Fed is Best | Parents discuss breastfeeding, pumping and bottles

Pros and Cons of our mixed feeding experience with our babies... The BOOBS episode! This is the one where Emma and Elliot chat about  their feeding journey, the positives and the challenges - now having experience with our two daughters of all possible options: breastfeeding, formula, expressing milk, bottle feeding, and mixed feeding! We rant about poor advice we were given first time around, nipple shields, how Emma's finding breastfeeding, routines, and how attitudes have changed.

PLUS give updates on how life is going with a newborn and toddler since our last episode.

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Find parenting resources, Elliot's faith & spirituality projects and more on our website:
www.kairosmovement.org.uk/dontwakethebaby/

Unwind on sleepless nights to a wholesome mix of parenting stories, quirky humour, and cosy crafting. We’re not here to provide answers but to share our experiences, explore how parenting has changed, and build an online community of parents for mutual support.

A fun, honest and unscripted conversation between Emma and Elliot on non-judgemental parenting and millennial-based topics, as we relax on an evening attempting an artistic or creative activity. 

We are a project in partnership with The Kairos Movement and supported by The Methodist Church, of which The Kairos Movement is a part

Chapters

• 0:00 Introduction
• 3:25 Parenting Achievements
• 7:20 Main conversation part 1
• 25:00 Ad break
• 29:05 Main conversation part 2
• 48:10 Life updates

Transcript

  So Emma, what are we talking about today? Today we're talking about our feeding experiences, the positives and the challenges. 

This episode is called Fed is Best. 

That's the intro music, so it must mean it's another time for a conversation on your favourite podcast. You know what's going on, you know the deal. It's the show for sleep deprived parents. Unwind with us chatting about funny stories and the realities of babies, toddlers and preschoolers. Welcome to Okun's Trading Post.

Sit with us in the sauna on this cold December day. That's cute. That's good. I was worried you were going to say it's a bit weird because  in the film Frozen they do sit in the sauna naked. But they're all related, they're all a little family. Yeah. I mean, maybe it fits in because today we are talking about boobs.

It's true. It's the main topic of conversation. It's the booby episode  and not in the fun way.  Anyway, I'm Elliot. I'm a quarter of the Crippin Clan and half your host. That is true. I'm also a quarter of the Crippin Clan and half a host. Oh, that's true. It's the same. It's the same. Same sies.  We've grown to a family of four, um, so we have us two, and we have our two daughters, Lily and Lola.

We thought we'd share a little factoid, as we always do, about some of our nicknames. Yeah. Yeah, so Lily and Lola, our daughters, have ended up with little nicknames of Lil and Lo. I call them Chicken and Kitten. And I don't know why. Yeah, these aren't ones that I've adopted. Um, but. Yeah. Whenever I'm like, ah, come here.

Lily's always little chicken. Um, and because I don't know why. Our families have a collective name. So your family as a whole is known as the Wombles. They are. And so often we just refer to your side of the family. As the Wombles, yeah. And my side of the family has been Had the nickname Mere Kaz. Yeah. For a long time since I met you.

Um, so where Wombles are mere cats Yes. Named by your family. Yes. But I'm now technically a Meercat. Yes, of course. Because I'm married to you. You, you've married in, um, , but you know, like, obviously like the grandparents and things. We have, uh, your mum who's like Mrs. Womble. Yeah. And we have my parents who are Mr.

And Mrs. Meca. Yeah. Um, so, and my dad's farmer Bumbed because he was a farmer. Yeah. . Yeah. So like these names are used in like, very much every day. Oh yeah.  And it's hard sometimes when you talk to people outside of the bubble of people who know. Yeah, yeah. And you'll be talking, you'll be like, oh yeah, on the Womble chat.

And they're like, Womble chat? And I'm like, oh yeah, my family chat. The group WhatsApp chat, the family one.  And then us personally, do we have nicknames? Oh, we definitely did before children. I don't know you so many more. Yeah, I used to always refer to you as Wookie Cookie. Yes. Will you wriggle wiggle?  I've forgotten that.

Because he moves, this is gonna sound wrong, I was gonna say because he moves about in bed but I was meaning, when he's asleep, he does not just stay in one position. He has to like, Wriggle abound. Yeah, yeah, this is gonna be the episode that's full of like sort of weird euphemisms or, you know I said it. I was like, oh no, I've got to explain that.

It's not gonna sound good 

This is the six o'clock announcement that the parenting achievement has been Unlocked!  I really didn't know what was going to happen then. So our recurring segment where we dive into a funny story, a moment, a relatable thing, a parenting achievement that we've unlocked this week, um, there's various little things going on.

So rather than a big story, I thought we'd just run through a host of little, little things, little fails. But he knows I'm bad at this because I'm bad at being concise with a story. Yes, there are no tangents, Emma. It's not, this is concise.  See what we want.  Shall I go first? Go on then. Tell your story.

Right. Okay. Um, this was like three days ago. See, I'm already, I'm already adding to it. I don't need to tell you when it was. Just dive straight in. They don't need to know that. So I was, I was suddenly waking up kind of groggy. I feel like some pressure on my head. I feel this sticker stuck to my forehead.

So I pick it up and take it off. I open my eyes and there's Lily sat staring at me. I just looked at her and she was like, I'm keeping the sticker safe for Baba. And I was like, oh great. I'm like a sticker guardian, apparently, where you stick stuff in my head to keep a baba. And then I could hear Lola whining in her Moses basket, so I was like, oh, I'll go and look at her.

By her foot, just tucked under it, was a bottle of fruit shoot. And when I looked at Lily, why is this in here? What's it doing? Thought she might be hungry.  I think she was like, she heard the baby crying and she was like, Hmm, she must be thirsty. I'll give her my drink.  But thankfully she hadn't tried to feed her.

Yeah, yeah. She just popped it in, just left it in basket. In her basket. I'll pop it in there and see. She'll get it because that will clearly, that will help.  In last time's episode we, we talked about how Lily was coming in our bed and from that story you can probably tell that Lily is still sleeping our bed,

We've been very. Unsuccessful at getting her back in her own bed. Successful that she starts off now in her own bed. And lasts about an hour. Two hours tops. I've not even gone to sleep yet by the time she comes into our room. I think was it yesterday we had a terrible night going on trying to get her back because she wouldn't take her shoes off to get in our bed.

