get more that way, and I'd, like, get quite a lot in a big sort of bubble on my breast before I'd put the syringe there to draw it up, and I found that made it a lot easier than trying to do tiny, tiny little bits.
[00:17:03] Emma Pickett: Okay. So you're kinda slurping with the syringe, just for anyone who doesn't know what we're talking about.
Yeah. You're not, you're not using a breast pump for several reasons. No. First of all, we're not quite sure the impact of that stimulation on, on pre-labor and triggering labor, but also breast pumps don't work very well when you're talking about cluster expression 'cause you're just gonna lose the milk.
It's just gonna disappear. Um, although there are sometimes some tricks around turning the breast pump the other way that, that Amber talked about in the episode that we did together. But ideally, you are hand expressing. Um, and then you're creating a little bit of suction with the syringe. So it's quite fiddly, isn't it?
'Cause you've got one hand on the breast- Yeah ... one hand on the syringe, and actually you've got to use two hands really to hold the syringe and do the slurp. So-
[00:17:43] Alice: Yeah ...
[00:17:44] Emma Pickett: you're kinda creating the bubble and the drip, and then before it disappears, you've got to sort of- Yeah ... slurp it into the syringe. It's, it is quite a fiddle.
[00:17:51] Alice: It is. It's really, really fiddly. I did find there was one day when I was at work, I was working from home, and I felt... This is with just before Ida. And I felt like my boobs were full, and I was like, "That's just weird." Like, she's not even born yet. This, my milk hasn't come in. How is that possible? 'Cause I sort of felt this fullness.
So I thought just out of interest, I'll try to hand express, and I ended up getting four mil in that one sitting without having heated up with a warm shower first. I just managed to... I just sort of felt fullness and thought I'd give it a go, and then I got loads out in that one sitting as well, which was really handy.
Um, it sort of gave me a bit of confidence going in as well that I had all of this available, and I was like, "Oh, I haven't lost it. I can still make some milk." That, that helped
[00:18:37] Emma Pickett: Yeah, and as you say, you didn't use it all, and actually- Yeah ... that's a successful situation. Some people think, "Oh, I've got to use it.
I might as well just give it even though breastfeeding's going well 'cause I don't wanna waste it." But actually, not using your cl- antenatal expressed colostrum is a massive win. That's great because it means that, you know, you're breastfeeding directly and stimulating directly and, and you don't want to be using it if you don't need to use it.
I'll ask you a little bit more in a minute about your, your birth and your early breastfeeding, and especially your experience of, um, of Kaida. But I'd love to ask you a bit more about, um, Asha's night weaning, if you don't mind.
[00:19:10] Alice: Yeah. '
[00:19:10] Emma Pickett: Cause I'm a bit weaning obsessed. Um, you, you said that you night weaned accidentally, so I'd love to know what, what you mean by that.
Tell us what happened with her night weaning. How old was she, first of all?
[00:19:20] Alice: She was three still. Um, and I hadn't intended to. I had, I confess, I had read, like, all of your stuff about weaning because I was, there were times where I was getting really stressed out, and I was like, "I don't think I wanna do this anymore.
I don't know if I can do this." She was upset, really upset, and it was very difficult to get her to slow down at all. But I wasn't thinking about night weaning versus day weaning or anything like that. I was just trying to sort of gradually reduce overall, and we were sort of putting in boundaries, like trying to distract sometimes or trying to say, "We can just do it, uh, uh, this amount of time", or, "I'm gonna count down from 10, and I'm gonna do that in the daytime more than the nighttime."
So at nighttime, I think how it ended up happening was, I think I was just really touched out one night, and I just was like, "I can't really face this right now." So I said to Asha, "You can have a feed, but it's gotta be a short one." And she said, "Okay", and she had a really short feed, and I said, "Okay, we're done now."
And then she just lay in my arms, like cradled in my arms still, and she went to sleep like that. And then the next time we had a feed, whether it was in that same night or the night after, she's never been a great sleeper, to be honest, um, I said ... I think I tried, that time I was like, "I, I can't feed right now.
Um, I'm really sorry, I can't do it right now, so can we just have a cuddle instead?" So she just said, "Okay", and she didn't fight me. She just got in my arms, and she cradled. And then from then on, she just stopped asking for it at nighttime. And it was, so it wasn't like, it wasn't e- it wasn't gradual, and it wasn't something that I'd attempted to do.
It was just one night I was just touched out, and I said, "I can't, can't do it as mom." And then she was content just to lie in my arms. And then that just became a habit instead, that I would just come out at nighttime, and she'd lie in my arms cradling as if she was feeding, but not, I wouldn't get my boob out at all.
[00:21:18] Emma Pickett: And prior to that, she had been feeding multiple times in the night?
[00:21:22] Alice: Yeah. Yeah.
[00:21:24] Emma Pickett: Okay. People listening to this, you've probably just dropped their toast thinking, what?
[00:21:29] Alice: She
[00:21:29] Emma Pickett: just went from multiple times and all you had to do was say, "Sorry, I can't feed right now." And she was like, "Yep, okay, no problem. Yep, we'll just wait."
Yeah. So she would, but sh- she, she was still waking?
