A Little Over 2%
I have not had a happy baby lately. It took me a while to figure out why.
He is going to be a year old in just a little over a week. He is very actively crawling and getting into everything. He is eating a lot of food and handling it great (even solid things like raw blueberries and popcorn). He does not drink from a cup or bottle. He is a mama's milk only kind of guy...
Lately, he has been getting super frustrated while nursing. I thought maybe he was teething again or getting ready for a nursing strike. Then his wet diapers started getting fewer. Then it hit me.
I follow the Trim Healthy Mama eating plan. They have guidelines for when you are pregnant or nursing, when you are trying to lose weight, when you are maintaining, etc. I realized that I had slipped into weight loss mode the past few weeks and it was really affecting my milk supply. I switched back to the breastfeeding eating plan and upped the amount of Sunflower Lecithin I was taking every day and saw immediate change. Whew!
It's easy to lose perspective sometimes, isn't it? I got so focused on one goal that I kind of mess up an even-more-important goal. Thankfully I didn't completely mess it up and we were able to recover. I needed a wake up, though.
Say my son lives 70 years. If I breastfeed him for around 2 years (like I did most of my other children), that is only a little over 2% of his life. If I live to be 70, that's only a little over 2% of my life. I've lived half of that 70 years, but that still means I have another 47% of my life to worry about losing weight. But the benefits of breastfeeding my baby will last the rest of our lifetimes.
Do I need to lose weight? Absolutely. That is a very good goal. But since I am married to Type 1 Diabetic and Type 2 Diabetes runs on my mom's side of the family, breastfeeding my babies has always been super important to me. I posted a couple lists of breastfeeding benefits at the end of this blog post.
Because this post isn't supposed to be about breastfeeding, it's about perspective and goals.
Is our goal to have a perfectly clean house interfering with our goal to have a fun and peaceful household? Are we making being a good mother more important than being a good wife? Ouch.
I don't want to make you feel bad, mamas. I just want to give you the chance to stop and look at things from a slightly different angle.
God bless you!
Lee
He is going to be a year old in just a little over a week. He is very actively crawling and getting into everything. He is eating a lot of food and handling it great (even solid things like raw blueberries and popcorn). He does not drink from a cup or bottle. He is a mama's milk only kind of guy...
Lately, he has been getting super frustrated while nursing. I thought maybe he was teething again or getting ready for a nursing strike. Then his wet diapers started getting fewer. Then it hit me.
I follow the Trim Healthy Mama eating plan. They have guidelines for when you are pregnant or nursing, when you are trying to lose weight, when you are maintaining, etc. I realized that I had slipped into weight loss mode the past few weeks and it was really affecting my milk supply. I switched back to the breastfeeding eating plan and upped the amount of Sunflower Lecithin I was taking every day and saw immediate change. Whew!
It's easy to lose perspective sometimes, isn't it? I got so focused on one goal that I kind of mess up an even-more-important goal. Thankfully I didn't completely mess it up and we were able to recover. I needed a wake up, though.
Say my son lives 70 years. If I breastfeed him for around 2 years (like I did most of my other children), that is only a little over 2% of his life. If I live to be 70, that's only a little over 2% of my life. I've lived half of that 70 years, but that still means I have another 47% of my life to worry about losing weight. But the benefits of breastfeeding my baby will last the rest of our lifetimes.
Do I need to lose weight? Absolutely. That is a very good goal. But since I am married to Type 1 Diabetic and Type 2 Diabetes runs on my mom's side of the family, breastfeeding my babies has always been super important to me. I posted a couple lists of breastfeeding benefits at the end of this blog post.
Because this post isn't supposed to be about breastfeeding, it's about perspective and goals.
Is our goal to have a perfectly clean house interfering with our goal to have a fun and peaceful household? Are we making being a good mother more important than being a good wife? Ouch.
I don't want to make you feel bad, mamas. I just want to give you the chance to stop and look at things from a slightly different angle.
God bless you!
Lee
And just for giggles:
Downward dog, pour the coffee, and head ram have all happened recently with my son. LOL :D
ReplyDeleteGreat post on perspective!