Yeah. So we were up a lot of the night because she was having a meltdown and I think we only got two. Yesterday I only got like three hours sleep.  So that was a bit of a parenting fail. But so far it's uh, yeah, we're making very, very slow progress. Slow progress. Slow but steady. Yeah. So just a funny thing we've noticed with Lily.

is that she changes her pronunciation of certain things depending who she's talking to. So if she's talking to Mama, she calls it a bath. If she talks to Baba, she calls it a bath. And I was like, she's so clever because she's picked up that we use these differently.  So I think in her head she's going, Hmm, well that's the way they say it, so I'll say it the same way so they can understand me.

I was also noticing the other day that, um, I mentioned it to you at the time, um, With Lily, our first child, first time around, we were very cautious, or we were very conscientious, is that the right word? About, uh, being gender neutral. Oh yeah. We didn't want to have any influences and like, we'd buy kind of gender, what's the word, um.

Yeah, we'd be like, oh, she's a girl but she doesn't have to like pink, so let's go for like. She can make her own choices about stuff. Boy colours as well. Unisex, that's the word I was looking for. Kind of unisex clothes. I feel like you could have used neutral as well. Yeah, yeah, yeah. All that stuff. We did an episode ages ago on gender roles and that kind of stuff.

And we're generally quite modern about all those sort of things. But, like, this time round, uh, that's not worked at all. Because we have a toddler in the house who's been Big into princesses and girly things and it's like just all about that So yeah, pretty much everything we own for Lola is pink. Yeah  Yes, people still people still go is it a girl or a boy yeah, yeah, um, which I mean, I mean it's it's good to do Okay, 

well keep burping that baby and hope they don't throw up on your shoulder and let's jump into some conversation today All about boobs! We're actually not, um,  exclusively. We're talking about all the different things. Uh, because now, second time around, we've basically covered everything. We have some experience of doing every different type of thing.

Yeah. So we're actually in a fairly good position to talk about it. It's true. There we go. I'm going to try and let you lead the conversation Emma, because I feel like this is a kind of woman focused, um, you know, topic, and I don't want to speak for you, and, you know. I am involved of course with a lot of it and I will make my, my voice known as I do, but I just want to kind of clarify up front because with Emma in charge, who knows where the conversation will go.

It might not even be about our breathing journey by the end of it. This is why I tend to steer the conversation rather heavy handedly because otherwise things do get off track.  But I will,  I will see what happens. Um, so do you have any thoughts about where we dive in? I'm gonna go from the like start of the very beginning.

Um, you know as Julie Andrews has  What's that Mary Poppins? Yeah, cool  I'm not not Mary Poppins. It's from the sound of music. Oh, so i'm not great with my old references  But anyway, I'm a modern Disney boy. I'm sorry. I'm sorry.  Anyway, I do enjoy the sound of music. Yeah, it's very good. We're getting off.

Right. Anyway, I'm sorry. That wasn't even my fault. Maybe this is my role this time. I'm going to be the tangent. So we start from like when we first had Lily. So that was our first born. I'm already annoyed about this in hindsight. Yeah. Yeah. First time round. I think I was just given really old fashioned and poor advice.

Yeah. So I'd had an emergency C section. If people have listened to the previous birth story, they can hear. Horrendous.  30 hours, not good. Had a huge rash all over my body, not pleasant. So I was already feeling like, not great, after having no sleep in 30 hours. And they immediately kind of like, get your boob out, put her on.

And Lily was having none of it. Because she was starving. She'd been like, in labour for 30 hours. I'd been in labour for 30 hours. Like,  it just wasn't, I hadn't got really any milk in. And she just was headbutting me and screaming and crying. It was a little while, you know, I was holding her for a while before you got out of surgery.

Yeah, because they had to remove my cyst as well, so. Yeah, so we couldn't even get her on your boob straight away. Which is like the golden hour or two hour window you should try to, um. And we didn't know what we were doing. No. Basically said to them, I'd like, I'd like some formula, and they were really, like, not keen on trying to give me formula.

It was like trying to ask, I don't know, for gold dust.  They were like, no, no, no, because you said you wanted breastfeed, and I was like, I know I said that, this is impossible. I can't do this. And they basically told me the lie of, oh, but if you use any formula, you can never breastfeed ever. That's it. Gone.

And even if some of them, you know, weren't as explicit as that, that was often the case. You know communicated in the tone and the body language and the like you say maybe maybe gold dust isn't quite right But like it's like asking for poison. They look at you like you want to poison your baby You're crazy.

And then I was like, oh, can I get a breast pump? And they're like, no, they want to give me a breast pump. I was like, well, how am I? She's not drinking from me. How am I going to do this? So in the end, I did get a breast pump for a bit and like made a minute amount of milk But it's not surprising is it because you were induced?

Yeah, you'd you'd You know, um, she clearly wasn't ready to come out. Yeah. So your body wasn't ready to produce milk. I think it's not an uncommon experience to have difficulty No. Um, with milk supply and there are ways to up your supply and everything, but one of those ways is pumping milk , which they really didn't want me to do.

Ah, dear. Um. So in hindsight, I was annoyed at that. I don't know if, like, they were all a bit more old fashioned, or they all had been told this thing of, you can only breastfeed and there is no other options. Again, I think it is a recurring issue with some of the narrative around a lot of this, that's slowly getting better, but I think it is recognized that over the past however many years, some of the massive drive for breastfeeding has actually been been having a negative impact and having the opposite effect to what they want.

Yeah, I think or anything it was really put me off breastfeeding because I was like, this is so much pressure and I, I don't feel like I, me and Lily aren't doing well at it. Yeah. Um, and she's just screaming all the time and I was like, I can't live like this. Yeah, yeah. This is another annoyance though, so I brought nipple shields with me that time around and the nurse was like no you can't use nipple shields, it causes nipple confusion and basically told me off for why I'd ever bring nipple shields and try and use them.

So I was like It's just, it's frustrating isn't it? I mean Because in hindsight,  you'll hear later but I've relied on them so heavily this time round and it's been so much more successful. A breastfeeding journey. Yeah. It's like night and day. Um, so I was annoyed they would And you were like, you know, as a vulnerable, first time mom who doesn't know what's Yeah, I was told basically like, oh yeah, well I would use them.