[00:21:39] Alice: Yes, still waking. And there were times after that sometimes where she'd say, she'd be like, kind of pull at my top or say, "Can I have a feed?" And after we've already stopped, I'm like, "I don't really wanna go back to it." So I'd say, "Oh, remember, we don't do it at night."
And she'd go, "Oh yeah, okay." And then just go back into my arms and be like, "Wow, that was easy." And it's the only easy thing we had going for us, to be honest. So- When you say back into your arms, I'm trying to picture,
[00:22:04] Emma Pickett: are you, were you co-sleeping with her? Are you sitting in a chair?
[00:22:07] Alice: Where is everyone? No, I, I've never really co-slept with Asha.
Um, uh, she, it's honestly, it's really uncomfortable. I sit on the floor next to her toddler bed on a cushion, and so I just sit on the floor with her in my arms. She gets out of her bed, she climbs into my arms, and then I, once she's asleep, put her back into the bed again
[00:22:27] Emma Pickett: So she wakes, you hear her call, you go through, you sit on the cushion.
You... I hope you've got a really good cushion. Yeah. You need the best.
[00:22:34] Alice: No.
[00:22:35] Emma Pickett: No? Someone- I'm gonna come round your house with one ... I need a cushion right now. Okay, no, no, that's unacceptable. Everyone who loves you should be buying you the best cushion. Um, okay, so we'll, I'll put that to one side and resist the urge to rush up to Liverpool with a cushion.
So you're holding her, you're transferring her while she's asleep. You were transferring her when you were pregnant? That must have been a bit tough.
[00:22:55] Alice: I did to start with, yes. And then when I got bigger, I said, um, I started saying, "I'm sorry, I can't, I, I can't pick you up anymore." So she'd sit, she'd lie on my arm for a little bit, she'd get really sleepy, and then when she was almost asleep, then I'd say to her, "I need you to get back in the bed now."
So she'd climb back into the bed, and she'd fall asleep there, um, with me still sitting with her. Um, so we started doing that, and then eventually I got so big I couldn't do it anymore, and I would just sit on the floor next to her or lie down on the floor next to her, and she would go back in her bed. Um, and sometimes I'd sing her to sleep, but sometimes we'd just lie there together silently, and that was enough for her to go back to sleep.
[00:23:32] Emma Pickett: So you're walking backwards and forwards to settle her while pregnant in the middle of the night. That's pretty impressive, I have to say. I'm kind of amazed that you managed, you managed to function. And when Kaida was born, were you still going through to settle Asha in
[00:23:46] Alice: her room? No, it, it's Brendan, my husband now, who goes because Asha still wakes up, um, sometimes.
In fact, it was when she started school, the wake-ups got worse because she was sleeping through most of the time, and then she started school before Kaida was born, and she stopped sleeping through, and she started waking up again. So now it's pretty much always Brendan. Unless I've just settled Kaida and know that she's gonna be asleep for a little while, then I'll go in with Asha sometimes.
But otherwise, it's Brendan who goes in with her, and they lie on the floor together and have a cuddle together, and then he's got to carry her into her bed when-
[00:24:21] Emma Pickett: Okay ...
[00:24:22] Alice: when she falls asleep. So now
[00:24:22] Emma Pickett: I'm thinking about what Brendan's lying on on the floor. Do I need to
[00:24:25] Alice: add to my or- There's nothing on. Yeah.
[00:24:27] Emma Pickett: Okay, when I or- get the cushion order sorted, we're gonna get him a little- ... decent camping mattress as well. Okay.
[00:24:32] Alice: We're actually, um, we are this weekend transitioning her to her big girl single bed in a new room, and we're hoping that that's gonna make a difference. Um, and at the very least, we can at least get into the bed with her and co-sleep with her in the bed instead of sleeping on the floor.
[00:24:48] Emma Pickett: Okay. Yeah, that sounds good. Um, so yeah, so a little bit of a flag wave here for how you can night wean in the most gentle, gentle way and still not necessarily get a child that sleeps through the night- Oh, yeah ... and still get a child that wakes at 4:00, at nearly 5:00. Yeah. That you can still have a child that wakes, and that's absolutely normal.
[00:25:06] Alice: That had been my fear. That's why we didn't, I didn't consciously try to night wean because I think Brendan suggested it and was like, "We've got, you've got to stop the breastfeeding at night because this is, this is causing her to wake up." And I was saying to her, "That's not true." I, I was saying to him, sorry, "That's not true.
I've-" been, you know, like on the milk group, I've been seeing other people talking about this as well, and I've been reading things and listening to podcasts, and it's not the case that stopping breastfeeding is gonna stop the night wake ups. It might just remove my ability to get her to sleep quickly. Um, so that's why I haven't done it deliberately or consciously, and then my fears were born out.
[00:25:49] Emma Pickett: I'd love to tell you about my four most recent books. So we've got The Story of Jessie's Milkies, which is a picture book from two to six-year-olds that really tells the story of little Jessie and how his breastfeeding journey may come to an end in one of three different ways. Maybe there'll be a new baby sister, maybe his mom will need to practice parent-led weaning, maybe he'll have a self-weaning ending.
It's a book that helps your little people understand that there are lots of different ways breastfeeding journeys might end, that we're there to support them through all of them, and also, we sometimes have needs too. Also on endings, we have Supporting the Transition from Breastfeeding, which is a guide to weaning that really talks through how to bring breastfeeding to a close in a way that protects your emotional connection with your child.
