BFAR – 5 things that helped me keep nursing

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Your mileage may vary. Totally and completely.

But since you asked. Here’s the HOW of the whole BFAR thing…

1. Herbal Galactagogues

• Fenugreek – Mmmmm I love the smell of maple syrup in the morning. This is the gold standard of herbal galactagogues.
• Go Lacta Capsules. The leaves of the Malunggay tree. Asian women have used it for years. My OB told me about it.
• MotherLove Capsules. Love, love, love the mother love :-) I chose the More Milk Plus Special Blend. It has fenugreek in it so I took a bit less of the recommended Fenugreek.

2. Food & Drink

• Oatmeal – I ate a bowl of oatmeal every night before bed. For the calories and for the increase in supply I am positive it gave me. For that reason I also ate oatmeal cookies, at least that’s what I told myself every time I went to Whole Foods to pick up some of their awesome oatmeal cookies :-)
• Beer – This is anecdotal at best, but I like beer so I tried it. I saw a slight increase in the half a beer I drank.
• Protein is what you need to keep that milk flowing. Vegetarian or carnivore – get your protein on!
• Mother Milk Tea – I drank this every night with my oatmeal and midday.

3. Pumping – Ugh. I have a love/ hate relationship with pumping. Love, because I know it helps and it’s awesome to have extra milk. Women that work outside of the home are blessed to have this evil contraption! But for me, not so much. I work from home & my home and children are my work. I have low milk productionn (duh) so it was very discouraging to actually see it. Since I know that baby can get more from me than I can get when I pumped. I just kept nursing. Which leads me to …

4. Just keep Nursing – The biggest key to my success the third time around besides herbs was just the act of nursing itself. I started from the moment he arrived and didn’t stop. If he looked hungry I put him on the boob first, always. My doula always says just keep nursing. That advice may not be what you need but for that baby at that time it was what was best.

5. Supportive partners – This means, in my case, a guy who told me whatever I needed to hear in that moment. He would tell me to stick with it, help with a latch, or get me a snack. Or he would gently tell me I need to stop trying so hard. Not everyone has this, so I feel especially lucky even as I type this. Also, lactation consultants and post partum doulas are worth their weight in gold. Get one. STAT.

Lastly there is the aforementioned mental state. Do what you can and therein lies your success.

And keep a sense of humor about it…
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