So I was like, oh God, okay. Yeah, fine. I won't use them. Yeah. Um, that was another bit. It takes quite a lot doesn't it? To, to kind of stand up to medical professionals and say, actually I think you're wrong. Like, I think especially, I didn't know they would work. I think had I had the experience of using. And again, um, I don't know how personal you want to go with this, but like, you've got very flat nipples.

I do have flat nipples. I don't want to comment, but one of my sisters, it was put in her notes when she was trying to breastfeed that that was a problem.  We did kind of take things into our own hand once we got home. We did. We got home and then they said You started pumping. Yeah. Yeah. So we were feeding her some of that.

One of the midwives came round and weighed her, and we're like, Oh, she's lost a lot of weight. Like, to the point where she'll be back in hospital. And at that point, I was like, right, screw this. Yeah. We're doing formula feeding. Yeah. And I'll keep just pumping milk. And I remember it was funny, the first few days of that, she was like, I mean it worked, obviously she was then drinking and like she put on weight and the formula was going really well.

And she was much calmer. But we were then really nervous to tell the midwives that we were doing formula. So I think the first few days we lied to them. We lied, yeah. And said, oh no, we're not doing formula. Or we were like, oh we're doing, you know, a bit of formula, but we're also breastfeeding. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

And then I remember,  Luckily, um, one of the midwives that came was my community midwife, and I liked her and I knew her, so then I was like, look, uh, we're formula feeding,  and I'm, like, pumping milk and we're giving her that too. And she was really nice.  Oh, and I forgot to say, with the added complication of this rash, I then was put on some steroid cream, which meant I wasn't allowed to, um, breastfeed anyway.

Oh, of course, of course, yeah, you weren't allowed to breastfeed. So, that, yeah. Yeah, yeah, there's all sorts of things like that, isn't there, where, you know, medication and things mean. That you wouldn't be able to use your milk. And it's just another, and it just, and then it feels annoying then again the added pressure that's put on women.

To kind of always be like, all women should breastfeed. Breastfeeding is best. And yeah, sure. You know, breast milk is, you know, is good. And it's particularly that early, what's the early stuff called? Was it just called your first milk? No, no, it's called something. Um,  Is it beginning with  colostrum? There you go.

Got it.  Um, so yeah, like we're not, we're not disputing the science of it, you know, clearly, but like there's all sorts of reasons why it might not always be possible. And I feel like I, I don't have this, but I know, like, seeing you go through it, that it puts a lot of mental strain on you. Yeah, and a lot of pressure on you to be like, oh, well, you can't do that.

Yeah. So you have failed because you can't do it. Yeah. Um. And I feel like you cope very well, because you are, you are very secure in yourself. And I'm very, and I always feel, Matter of fact, in that I'm like, is it worth killing myself trying to breastfeed when it's just becoming a horrendous situation?

And also then I couldn't anyway, so I was like, pfft.  Just to do the two stories maybe a little bit in parallel and we'll keep going in parallel. Maybe just to compare how things have gone on the internet. You know, up to that point with, with Lola and the differences as we go through the story. Okay, so Lola, much different experience.

People know, they've listened, planned c section, um, and this is about three years after I had Lily. Yeah. Um, so I don't know if the attitude's changed, but basically It might just be down to the individual midwives you know, getting As soon as I came out of, um, surgery, she was on me and, um, they were like, Oh, do you want to try and breastfeed?

There's no pressure. And I was like, sure. I'll try and breastfeed. Yeah. Once again, I didn't really have any milk. And immediately, one of the women was like, are you gonna use nipple shields? And I literally said, no. Well, I said, I might do. I said, but last time I was told to never use them. And she was going, Oh yeah, that did used to be the advice.

And she said it in a way that was like, Yeah, that was a mistake. Because I wanted to be like, so you're telling me I should use them, but I wanted to be like, I do have some. I have some at home because we never, like, threw them away from the first time, but  I was kind of, I was only to be like, so you think I should use them? 

Interesting. In hospital, we just formula fed.  I mean,  there's two kind of changes in there. One is the attitude and the way they were dealing with you, but equally, and maybe more importantly, you know, it was our second time around. We went in with, you know, knowledge about how it went. We were a lot more secure in standing up for ourselves.

We knew what we wanted and we could say, you know, directly and be confident in saying yeah we're going to mix feed we're going to bottle feed that's just what we're doing and they were really good about it yeah they should bring you bottles when you needed them they were really good in some ways the story is very similar so then we go back to  lily's story  people remember lily oldest i'll keep telling you so you know oh let's try forget it's Sometimes it's hard to keep track when it's not your own kids names, isn't it?

And also, Lily and Lola are quite similar names. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. Oh, sorry, that was See, I'm king of tangents today. This was the other parenting achievement I forgot to add in earlier in the conversation. I was searching, thinking, I'm sure there's a little extra one. Um, is that we keep, uh, in our sleep deprived state, Getting names muddled up and calling our baby Lily.

Yes, because the only baby we remember having is Lily. Yeah, and we're now maybe thinking, you know, having girls that were Lily and Lola  when you, when you've not had much sleep, it's quite tricky. Oh, somebody apologised the other day because, um, it was somebody at the nursery, they were a mum of another one, they were calling, um,  And she was like, I'm so sorry.

And I was like, no, don't. We do it all the time. We do it all the time. I'm so sorry to our children. If you're ever listening to this in the future. Sorry. We didn't mean to get your names muddled up. No.  So eventually, after I like, was off the cream from a terrible rash, we were doing, I feel at the time I'd been really diligently still pumping milk. 

Yeah. Just to keep my supply in because I knew I wanted to give her some breast milk. Mm. So basically at the end with Lily, we would pump and we would, um, formula feed.  Yeah. I think that's, it's called something but I can't remember what it is.  Double feeding?  I've no idea. You're asking me. I'm the, I'm the guy.

I know nothing. Yeah. I think it's called double feeding. Um. Which is, so we're  exclusively bottle feeding but it's a mix of formula and formula.  That's what I think it's called. I could be wrong. Feel free to call me if I say it's wrong. We always used to say mixed feeding. We did, yeah.  But we didn't do any breastfeeding because it just, it didn't work.