There are also chapters on different individual situations, like weaning an older child when they're still a baby feeding, weaning in an emergency, weaning in a special needs situation. Then we have Supporting Breastfeeding Past the First Six Months and Beyond. That's really a companion to sit alongside you as you carry on breastfeeding through babyhood and beyond.
What are the common challenges, and how can we overcome them? And let's hear some stories about other people who've had a natural term breastfeeding journey. Then we have The Breast Book, which is a puberty guide for nine to 14-year-olds. It talks about how breasts grow. It answers common questions. It talks about what breastfeeding is.
I talk about bras. I really want to leave a little person feeling confident and well-informed as breasts enter their lives. So if you want to buy any of those books, I am eternally grateful. If you want to buy one of the supporting books, you can go to the Jessica Kingsley Press website. That's uk.jkp.com.
Use the code MMPE10 to get 10% off. And if you have read one of those books and you can take a moment to do an online review, I would be incredibly grateful. It really, really makes a difference. And as you can tell from the fact I'm making this advert, I have no publicity budget. Thank you.
Let's go back in time to before you had Asher, and you are trying for a family, and you are working as a doctor. Tell us a bit, bit about your work, first of all. When you say public health doctor, what actually are you working in?
[00:28:09] Alice: So at the moment I'm in public health training, so I'm a registrar, and I'm on placement.
At the moment, I'm on an academic placement at the University of Liverpool. Back then, though, so I used to be a surgeon, so I was working as a surgeon for six years, and then I actually became really unhappy, and I quit medicine altogether, and I got a job in a local authority looking after kind of clinical care and care homes.
So when I was trying for Asher and when I was pregnant with Asher, I was in that job, so I wasn't a doctor at that time, um, which made things a lot easier, especially with like trying to manage my blood sugars to a good enough level for pregnancy while working as a surgeon was completely impossible.
[00:28:50] Emma Pickett: Can I ask you, actually, I'm gonna ask you a really nerdy question, and obviously my knowledge of surgery is heavily influenced by American television.
When you're doing a surgery, um, and you're a Type 1 diabetic, I mean, t- twenty years ago it was even more impossible, but, um, do you have clever sensory things and clever insulin, um, inject-- auto-injectors and things? What- Yeah ... what's keeping you functioning in that situation?
[00:29:16] Alice: Um, so I did have a sensor, um, for some of the time, not, not always.
Um, I got a sensor while I was working as a surgeon, so initially I was just doing finger pricks, and I'd do a finger prick before theater and hope that it was okay, and then hope that it remained okay for the entire operation, and then I'd check it again when I came out, and that was all I could do. I did then get a sensor a little bit later, and sometimes I would ask, like, the OD team, the operation, um, department team, I would ask someone in the room to look at my phone to tell me what my blood sugar was, um, especially if I was feeling a bit funny during theater.
I had an insulin pump, but I couldn't touch it because I was scrubbed, and it would be usually in my bra because scrubs don't really have enough pockets for your pump to fit in. Um, and there were times during an operation where my consultant would say to me, "You're aware that your breast is beeping?"
Because it would be my-- my pump would just be beeping or it would be alarming me or vibrating or something, and it's incredibly distracting, and no one could touch it because I'm scrubbed. So I would just have to cope with it until I got out, and if I had a hypo during theater, then I would have to de-scrub and eat something and then sometimes scrub back in or sometimes someone else would take over for me.
So I'd usually try and eat something sugary before an operation to try and reduce that risk, which was one of the reasons I was actually so awful while I was working as a surgeon, 'cause I was prioritizing the job over my diabetes Yeah. Yeah.
[00:30:49] Emma Pickett: Lots of things to think about.
[00:30:50] Alice: Yeah.
[00:30:51] Emma Pickett: So you were doing your care home job-
[00:30:54] Alice: Yeah
[00:30:54] Emma Pickett: while you were trying for Asher, and that obviously was, I'm guessing
[00:30:56] Alice: mostly based-
[00:30:57] Emma Pickett: Yeah ... or was
[00:30:57] Alice: there
[00:30:57] Emma Pickett: travel as well?
[00:30:59] Alice: Uh, no. Well, it was during COVID as well, so it was working from home completely. I didn't meet any of my colleagues until after my maternity leave because, uh, I started the job during CO- like, when COVID first started.
So I was working from home entirely, which makes it a lot, lot easier from a blood sugar management point of view, and also in pregnancy risks from that point of view as well. I was just working from home the whole time.
[00:31:22] Emma Pickett: Okay. One more doctorly, medically question.
[00:31:25] Alice: Yeah.
[00:31:25] Emma Pickett: Tell us about how much lactation education you got as part of your training to be a doctor.
[00:31:30] Alice: I do not recall any lactation training I think the concept of breasts making milk was mentioned once during some breast surgery teaching. Uh, and I think that's probably about it. We had absolutely nothing. I knew nothing from a medical perspective. Everything I knew was from a layperson perspective.
[00:31:51] Emma Pickett: Wowzers. Okay. So even as a surgeon, nothing on abscess, nothing on mastitis, nothing on ...
