Making more milk

~4 months

So we were having what I was thinking of was minor supply issues, in the breastmilk department.  So I started reading up on the million things you can do to increase breastmilk.

I'd also like to say - different strokes for different folks.  I think different solutions work well for different people.

I even went to the SUPER hippie herbalist and bought gross tea (and kind of expensive) to bring on the milk.  But even thought I was downing 3 pots of that stuff a day, it didn't really help that much.

You know what does reliably work for me?  Beer.  As in super dark beer, like a fancy stout or Guinness.  After a bit of beer, I can feel much more milk in my boobs.  Interesting, right?

Now I have a friend that swears she thinks it works because you're more relaxed - but I don't think so.  I'm pretty relaxed.  And I don't drink enough that I think it affects my mood - I literally can drink like 2-3 shots of beer, and feel more milk.

I am of course concerned about my baby drinking  (read some scary stuff on the Internet, but I also have read a lot of stuff saying it's no big deal, so...?), so I exercise extreme caution - I don't actually drink an entire beer (more like half a beer a day, max, spread out over several hours), and I don't feel drunk at all.

I even tried eating a lot of barley, because I read that maybe it was the barley in the beer - but that didn't do much.

So I've taken to buying fancy stout beer in bottles, and putting a wine bottle corker in it to help it stay carbonated-ish.  Works pretty well.  One of those fancy beers lasts me many days.  And it is tasty.

So that's my story for now.  BF'ing had taken a sort of nasty turn, and everything was hurty again, but we're back on track, things are good the last week or so.  I think it's the beer.  Or maybe that she's done a growth spurt.

Only ~2 more months of exclusive breastfeeding left!  Time flies.  While it will be exciting to give her food, I am enjoying this stage in her life.