Whereas with  Lola, we are breastfeeding quite successfully, actually. Yeah. So, um, I don't know when it was. It was only a few days, I think, we were at home. And I'd started, um, pumping some milk. And I was like, oh, I've got a fair bit. I'll, I'll use my breast shields and see if she'll take. It was, I mean, it's also to, like, try and encourage your milk to come in.

It was, yeah. Um, but she, she was really quick at, um, latching. Like, she was really easy. Like, she'd just get irritated, but not. Like poor Lily would just scream the house down. Whereas Lola was quite quick at it. So how are you, how are you finding it? How are you feeling about breastfeeding? It's your first experience of breastfeeding.

It's very exciting.  Me and my sister, Becky, because she is also has a, um, baby. It's about three months older than Lola. We are so excited with both our breastfeeding journeys, even though she's fantastic at breastfeeding.  Don't, don't get me started. Um, we like send each other pictures. Cause I'll receive. I want, I want to take a lot of pictures and kind of be like, Oh, this is like a little success for me.

And it's really fantastic we can do this.  You can't send them to anybody. You can't put them on the family chat. Here's my boob. Here's me and my boob and the baby. So, we just send them to each other. Yeah, yeah. And I'm like, that's kind of nice. Because it's like the other person, you know. Yeah. Ha ha ha. I mean, you have a big family, you're um, as people should hopefully know, you're an identical quadruplet.

Yeah. Um, you're always chatting away to your sisters. We are. You know, video chat. Um, and often, it's so funny, like, you know, I'll hear you or Becky or, you know, whatever. Like, so often, it's just like, you hear a little voice going like, Are any men folk there? Are any men folk there? We literally use the phrase, are any men folk around? 

Because me and Becky are like, I'm just gonna get my boob out and breastfeed. Is there anyone who shouldn't be in the frame? Um. around that could see something. Um, yeah, but no, it's been really exciting. Um, and it's good because it hasn't been a big struggle.  Um, I mean, you're still, you're not producing loads of milk.

I'm not producing, well, I'm slowly producing more milk, but not enough that I could exclusively feed it. Nowhere near. No. Um, I was excited this morning because I had my biggest breast pump session. Yeah, yeah. So I produced a hundred. Yeah. Which is pretty good for me. Yeah, yeah. We're still doing both. And we would anyway, we've said this before.

The last time with Lily, your milk slowly increased, increased. And we did lots of stuff to try and increase your milk. We did, yeah. As we've done this time. Um. It's a real struggle going on, but it is, you know, we did get to a point where I think maybe about a quarter of her, a quarter to a third of her daily feeds were breast milk and we had enough that we could freeze some.

Yeah, so, um, for Lily, I made sure I had six months worth. Effectively, so that I could stop,  and then she'd still have milk available. If I remember correctly, you did four months, and then you started to reduce, um, and it took until six months to completely stop. Yes, it did. But during those last, you know, months, five and six, as you were reducing, you used some of the frozen stuff, um, To make sure I actually had it up to six months.

So up until six months, she was, had breast milk. Yeah. Um, whereas this time around, we haven't frozen any. Okay. Not yet. Well, I've frozen one.  On the early days, I froze one. But again, we've not got to that point where you're producing enough yet. Because we only did that with Lily once you were producing a lot.

But I also think because she's breastfeeding and I'm pumping, she's kind of taking a lot of the extra that I would have pumped. Right. So.  I don't actually, I don't know if we'll ever have that much excess. I mean, it's a different experience for us this time. You know, I'm, I'm not used to, and I suppose you're not either, knowing, like, how much has she had.

We're so used to be able to track on our app the exact kind of millilitres of what she's had in a bottle every day. She's breastfeeding a lot now, so that will supplement. basically what she's missing out on formula. So I have to keep telling myself she is getting enough because she's actually breastfeeding a lot.

Um, probably far more than, you know, the app's saying. It just confuses us because we're so used to having clear statistics of this is how much they've drank. And how much you're producing as well. Yeah. It's hard to know. If your supply is going up, if you, if you exclusively breastfeed, this is, you know, clearly something that you will know about.

And, uh, just, just an unfamiliar territory for us. Yeah. And how are you finding it in terms of, you know, uh, some of our friends and family and people, like, really enjoy breastfeeding in the sense that they were, they're quite happy to keep going as long as possible. And like, this time, like, You know, with Lily, the reason we kind of trailed off around four to six months, it was difficult.

It was a lot of work. There's a lot of strain on you, you know, pumping and feeding and doing all this. You know, it takes it out of you in all sorts of ways. It does. And so that was kind of one of the reasons why we were like, well, we'll do it for this amount of time and then we'll stop. But, you know, I don't know, how do you find it this time?

If we were to get to the point where she exclusively breastfed, would you want that? How long would you want to go? I think I'd never want to exclusively breastfeed, just because I don't want to be the only person feeding. Primarily at night, because I like to get my sleep. In the daytime, I think if she was like, a consistently good feeder, and I produced enough milk, I wouldn't mind doing that most of the day.

Yeah. It's just very valuable to us that she can take a bottle when needed. Yeah. Yeah. Do you think we'll do four to six months again, or?  I don't know, to be honest. I think I'm going back to work at seven months. So at that point, I'll be wanting to, I might say this and it might end up being phrages, but it'd be easiest to stop at that point.

My main reason for stopping last time is I really hated pumping milk. Um, and this time around I don't have to do it that often. So it's, it's not really a, um,  It's when a lot of the midwives were like, Oh, it's, it's hard doing all three. And I want it to be like, but it, it is easier somewhat. And then I have to pump milk less.

Which makes it easier for me to do. 

It's Mr. Ads here to bring you the ad break thing. We've not done this in a while. I can't remember what we do. What do we do? We're here. It's not really ads when we don't Get any money, but we are,  this is a hobby. I went to a podcast, but, um, we do like to tell you a bit about why we do it and kind of where our support comes from.