[00:31:58] Alice: We had stuff on mastitis and abscess from the perspective of, you-- So you have to be aware, um, of the difference, like when someone is lactating or the risks, um, when someone's lactating about how mastitis develops and how you treat it differently when you've got an abscess and what you need to do.
But it was, it was very little. There was nothing about supporting the woman to continue to breastfeed. Nothing about that. It was all from a very surgical perspective.
[00:32:27] Emma Pickett: Okay.
[00:32:27] Alice: And there was certainly nothing about what medications can do, what's safe, what about, um, you know, anesthesia or, or scans with contrast or anything like that.
We didn't learn a single thing-
[00:32:39] Emma Pickett: Okay ...
[00:32:40] Alice: on that.
[00:32:40] Emma Pickett: So nothing you would describe as breastfeeding supportive-
[00:32:43] Alice: No ...
[00:32:43] Emma Pickett: um, or helping somebody in that situation as a patient to maintain lactation or anything around that?
[00:32:49] Alice: No, definitely not.
[00:32:50] Emma Pickett: But breastfeeding was something you knew you wanted to do. What were your personal feelings around breastfeeding when you were pregnant?
[00:32:55] Alice: Yeah, I, um, I knew I wanted to breastfeed. I actually sort of became a bit obsessed with the idea. I think I was like, "This is so important." Um, I knew that it, um, it's linked to a reduced risk of type one diabetes, and the idea of my children getting this is my worst possible nightmare. So, um, I desperately wanted to breastfeed from that perspective as well.
Um, but also it was kind of... It was a bit of a given for me. My mom breastfed me and my two younger sisters, so I remember my mom breastfeeding my two sisters. She breastfed me for a year, my middle sister for two years, and my youngest sister for three years. So it was always... And, and to be honest, my mom's attitude previously had been, "If you're not breastfeeding, you're, you're doing something wrong."
She was very-- She was so pro- Oh, wow. Okay ... pro-breastfeeding to the, to the extent of kind of looking down on people who formula fed, to be completely honest. Gosh. Okay. And when I had Asha, um, and my breastfeeding to start with was very difficult, she started suggesting that I switch to formula, and she's kind of changed her attitude a little bit, I think, and been a bit less militant about it.
Okay. Just watching you struggle just changed that. Okay. I think so. I think so a bit. Yeah. But, um, so, so I was kind of always exposed to breastfeeding, and I was like, "Yes, that's absolutely what I'm doing." And I knew medically, I was researching stuff, and I knew medically it was, it was going to be the best possible thing for my child, and I was just so intent that I wanted to make it work.
I wanted it to happen. So it, yeah, it was really, really important to me.
[00:34:29] Emma Pickett: Okay. You mentioned that you had a C-section with Asha. Tell us a bit about your birth and, and early breastfeeding.
[00:34:35] Alice: Of course. This, this is not an advert, a good advert for breastfeeding, to be honest with you. It's disaster after disaster.
Um-
[00:34:43] Emma Pickett: Hey, you're breastfeeding a nearly five-year-old, Alice. I think, I think it's a p- we, we know the sp- the spoiler alert is it worked out, but,
[00:34:50] Alice: um- It did work out, yeah. So with my diabetes and Asha- I, I was going into NAU a lot with reduced movement. So I was getting checked out a lot and getting a lot of extra scans, because you have a lot of extra growth scans as well.
And then I started having, towards the end, I started having really bad hypos, uh, where my blood sugar was dropping really low and it didn't... I think I ate an entire cheese cake in one sitting without giving myself any insulin, and I didn't go high, and I was like, "This isn't right." And I went to NAU, and they said, and I knew the risks as well, that can be a sign of placental insufficiency.
And my induction, they were measuring her at 97th percentile anyway, so they wanted my induction quite early. So I was 36 past three when I went in. They said, "We're gonna induce you now." So I got a very, quite an early induction. It, it didn't progress at all. Um, and my diabetes was also managed atrociously.
Um, I had asked to keep control of my own blood sugars and was kind of denied that, and I didn't wanna be, I didn't wanna be like... It's really annoying when you get a patient who's also a doctor, and they're like, "Oh, I know best, so I want you to do this test on me and this test on me." Um, and I didn't wanna be that kind of patient, so I went along with what they said and gave them my control of my diabetes, and then I was hypo for eight hours straight, eating sweets constantly throughout my labor.
I barely had the energy to stay conscious, let alone to progress during my induction, my labor.
[00:36:25] Emma Pickett: So can I ask a dumb question? That was-- I can't imagine how it feels to give that control to someone else as an adult diabetic. It must feel horribly- Oh- ... disempowering in that moment. Yeah. Um, and they were just not doing a good job?
I mean, they didn't understand what they were
[00:36:37] Alice: looking for. They didn't understand what they did, they didn't understand the difference of pumps. The, they said that the, they told me to keep my insulin pump on, but they were also gonna put me on a drip. And I said, "Well, I've got two lots of fast-acting insulin going in.
I'm going to go low." And they said, "No, that's what the protocol said." And I did what they said, and I was hypo that entire time. I ended up turning my pump off, but their insulin in the drip was still too high, and it was still sending me low. And, um, my midwife actually tried to advocate for me, and she went out to the doctors and said, "Look, everything Alice said would happen with her sugars is happening.
She knows what she's doing. Please, she wants her control back. Can you give it back to her and take her off the drip and let her do it herself?" And they said, "No." And they wouldn't come and talk to me So I just remained on the drip feeling- Yuck ... incredibly disempowered and, and uncomfortable and just, and so out of it because I was so, because, because you do go out of it when your blood sugars low.
And then also going through the pain of an induction, which is incredibly intense as well.
[00:37:44] Emma Pickett: I'm so sorry, Alice. That, that sounds horrible. I'm just wondering, this wasn't like, you know, 1987 or something. I mean, this was like- Yeah ... you know, not, not even five years ago. I mean-
[00:37:53] Alice: Yeah ...
[00:37:54] Emma Pickett: was it because of COVID people were being weird?
I mean, I can't, I don't think we can put that excuse on it. Um-
[00:37:59] Alice: I think it might have been partly. I think, um, I think there's been a bit of a push since then to empower patients with diabetic, with diabetes more. But at the time, I think I was also scared of doing anything wrong that might hurt the baby, and I didn't want the responsibility, um, of it being my fault.
So I was- Okay ... I was willing to sort of go along with it. I think the protocol, they either, I didn't actually read the protocol myself, but they had in the hospital, it was either wrong or they were wrong in their interpretation of it. But something, something went seriously wrong there, and the whole thing was, it was a, a horrible experience.
It was a disaster. And then I didn't, I didn't dilate beyond one centimeter after something like 36 hours. So- Oh, golly. I'm so sorry, Alice. That's a long time. It was, it was a horrible experience. But we, we got through, and we ended up going for an emergency section, which, on a Sunday evening, which was like my worst possible nightmare.
That's what I really didn't want. But I had my C-section, and she was born, and she was healthy, and she didn't go hypo. Her blood sugars were fine. She was well, but she wouldn't latch. And I was like, I didn't know enough. I'd had one, like, NCT session that was all about position and latch, and I was like, "Well, I know the position, so this is gonna be fine."
And then I got the right position, and she just wouldn't latch on. Um, but she was premature. She'd been born by emergency C-section.
[00:39:32] Emma Pickett: Yeah.
[00:39:33] Alice: Her mouth was very small. She's tiny. I had flat nipples at the time, which I since, like they're no longer flat after five years of breastfeeding. But at the time they were flat, and that made it harder for her as well.
And we just couldn't get her to latch on. And I remember that first night- Desperately trying to feed her, aware that they were gonna be checking her blood sugar because I'm scared that they were gonna go low, and that they'd take her to NICU away from me. And her not latching, and me crying to the midwives, "What do I do?
I don't know what to do. She hasn't fed in hours. Should I give her formula? I've brought formula with me just in case. I really wanna breastfeed, but should I just give her some formula?" And I remember the midwife kind of shrugging her shoulders and saying, "Well, you can, but it might make it hard, bit harder for you later."
And I said, "Okay, well, then can you tell me what to do? 'Cause I don't know." Can I have some information, please? Yeah. I was like, "I don't know what to do. Do I, do I start her or in the hopes that I will be able to breastfeed her later, or do I give her formula now?" And she just shrugged and said, "I don't know.
It's up to you." And it was j- it was just the most horrible thing. Um, so I ended up giving her some formula in a cup, um, and had a midwife, a student midwife on either side of me, each expressing my, like, colostrum, hand expressing colostrum from my breast so that we could try and give her that as well. And I said, she was really struggling to latch, and I said, "Can someone look and see if she's got a tongue tie?"
And I think someone kind of glanced in very briefly and said, "No, she's fine." So I just, I said, "Okay, I'll trust you," and I just continued. Um, we started triple feeding, and I wasn't really... Again, I didn't know enough, so I wasn't really given an exit strategy. And I just, even after she started feeding properly, I continued to pump when I got home, got oversupply, was really struggling with that as well.
So it was, it just, it was like one thing after another that went a bit
[00:41:25] Emma Pickett: disastrously. Gosh, there's a lot to contend with there. Yeah. So for anyone who's listening, a 36-weeker, Catherine Stagg, IBCLC, just talks about these great pretenders. You know, we think, "Oh, not that premature. Come on, 36 weeks." But actually, that, that sort of late pre-term, nearly term window can sometimes mean that these are the babies that kind of fall through the cracks- Mm-hmm
because they don't necessarily have the oomph to breastfeed or, or the buccal fat pads to create that, that negative pressure. Um, and it can be really challenging.
[00:41:53] Alice: Yeah, that was definitely my experience. And then it turned out that we, we have, in the hospital, we have family breastfeeding support, but because of COVID, they couldn't come out in person.
So we had a video call, and over the video call they said, "Yeah, she does have a tongue tie. We'll refer you to the tongue tie clinic." And then she did have a tongue tie, and once we got that snipped, that did make things a bit easier, but I was still kind of struggling. And partly 'cause we had oversupply, and I had to do block feeding to try and reduce that.
She went through a four-month period where she only would feed if I was standing up, and I have no idea why. But I had four months of standing up feeds exclusively. This is at nighttime as well? Oh, no, it was at nighttime. When she was asleep, she'd feed with me sitting down. If she was, like, half asleep, then she would.