Um, and just that sort of stuff and just an encouragement to say, please do support us in the various ways. Click some buttons for us, share the podcast, leave us a review. Um, we haven't mentioned as well, um, this episode is a little different in, you know, previous episodes up until now, you may be familiar on YouTube, we offer a craft we do alongside the podcast  and each episode we do a different craft.

Um, it's, it's, it's, it's, In the early days, we used to chat about what craft we were doing. We did. That kind of went downhill fast because we were disorganized. And never knew what craft would show up on screen. Uh, it was kind of an excuse also for us to get some stuff, you know, some Disney related content in there and other things, Harry Potter, Star Wars, other things that we enjoyed doing and a bit of a relaxing time, you know, it fits with the theme of our Unwinding Relaxing Podcast.

Um, at the moment, with two kids and a newborn baby in the house, um, Crafting is a little bit challenging. So yeah, this is the first episode where we're not going to have a visual craft thing on youtube So we're just pausing the craft element for a little bit. Yeah till we get back into the swing Yeah, yeah So let us know how you find that whether the craft element matters to you Um, if you're over on youtube do leave a comment, um, subscribe hit the little bell Uh, and if you'd like to engage with us, we always like to hear back from you Do get in touch via social media in the various places.

Mostly they're all on youtube Don't wake the baby podcast, um, on Instagram and TikTok. All this stuff's in the description down below. Yeah. You, you know how it works. You know how podcasts work. Um, that's, that's the stuff. If you're interested, then do it. If not, just listen along. We're quite happy. Yeah, yeah.

For you to, you, you know us more than we know you, but that's absolutely fine. . And then of course, the reason we do it is, um, partially through. kind of my work and things. We get some support to be able to, um, you know, do this in my job through the Methodist Church, uh, particularly in Yorkshire North and East Methodist District.

And, uh, we are associated with the Kairos Movement, which is, uh, a small community of people that are doing things differently, people that are frustrated with church, people that see faith differently and maybe have a different understanding of God. And, uh, you know, the spiritual that aren't religious, if you're not a big fan of tradition, if you find church a bit kind of, you know, irrelevant or boring or outdated, um, I do a lot of stuff with the Kairos movement to try and remedy a lot of that and share some radical thoughts on faith.

I do a, uh, semi regular Disney church video thing where I chat about faith and spirituality in Disney films. Um, there's all sorts of fun stuff like that. Um, if you're interested in, uh, anything about what we do outside of the podcast, the wider work that's around faith church based stuff and want to come and get to know us and chat about that in those contexts, then, um, you go check that out all on our webpage www.

kyrosmovement. org. uk forward slash don't wake the baby  Like that amused me because it did make her stir. Oh yeah, sorry. I woke the baby saying don't wake the baby. But if you're not religious, don't worry. If you don't believe in God, don't worry. You know, this is a parenting podcast, so we're here to chat about that side of things.

But yeah, that's been our little ad break segment in the middle, where we just kind of, you know, update you on all the, that stuff. Hopefully it's not too dull. Thanks for bearing with it,  getting through it. Uh, if you, if you just skipped ahead, then that's fine too. Yeah. You know, I do that with ads. I just skip through.

I do as well, most popular ads. Uh, so probably you've, no one's, no one's listened to any of that bit. But anyway, right, let's get back to the conversation. 

So it's me jumping in again to try and steer some of this conversation. Good. I didn't know where to go from here. I would like to talk a little bit about, um, how our children kind of do it, you know, coping with it and how, how do they. Feed, like, to me, there's all sorts of stories and experience and context and struggles to chat about in How, you know, how as babies they've responded to the different types of feeding and just, yeah.

Even now I think it's interesting to see Lily's, um, view of breastfeeding. Oh yeah? What do you mean? Like, so, it was really interesting, when she first had her babies, she would breastfeed them  because she'd seen our friends breastfeed. Wait, wait, wait, slow down. Uh, you're saying, When When Lily was a bit younger, maybe two or three.

Oh, I see. So you're saying when she was when she had her baby dolls. Yes. So your your sentence there, when she had her babies, confused me a second. And I was like, my dyslexic brain was trying to catch up. I'll I'll start again. Right, okay. So with her baby dolls Yes. She often used to pretend to breastfeed them because a lot of our friends breastfed.

And I remember having a discussion saying, oh, it's so funny that She's never been breastfed, but she understands what it is. Um, and some of the mums were like, yeah, it's interesting. Their little girls would like bottle feed, even though they'd been breastfed. So it's interesting, like, depending what you're around, you kind of, they understand that's how you feed a child.

Funny now as well, because now, like, I'm actively breastfeeding. Lily's always going, Oh, Lola needs a boob.  Also, she was really sweet. She like is obsessed with my breast shields and playing with them. Yeah. Um, which may be why we've lost one set, and can't find where they are. She's hidden them somewhere.

Yeah,  but it was really cute because she had her doll one day and was trying to put her, like, the breast shield on her boob, you know, and breast feed. And I was like, that's so cute that she was like, this is what you do.  I'm constantly in that position of trying to ensure that Lola, continues to be happy for me to bottle feed her.

Because my constant worry is that she's gonna suddenly decide that she prefers one of these methods over the other, and we know which method she's gonna prefer. Yeah, it's true. So she has been a bit more fussy with me recently, kind of rejecting it a bit, kind of being like, that's not a boob. I want a boob.

That's just what it is, isn't it? It is, yeah. But I mean, it might not be that, because Lily was also a very fussy feeder. She was a very fussy feeder. And like, both of them, they're kind of, seem to be quite similar in nature. They do. They're a bit lazy, they don't really like feeding, it's a bit of a going on.

Eventually we get there, but in these early days, um, Yeah. You know. It's more like, they'd like to eat all the time. Lots of little bits very often. Um, and it's when like, the, they were like, Oh yeah, so she's been drinking every three hours now. And we were like, Yeah, we don't really. And this is, it's interesting because I think this is where we sometimes do differ from, I don't know whether it's the mainstream or just the trend of what's  considered recommended.

But like, we always hear people talking about like on demand feeding. Which I think is true for exclusively breastfeeding, most people do do on demand feedings. But I think with formula you are meant to leave bigger gaps.  Yeah, so we, I've always been. Particularly, it's been me driving it, that, you know, Lily and Lola, that they don't just have a little tiny bit every half an hour, or every hour even, like,  you know, initially their stomach's very small, they don't really take so much, you know, we know how it works, but it comes a point where slowly the gap should be getting bigger, they should be having a bigger amount each time, and like some of the recommended numbers around, you know, at this stage, it's, you know, Eight to 12 feeds in 24 hours.

And as we approach a month to two months, kind of six to eight feeds, all that kind of stuff, and you kind of look at it all and try and work out are we in about the right kind of place and is our baby typical or not typical? And we are always, always at the very highest end of that spectrum. Yeah. We have like 13 to 15 feeds a day.

We always have more feeds.  , and this isn't including breastfeeds. Breastfeeds we just put in whenever. So they, they're extra, they're extras. Um, this is just formula feeding. Our average is like, we struggle to get above an hour and a half between feeds. Yeah. Um. We've done better recently. Recently we're getting there.

Yeah. But yeah. It's, it's tough because I was talking to you the other day, we were talking about this vicious cycle of, I'm not sure,  like, because we need her to consume more milk in a single feed so that she will be able to go three hours until the next feed. Um, to then have another big amount, but I don't know whether, which comes first, the big gap or the big feed, because if she's only fed an hour, two hours before, she's not going to have a big feed.

No. But if she doesn't have a big feed, she's not going to go, you know,  fun and games. Yeah. These are the conversations we have all day, every day. Then we go, well, should we try and, Push her so she doesn't feed yet? Oh, that feels mean.  The big thing that always works is a distraction. Yes. So like, take them out somewhere, take them for a pram ride, something or other.

Go to a cafe. Yeah, so, you know, she ends up being asleep or something and then you suddenly notice, oh, it's been three hours since the last feed. Oh, now she's done a really big feed, yeah.  So yeah, just, it must be genetics, I don't know, like both our kids are, kind of, were fussy feeders. I was as a baby, but I was Oh yes, yes, we can blame you!

But I was very premature, so that's why I blame that on you. Oh, there we are. It's always the story that your dad used to take you outside, In the cold. Yeah. Try and wake you up, me up to feed me, have more milk because mom would say I just wanted to die. So I would just sit and not drink and just be happy.

just to sleep. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Um, so yeah, I mean, I'm never worried that our children are gonna die, but No. And we do have very similar thing where they often will just want to sleep and you're like, please just drink a bit more.  Yeah. please.  I just, I'm, I'm trying to head towards a routine. I'm very routine focused.

He's very routine focused. I like to establish it from fairly early on, once they're able to, and that's where I'm trying to get to. And, um, you know, I'm just trying to work us towards that. I know it's fine for breastfeeding. My boobs are always with me. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Doesn't matter when she's gonna do that.

But when, like, you're formula feeding as well, you're like, well, should we take a bit of this water with us and this with us so we can make a formula feed when we're out? Like, you've got to think it through a lot more. And I think this is, you know, this is why my perspective is slightly different. Because I'm not a woman, I don't have, you know, milk on me all the time. 

But not just milk. It's about comfort as well. And so I know if I'm up at night, I have limited options available to me. Limited options.  It's an uphill battle against nature in the way that the baby is hardwired, but it's just the reality of, you know, we are a joint partnership as parents and we try to split everything and part of that is so that it doesn't all fall on you, so that you don't have to do everything.

So that I'm not on nights all night.  You know, I don't know, definitely Lola would prefer you to do everything. Oh, yeah, she would, yeah. We could have a long debate about what's best. Yeah. Um, but that's not really the issue. What we're saying is And we already have a toddler who would prefer me to do everything.

Well, exactly. You know, we're just saying the reality is,  you can't do everything. I need to do it. Yeah. And so it's about trying to make that possible. Yeah. And make it easier so she's not gonna be a nightmare. Yeah. Um, so I have no idea if any of this is Contentious or controversial or not, I don't know. I  don't know either.

I was always worried doing the breastfeeding episode because I feel like it's one of those ones that people often have strong opinions about. I don't know if that's true or not. I think people do have strong opinions, but I think it's even, I was going to say, even keeled. Is that such a phrase? Sure. It's a very nice little fancy phrase.

Oh, thank you.  In that I think most women who've gone through breastfeeding or struggled with breastfeeding, they understand the struggles people have. I know people don't like routine based things, but I also think it's true that most people understand you have to live your life. Yeah, yeah. We've called this episode Fed Is Best, you know, hopefully that sets the tone of like, you do you, do whatever works for you.

Because we're not here to tell you what to do, we're just sharing what we're up to and kind of how we approach it. Yeah. And some tips. Definitely recommend breast, uh, nipple shields. Like, they are the best thing. I mean, tips if you're struggling, that is. Yeah, yeah. If you're, you know, if you're fine. If you're fine, don't take tips from me, you'll know more.

Yeah, we're not the people to tell. But if you're struggling, and I'm not promoting them, but I use MAM for everything because I think it stops getting, like, when they talk about nipple confusion, I'm like, well, I use MAM. MAM nipple shields and I use MAM bottles, so therefore there's, it's kind of very similar, it's not going to be as much of a difference.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Um. Yeah, we've not talked about that, have we? Like, we're very much a MAM household. We're a MAM household. I know other people's a Tommy Tippy household. Yeah, yeah. Maybe that's going to be the contentious thing. There's the word I always say wrong, I've always, I always used to think it was Tommy Teepee.

I did, and then it was, um, I think Laura who was like, you know, it's not a teepee. And I was like, oh, and she's like, it's because it tips. I was like, oh. I'm sorry, you're stuck. It's now for me forever. It is Tommy Teepee. No, I used to call it that too and then I was corrected and I remembered. Do you want to do a very brief little segment about, um, it's the 90s.

Oh, yes. So, uh, kind of how things were when we were growing up. Because I think that is interesting. It is interesting. Approaches have changed, but we've discussed before that our parents have different opinions to us. Yes, they do. Um, hold them quite strongly. Yeah. So both my parents, um, I would say are pretty anti breastfeeding.