But during the day, it was always standing up. And then I remember recording a video. I was thinking, I need to get some- lactation consultant support 'cause I'm struggling. Um, I've recorded a video to send to someone at seven months because I was still really struggling, but we were at, by this point, exclusively breastfeeding at least.
And then suddenly something just clicked, and it got easier at seven months. I don't know why, but suddenly at seven months everything got easier, and since then breastfeeding's been lovely
[00:43:11] Emma Pickett: Great. So she was prepared to sit, let you sit down at Waffle once. Yeah. Yeah, that standing up thing I, I've, I've heard that before.
I've heard there's, there's, I think some babies just go into this hyper, hyper, really e-excited about the world distractibility mode- Yeah ... and sitting down is boring. I can't see stuff. Yeah. Get up. Um- Yeah ... I, I wanna be able to look around, um, and when we're walking and standing, they just have a little bit more visual stimulation, and they just get into this kind of habit that can be tricky.
[00:43:40] Alice: Yeah.
[00:43:40] Emma Pickett: Um, yeah, it's, uh, yeah, breast refusal when it happens can be super scary. You can just feel so trapped again. Um, and you just don't wanna go out or risk anything happening, and those naps become super important because it's a time you can guarantee they're gonna feed, and it's, it's really difficult.
How, how are you getting on with managing your diabetes in those first few months? Was that, did that fall into place? W- was it tricky because of the overproduction and managing your supply?
[00:44:05] Alice: Yeah. It was, um, to be honest, my, it, after you have to kind of manage your diabetes incredibly intensely during pregnancy.
So once she was born, and I didn't have to worry about her health anymore, I was like, "I, I just don't care. I'm just gonna let it do whatever it does," and didn't really concentrate on my diabetes at all. And my diabetes consultant was really supportive when I had my first clinical appointment with him after Asha was born, and he said, "You've got more important things to worry about.
Just take a break from your diabetes. It will be fine." So I went hypo quite a lot because making milk u- you just lose a lot of sugar. Um, and I'm, and I've been finding that with Tido as well. I have a lot of hypos, but it's a lot easier to manage sugars during breastfeeding than it is during pregnancy. So it feels like a respite by comparison anyway.
[00:44:57] Emma Pickett: Yeah. So seven months before things got easier. You were obviously a very determined woman. At what point did you return to being a doctor?
[00:45:05] Alice: Three and a half years ago, I think it was, that I went back to being a doctor, but this time as public health, so I wasn't clinical anymore, so I was still office-based.
Um, and it was more similar to my local authority job and made things a lot, like, easier for me. In public health for obvious reasons, they're quite understanding about breastfeeding moms, so they were a lot more kind of relaxed about me needing to, like, get home to feed or, um, or if I needed to pump or anything, they were a lot more, a lot happier, um, than surgery would've been certainly.
[00:45:43] Emma Pickett: Yeah. Yeah. How did you find the experience of, of restarting work and, and Asha having childcare?
[00:45:49] Alice: Um, it did stress me out, and I suggested to my, the nursery, the n- uh, her nursery was right next to my office, which was really handy at the time when she started at one year. Um, and I said to them, "Can I come in my lunch break to give her a feed?"
Um, and they said, "No, that'll make things worse. That might be really hard"- Um, you can give her some expressed milk if you like, and we can give her that, but it'll make it really difficult for her if you're coming in and going out again, so we wouldn't recommend that. They said, you know, you can if you really want to, but we wouldn't recommend it.
So I didn't do that. Uh, by that time she was a year, so I didn't give her expressed milk. I just let her move on to, um, cow's milk. But she completely refused bottles by this point, and would just have it from an open cup. That's all. She said, "I had, never had bottles." And then we would have the most epic feed of all feeds when we got home after nursery and work, and she would shout, "Feed on," at me as soon as she was able to speak.
Um-
[00:46:50] Emma Pickett: It's funny she'd say feed on 'cause there was an Association of Breastfeeding Mothers campaign called Feed On, which I was involved
[00:46:55] Alice: in- Really? ... so
[00:46:56] Emma Pickett: every time I now see a picture of Feed On with a hashtag, I'm gonna think of Ash.
[00:47:00] Alice: That's so funny. It, it, um, it's both a noun and a command. Yeah. Like, baby can I have a feed on?
But it's also, when she sees me, she'll just point at me and go, "Feed on." And, uh, it's gotta be, it's gotta be straight away then.
[00:47:16] Emma Pickett: Oh, bless her. And then tell me about, um, Kaiya's birth. How did that go? And you mentioned you were in hospital for a few days afterwards, so-
[00:47:22] Alice: Yeah, Kaiya's birth was remarkably similar.
Um, we were, later I had, because of my experience the first time, I was a lot better at advocating for myself, and I said, "I refuse to be induced before 38 weeks. It's not happening." And I said, "If you want to do it earlier than that, then I want a C-section, elective C-section, so this lot will be a straddle."
Um, they agreed to let me go to 38 weeks, so we did, but I also had a failed induction that time, and I just didn't progress. I'm two centimeters this time, so a little bit better. If I manage to get to my 10th baby, then I might fully dilate it by that one, but, um- When you say
[00:47:58] Emma Pickett: failed induction, I just think it's your body going, "Nope."
[00:48:01] Alice: Yeah.
[00:48:01] Emma Pickett: If you want this baby, you have to flipping come in and get it.