Yeah. Um, and I think this is partly because when my mum gave birth, they were really promoting formula as that is much better than breast milk. Um, I think it was a lot of horrible bad science. I'm not even sure it was science. I think it was during that phase where formula was gaining traction. It's, you know, there's marketing and advertising I mean it's but I mean it's like poor science in that it was kind of it's the formula brands themselves that are kind of trying to tell people this is better yeah so mum was like but when she was in hospital they'd just come around the walls handing out milk wow like it it wasn't it wasn't It wasn't that they didn't recommend you breastfed, but it definitely wasn't the primary way they were encouraging people to feed.

And I think both my parents always think of the toll on me or my sisters. So they're always like, oh, but you know, it's, it's so much work and it's so much energy, and  I think theirs is normally from a place of concern. That they're anti breastfeeding. I always find it fascinating because, like, yeah, their priority is you.

Yeah. And, like, in a weird way, you know, we often talk about what's best for the baby, but to your mum, you are her baby. Yeah. And she's working, she's thinking what's best for you. So, just an interesting dynamic. Yeah, it is, yeah. Um, but yeah, so, both of them, dad not as vocal. Yeah. But mum's quite vocally anti breastfeeding when it comes to us.

My family, on the other hand, you know, not fussed either way, but they did breastfeed. Yeah. Like,  They don't give their opinions, but almost more like just the whole bottle feeding thing, I think, is a bit of a A novelty to them? Yeah, just a kind of an unknown, bizarre thing. Like, don't really understand how any of it works.

Because, again, my mum just did everything, I think. She just, you know, carried me around. I'd just feed on demand, and that was that. And I think she, that was something she really liked doing. I think  probably more struggles to understand why you don't. Yes. You know, why we'd want to split it. Mm, that's very true.

I don't know, just, again. Yeah, I know. They're like completely different reactions. Yeah, well, our parents better never have this as a, you know, dinner conversation. 

We've not got there yet, so maybe this is why we've not talked about it a little bit, but you know, once we start going out and about a lot more, there's that whole area to navigate, you know, first time round.  I suppose, you know, there were so many times when you had to pump milk when we were out and about, and that presented challenges.

This is when I prefer breastfeeding, because I think it's more socially acceptable than taking a breast pump round with you in public.  Which I know sounds crazy, but I'm like, at least people go, oh, she's feeding her child, other than going, She has machines she seems to be using. Yeah. To pump loads of milk.

And I know people will say you can get those ones, like, that go under your bra. They do okay. They're not as good, I don't think they're as good as a proper one. We've tried them and you don't find them as good. No. I mean, again, maybe because you don't You need a great production of milk. You need the big guns.

I need the big guns. The big powerful pump. Whereas this, like, because this time around I only have to do, because I've got a double breast pump, I only have to do 10 minutes and then that's it. And it's so much quicker. Last time I was on for like half an hour. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Messing on, pumping milk, so it's much better.

It was difficult for you and difficult for everyone, just like, you know, we'd be out somewhere and it'd be like, right, well, now you need to pump and you'd like go sit in a toilet somewhere for like half an hour to, it's just, you know, it's not ideal. And this time we've got the challenge of kind of doing breastfeeding out and about and that brings different challenges.

It does. I did my first public, public, like go around the public. First in like, yeah, in the public breastfeed outside of the house breastfeed.  Um, the other day it actually went very successfully, but it was, I chose a place that like, you felt comfortable. I felt comfortable. Most of the mums there are either breastfeeding or doing something.

It's like the right kind of audience. Yeah. Um, it is true that there was like a couple of grandparents who came and sat near me and I was like, um, I'm going to go in the other room and breastfeed because that's with the other young people.  Um, not in a mean way, but I feel like the older generation probably are going to be more awkward around a woman breastfeeding than younger people.

And there were nice people. I just, you know, I didn't want to make them feel awkward, which once again, I know people are going to go to give a damn if it makes other people awkward, but I'm a bit of a people pleaser. Uh, it's not something that I will ever experience, but I'm sure it must be, you know, self conscious to be doing it and, you know, maybe some people don't find it a problem.

I don't find it that, I, this is, we've had discussion before though, in that I'm quite,  not, not I'll get naked for anyone.  But I'm, excuse me, I'm not particularly, Embarrassed by such things like that. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Um, I don't know if this is because I said, I it's because after my first surgery, I was like, well, basically the whole hospital see me naked. 

Personally, I think it's because you come from a big family of women. Yes, that's true. And you know, just, I think it's been a very healthy culture for you all to grow up around a lot of women and to be comfortable.  Being like, the female body's normal. Yeah, yeah, yeah. No, yeah, get used to it. Um, yeah. You know, as an only child with, you know, in a family that's big.

Extremely prudish. Uh, I, it's just, you know. Yeah, you've got the opposite. Yeah. Ha ha ha ha. I would say my family, we're, we're pretty, um, as you could tell from our thing, we're more conscious other people are uncomfortable rather than us being uncomfortable. True, true. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. If you have tips for us, let us know.

Oh yeah. Like, you know, we're kind of new to this as well. I mean, we've done all three, so we have a broad experience, but we don't have a deep experience. So, if you've been through it, if you have more kids, if you have, you had a, you know, successful time breastfeeding or pumping or bottle feeding, what are your top tips?

Yes, I always feel like a novice breastfeeder. Yeah. Like,  I always want to be like, I'm very new to the game of breastfeeding. I don't fully know what I'm doing, but it has amused me no end, um, on TikTok and things where it's like the breastfeeding consultant being like, Oh, and never bend over. Lay, like, lean backwards.

Yeah, and put the baby towards you. And everyone, everyone online, we're all sat like hunchbacks, breastfeeding our children. And I was like, well I'm glad it's not just me who's clearly doing the wrong position. I think it's what's so challenging with all of it really. It's trying to read between the lines of, you know, what the expert advice is and what you should do.

I even find this with bottle feeding, you know, and doing that. It's like all the kind of rules and, you know, the stuff around sterilizing and warm, um, um, um. You know, warming up the bottles and using, you know, you know, sterilized water and all that type of stuff. It's like trying to work out the whole process and how to do it all.

We've got all these, you know, little kits of fancy electrical things that do various different things for us, um, that we didn't use last time and we've not used this time. We've not bothered with any of it. We kind of just manually make all the stuff.  Last time around, we didn't follow a lot of the advice because it was a heat wave.

Lily didn't want hot milk, she was quite happy with cold milk. Whereas it is different this time, Lola would quite like warmish milk because she's used to body temperature milk from your body.  So once again, that's the difference that we've kind of had to deal with. But yeah, it's all a learning curve. 

Yeah. Yeah. Curve really. But yeah, do let us know if you've got top tips for any of it of how you do it. Um, what's your process for breastfeeding or do you, are you also pumping or expressing milk and how, how are you managing that? Or you know, with bottle feeding and formula, what's your top tips for, you know, how do you quickly make a bottle in the middle of the night?

How do you get through it? I always find somehow we run out of bottles  and like, you're like, why, why is nothing sterilized? And then we lose all the lids. Oh yeah. Yeah. Yeah, that was what I was going to say is one here. That's the one we brought over. Yeah. So if you have top tips for how to navigate any of that, how do we stop losing?

We had to buy new lids because we kept all the bottles from last time. If people don't know what we mean, not like the teat, like the lids that you put over it. Yeah, yeah, yeah.  We've put all new ones, like we've lost like some of them already. Yeah. We're hopeful that they're in the house.  I was trying to think if I had anything else to say, but I don't think so.

No. I mean, I'll probably listen back and go, oh, why didn't I mention all this stuff? But Yeah, yeah. Well, that always happens in the podcast. Always happens. Always happens. Hey, this is Editing Elliot, just popping back in here to say yep, there's loads more to talk about um, that we didn't get to mention.

Since recording this episode our baby Lola has caught Lily's illness and is like coughing, so like sicks up a load of milk. So we're having fun and games with feeding that we didn't get to chat about in this episode. There's all sorts of other stuff we didn't really get to talk about. Bottle feeding, uh, taking formula out when it's hot or when it's Cold Formula Brands.

We've actually switched to an anti reflux heavier one now that's really helped actually with the sickness. So yeah, I think we're going to return to this conversation at some point. We focused quite heavily on our current experience with breastfeeding here, but there's lots of other different nuances to explore.

Treat this as part one of the conversation. 

We usually have a little segment at the end here where we bring in conversation from listeners about things people have sent in. Um, we're, we're very disorganized at the moment because we've got a newborn and we're not doing great at sourcing stuff and talking to people. So I'm, I'm sorry, we've not really got any.

In the absence of, um, other stories from listeners, I thought we could use this little segment at the end just to give a very quick little updates on various things we said we would keep track of. Um, so we've started doing potty training as we said in our last one. That's continued. We've, things have gone a bit downhill because I've gone back to work.

Things have definitely been more of a challenge. Um, you know, just in terms of general updates, in our last episode, we said, Oh, it's going okay. It's going to get harder. Once Elliot goes back to work once if teething hits, you know, illness hits the house. Well, guess what? All three of those things have happened.

We've got teething, we've got illness. It's been a tough couple of It has, but Because my recovery's gone quite well, I'm doing better at doing stuff. You're able to pick up a lot of the slack. Only within the last few days, but it's getting better. But one of those things that's then slipped through the net is Was.

Keeping on with the potty training, so. So I did my first time doing it yesterday. But we have had a few more wee's on the potty. We have. Um, so brings our total up to what, three or four? Three or four, yeah. Wee's on the potty. And two of them were yesterday. Yeah. So I did a good job. Good job, Mama. Clap for me.

Clap for Mama. There we go.  Relationship wise, um, we've had more arguments. We've had more arguments, but I mean, we're generally happy with each other.  Oh, I was trying to think, I think I had a, what was I, I had a complaint. Oh no, he's got a complaint. What was my complaint? Oh yes, yes, I had a complaint. Last night particularly, it was very bad.

Um, I would like, I'd call it, backseat parenting. Oh. Where mama, she's half asleep in bed and I'm up with the baby on my shift and she'll like call out advice to me or like correct me or like tell me to do something and she's half asleep. She doesn't know what's going on. I don't know if I wake up but I feel like you're struggling. 

Like  I got to a point and she like just kind of woke up for a second and was like have you fed her yet? And I was like, no, not yet. And she, I can't remember what you said. You're like, you're just criticizing me. I think, I think I was like, is she not due of feed? Yeah. I was like, how do you know? You're asleep.

I was like, I was looking at the app. I was like, she's definitely not due of feed. Stop giving me, stop it. You're not, I'm in charge here. I felt like it was late. I was like, is he not fed that baby yet? It's crying. It happened like four times last night, where you briefly woke up and then shouted out advice to me about what I was doing.

I don't remember any other time, but I remember the first time going, I can't believe he's not fed that baby yet, it must be really late. 

And I was, I was biting my tongue. I was like, you go, you go back to sleep. This is, if I'm up with the baby. Then I, I'm doing my thing. It's what I always remember, I always remember you going, Go back to sleep, and I'm like, okay. I don't, I don't tell you what to do when you're doing your parenting. That's true, but you, you leave the room when I'm doing my parenting.

True, true, true, true. Goes to his top room.  That's because there's a toddler in the bed. It's true. I even got to the point the other night where I had to sleep, I created a little bed on the floor for myself. Because on my shift, I couldn't fit in the bed. I was like, well, I can't leave the room because I'm looking after the baby.

Yeah. I'll just lie on the floor. Bless him,  little floor bed. And Lily was going, he's on the floor like a dog.  I was like, why don't you, you could sleep on the floor Lily and I could have the bed, but no, of course, of course that didn't happen. She was doing a thing, doing a thing, I'm not a dog.  I was like, we know Lily, that's why Baba shouldn't be on the floor.

On that note, thank you for joining us today on this episode. I hope you had a good time and uh, whatever this has been, stuff we've chatted about. So when he said this one had to be concise, it hasn't been concise at all. It's really not been, uh, you know, it will either be long or I'll cut a load out. Who knows what will happen?

We'll find out. Uh, thank you for coming and being in Oaken sauna with us today. Hope it's been nice and toasty. I've gone very wrinkly now. Oh,  okay, sure. You know, when you get all steamy and wrinkly. I never really thought about that.  Oaken's trading post is shut and we're going to throw you out into the snow, but enough with the Frozen references. 

Don't wake the baby! That was the wrong way around, it goes the other way around. Don't wake the baby!  Thanks. Sleep well. God bless.