[00:48:04] Alice: Exactly. That is basically what my body was doing, yeah. So it didn't work. This time I retained control of my epidural, and that was a hard line.
[00:48:13] Emma Pickett: Was it the same, same hospital?
[00:48:14] Alice: Same hospital, but this time I had a lot of antenatal support, which I demanded, and I had a very clear birth plan which specifically said, "You are not to touch my epidural.
This is me only." Um, I literally said, "If I am comatose, then you ask my husband to do it first, and if he doesn't feel comfortable, then you may take over. But other than that, I am doing this myself." So that was better. My blood sugars were better this time because I was the one in control of it. So it was a horrible induction, but it wasn't as horrible.
And again, just didn't progress. We went for an emergency C-section And I felt slightly more confident with the first feed because I was like, well, I'm gonna go find bainne mhoth for Char, 'cause I thought she's 10 now, so that helps. And I know much more about what I'm doing this time, so that definitely helps.
And then we tried that first feed in the recovery room after the C-section, and she wouldn't latch. Um, and my husband said he could see the, like, horror in my face when that happened. He could see me panic immediately because I was like, "Oh my God, this is just like last time. This is gonna be, it's gonna be the same all over again.
I can't deal with it." And he was then trying to calm me down. He sort of like just, he could see that I needed kind of support because I was immediately, I just went into panic mode. So we gave her colostrum, and I was feeling incredibly deflated. Then her blood sugar's dropped, and she had to go to NICU.
But then when she was in NICU, I was, um, I said, "I need to establish breastfeeding." So they said, "Okay, so come over every three hours. We're gonna actually feed her every three hours." And then she just latched, and even though she was covered in tubes and with her, her, um, drips and everything, she-- we were able to latch, and she was able to feed, and it was just a sense of relief.
It was just like euphoric. So thank God this is working out, and she's been an epic feeder since then, and every feed's been really, really nice and easy. She does want me to stand up a lot like her big sister, but, but she does feed a lot, lot better, so.
[00:50:23] Emma Pickett: Okay. Yay. Go, Ida. Yeah.
[00:50:26] Alice: Yeah.
[00:50:26] Emma Pickett: Gosh.
[00:50:27] Alice: She's going
[00:50:27] Emma Pickett: so well.
Just the way you describe your husband looking at your face and seeing that, that look of horror come across your face is so vivid. I mean, I can just imagine you thought, "Oh, my God, am I gonna be doing this for seven months," and battles and triple feeding and- Yeah ... tongue-ties and... So I'm so glad that that wasn't the case.
[00:50:43] Alice: But this time with an older child to look after as well. I'm like, "I don't think I
[00:50:46] Emma Pickett: can
[00:50:47] Alice: do it. I don't know how I'm gonna do this."
[00:50:49] Emma Pickett: Yeah. Yeah. I mean, triple feeding is a nightmare for anybody, but triple feeding while you're looking after a, a young, other young child is just, it's just not gonna
[00:50:57] Alice: happen,
[00:50:57] Emma Pickett: realistically.
[00:50:58] Alice: No. No, no. Exactly.
[00:51:00] Emma Pickett: Yeah. So she stayed in NICU for a few days.
[00:51:02] Alice: She was only, she was actually only in there for 24 hours. Um, they were really impressed. They were like, "You are a super feeder because her blood sugar's coming up." They were like, "We've taken her off the sugar drip really quickly, and she's, her blood sugar's come up, and she's doing really well."
So they were really impressed. And actually, one of the pediatricians who was there was one of the admins of Milk. Um, so- Oh, okay ... that was actually really helpful 'cause one of the first times I fed her in NICU, she came over, and she had a look at my latch, and she was like, "This looks great. Your position looks great.
The latch looks really good." She gave me a little bit of advice, and that was just like the most incredible kind of bespoke support that you don't normally get, which was amazing. So that really helped. So we got out of NICU after 24 hours, but then she was jaundiced, so she had to be under the light from the incubator, and she absolutely hated it in the incubator, hated the light, hated having to wear the eye mask.
Um, so she was crying constantly, and I kept taking her out to feed her to calm her down And in the end, she was barely under the lights. I think we just, we managed her jaundice by just flushing it out by feeding constantly. Um, and that, that felt, having had such a difficult go first time around, I felt so proud of us that I'd fed her, I'd fed the jaundice away.
[00:52:19] Emma Pickett: Yeah.
[00:52:20] Alice: That we didn't even really use the lights, it was just, it was just feeding that fixed it. That felt so good.
[00:52:25] Emma Pickett: Yeah, I bet. Good for you. Okay, so now here you are with a five-month-old, and what's your plan with work? Are you going to go back to work at some point-
[00:52:34] Alice: Yeah ...
[00:52:34] Emma Pickett: relatively soon?
[00:52:35] Alice: I'm going back, um, when she's one year old in November.
Okay. That's my plan. So, uh, and part of the reason I wanted to wait until she was one year was so that I wouldn't have to worry about pumping loads to give to, um, the nursery for her, that by the time she goes to nursery she can have cow's milk, and when she's there, and then just feed from me when she's at home.
So, so that is our plan. Uh, I tried pumping a couple of times, um, so, so that essentially so that my husband can give her a bottle, but we've never actually bothered 'cause feeding's just been going really well, so we've kind of just left, left it as it is.
[00:53:14] Emma Pickett: Brilliant. And in the same way that Asha is pretty much in charge of her own endings, is that what you're planning with, with Kyra as well?
[00:53:20] Alice: Yeah, I think, yeah. Now that, especially now that I've seen how beautifully it can go, I feel so proud of us that we, that we've weaned with Asha or sort of semi-weaned with Asha on entirely on her terms. It's been entirely her deciding, and we're both very happy and comfortable with it. And having had that, like, incredible experience, I would really love to try and have that again.
And I also feel like- I don't think Kaida's as obsessed as Asha was. Asha was a bit of a boob fiend, and I think that's partly because we had so many difficulties that it was like, like I was constantly shoving a boob in her mouth because I was like, "Well, I've gotta make this work. I've gotta make this work."
And it was so difficult for those first seven months. And I think it was partly my obsession that kind of transferred into her and made her so, so obsessed with breastfeeding. And I think potentially because things have been a lot easier with Kaida, I'm wondering if maybe she won't be quite as attached, and it might
Maybe it won't go on as long, maybe it will. I don't know. But either way, I'm happy to just go with what she wants to
[00:54:28] Emma Pickett: do.
[00:54:28] Alice: See how she feels.
[00:54:28] Emma Pickett: Yeah. Yeah. No, that's interesting. I wonder, do we make booby monsters? That sounds like a PhD subject, which pr- probably needs to be titled slightly more academic. Um, so you mentioned that you didn't co-sleep with, with Asha, and you haven't co-slept with Asha.
What about Kaida? Are you
[00:54:43] Alice: co-sleeping? I'm co-sleeping quite a bit with her. She's, she is not, she doesn't sleep well. She, she's not, um, going down very often. And we tend to start off, the first half of the night is in her cot. Um, and she'll have a couple of feeds in the night when she wakes up and go back to sleep.
And then halfway through the night, about 4:00 AM, she stops going back in the cot, and then I'll co-sleep with her. Asha was never able to feed side on, like lying down. Asha could never get the hang of that, but Kaida has been able to do that. So it sort of felt like there was no benefit to co-sleeping with Asha 'cause I'd still have to get up to feed her anyway.
Whereas with Kaida, we've got, we've got that magic trick up our sleeve that we can use as well.
[00:55:24] Emma Pickett: Okay. Yeah, that makes sense. Thank you so much, Alice, for your time today. I really, really appreciate you, you sharing your story and, and talking so openly and honestly about everything you've been through. Um, you're a w- breastfeeding legend, um, with all the challenging.
I mean, seven months of struggles, that in itself me- means you deserve a medal. But, um, it's just so lovely to hear how, how Asha's coming to an end of her, with her breastfeeding journey. Um, is there anything we haven't talked about that you want to make sure we mention?
[00:55:51] Alice: I think actually the only thing that I was thinking was that, um, Asha is obviously at school and, um, I know that, I know you like mentioned this previously that like the worries about breastfeeding someone at school and I've seen people like post online about it, and I've been so impressed by how mature Asha is.
She doesn't talk about it very often, but if anyone asks, she's quite happy to say, "Yeah, that's how I get milk. That's how I have milk. I've had it like that. I still like it sometimes." She's not embarrassed by it, but she doesn't shout about it either. So-- And I talk to the other mums in the playground about it, and no one's, no one's been negative.
No one's like kind of said, "Oh, don't you think there's something a bit dodgy about that?" It's just, she's just been really confident, and her friends, some of her friends who haven't been around breastfeeding people so much, when they've seen Kaida breast- One of her friends recently saw Kaida breastfeeding, and she went, "Oh my God, she's eating you."
And I said, "No, no, she's not. I'm making milk. It's milk that she's getting." She was just completely oblivious. And, uh, and then Asha explained to her. She was like, "No, she has milk from mommy's boob. I used to have it like that all the time, and I have it sometimes, and it's lovely." And Asha was the one who explained to her friend, and I was just-
[00:57:07] Emma Pickett: Oh, bless her.
[00:57:08] Alice: Yeah, I'm so impressed. We
[00:57:09] Emma Pickett: need to, we need to get Asha on a national campaign. That sounds like a- Sounds
[00:57:12] Alice: like
[00:57:12] Emma Pickett: she's a great advocate for, for breastfeeding. Yeah, it's, it's really special to hear how confident she is. That's, that's fantastic, and that's, you have credit for that. You and Brendan have credit for that, so that's- Thank you
that's really special.
[00:57:24] Alice: Thank you.
[00:57:25] Emma Pickett: Brilliant. Thank you so much for your time today, Alice. I'd love to hear how things end with Asha and, and- Yeah ... what, what happens next in your journey with Kaida, so, so keep me updated, and thank you so much for your time today.
[00:57:35] Alice: Thank you. Thanks for having me.
[00:57:41] Emma Pickett: Thank you for joining me today. You can find me on Instagram @emmapicketibclc and on Twitter @makesmilk. It would be lovely if you subscribe because that helps other people to know I exist, and leaving a review would be great as well. Get in touch if you would like to join me to share your feeding or weaning journey, or if you have any ideas for topics to include in the podcast.
This podcast is produced by the lovely Emily Crosby Media