Transcript:
*We apologize for any typos, misspellings or incorrect grammar. Our transcript is auto-generated by software that’s trying its best, just like all of us.*
Hey everybody, welcome back to the Milk Minute. How you doing, Heather? I could use some caffeine. Same you know, we’ve been on a little holiday break here trying to spend time with family without going crazy.
Unsuccessfully. Yeah, how’s your holidays? Well, don’t you know, I had a big cup of coffee this morning. breastfed my baby and then went back to sleep, which. Sounds delightful. It means I really was tired because normally caffeine actually works for me and keeps me up. And me and the baby went back to bed for a little bit.
And then I woke up and forgot to have another cup of coffee. Like, I didn’t repeat it, so now I’m all jacked up. I don’t know what’s going on. Well, you know we, we talked about this before, but the way we process caffeine does change in pregnancy and breastfeeding. Oh, right. Right. Wait, what did I have something to do with that?
Well, let’s listen in and give ourselves a nice reminder of what it’s like to breastfeed and ingest caffeine. Yes. I hope it helps you. And remember, this is a great episode that if you want to send to like, you know, say, say you’re sitting down to Thanksgiving and your great aunt Mildred is like, you can’t have coffee with that baby.
You just like, airdrop this episode to her. You know, and also it’s, I was, my breastfeeding show is Grey’s Anatomy. So there’s 19 seasons. So I’m on season eight, but when Callie Torres gets pregnant, everybody is telling her she can’t have one cup of coffee and that it can cause premature birth and low birth weight.
And I was like, Whoa, Whoa, Whoa. Grey’s Anatomy. I, let me just say not a single person on Grey’s ever had a normal pregnancy, birth or breastfeeding. Like those, those poor characters, the gauntlet of pregnancy and breastfeeding related trauma disease, like childbearing. I mean, it would just, yeah. Yeah, pretty much.
But I just wanted to scream through the TV, Callie, you can have a cup of coffee. Oh my God. Yeah. I, well, I, every time I saw. Like a new character get pregnant. I was like, what if we just didn’t make it the drama? What if it was like a side arc that was just like, oh, she’s just pregnant, but like, it’s not the main drama of every episode until she has a baby.
What if it was just like a normal part of life and we had a baby and it was fine. Yeah, I know. I, I, the thing that frustrated me about that is how it just kept happening though. It wasn’t like one season, one time. Every season, every time. Well, oh man. I’m actually, yeah, I was gonna say I’m doing a graze.
rewatch to for no good reason right now. Good for you. It’s pretty great. I’m not gonna lie. Well, speaking of rewatching and, and rerunning we hope you enjoyed this episode about caffeine and breastfeeding and we are enjoying our time off which we have not taken in three and a half years. So we are thankful for that.
And I am happily over here, snuggling my new baby. Martha, who we call Marty, and yeah, adjusting to be in a family of three. So that’s what we’re doing. You’re not a family of three. We’re a family of five. With three children. Heather, this is why we took a break because you do not have two brain cells to rope together right now.
They’re all just dormant, being sick. Sucked out through your boobs and thank you guys for continuing to listen. We will be back in January with some brand spankin new stuff. Alright, well, that’s it for us and enjoy this episode and we will see you next week. Bye. Bye. Hello and welcome back to your favorite podcast.
Yeah, sorry to bother you. Yeah, but we’re back. We’re back again. It must be Friday. And today we’re going to talk about caffeine. I love it. I want to have all of it. And I want all of it before 3 p. m. Otherwise, I’ll be up all night like an old lady. I’m drinking a coffee right now and it’s 5 p. m. And I asked Heather if she wanted one and she was like, What?
Like why would you drink coffee at 5 p. m? I don’t know. It’s relaxing. Well, now we know that Maureen feels like it’s relaxing because maybe her brain works differently than other people’s brains. I don’t have the results for my assessments yet, so we’ll let you know when we do. Stay tuned. Yeah, it’s been a, it’s been an interesting season for us.
Yeah. Personally, professionally, it’s like the changes just keep coming. We’ve had some Yeah, it’s been tough. My, so I have a farm, and I had three dogs, and now I have two. It’s very sad. I my oldest dog, Stormy, died, and she was 17. And it’s, and I, she had a great life, and it was wonderful, but it’s just like, I, I was trying to describe this the other day to somebody who was not a dog person, and I was thinking like, maybe this, I feel like this would benefit Heather.
You know, because they were kind of like confused why I was so sad and I was like, look, no, it’s not like a child and it’s sort of, it’s not like a friend, it’s not like another human person you can think of, but imagine you had this roommate who was just always down, you know, like you were like, Hey, I want to go for a run.
And they were like, I literally live for running with you. And yes, I’ll run with you. And then you get home and you’re like, I just want to nap. And they’re like, could I snuggle nap with you? Yeah. And then, like, you go to work and they’re like, When are you getting back? I’m so excited to see you when you get back.
And then you get back and they’re like, I love you so much. And you’re like, I had a hard day. Can we talk? And they’re like, Yeah, I’ll just sit there and stare at you while you talk. And it’s like that every day with a dog. For, for ten years I had this dog. Maybe eleven. I can’t quite remember. And it, I, you know, she was old, we knew she was going to die, but it was still really hard.
She’d been sick for a while, she has, she had Cushing’s disease. And because her immune system was so depressed, she had like all these other infections, and it was like medication three times a day, and A lot of work, and then I took my son to summer camp and I was like, I just don’t feel good leaving her.
And then my husband called me on the last day of camp and he was like, you guys have to come home right now. So we left early and we came home, and it, and she was in a lot of pain. And it was too late to bring her to the vet, so I was like, Okay, I’m gonna give her medication, and we’re gonna like, Have a happy night with the dog, and snuggle on the floor with her, And watch movies about dogs, you know, why not?
Like, sad ones, like Homeward Bound. And my son decided her favorite movie was Beethoven. Aw, that’s a good one. If you remember that 90s gem. Because she was kind of a notoriously, like, bad dog. You know, constantly, like, ripping things and making mischief. Yeah, and I, I did end up having to take her in to be euthanized, and that was really hard.
And then we buried her on the farm. And the hardest part of that, because you know, we chose this really beautiful place and planted a tree and everything, but Lyra is starting to talk, right? And she just learned how to say doggy, and her favorite word to say is barking like a dog, and it sounds like Awoo woo woo woo woo woo!
Aww, when she says it it’s very cute. And so she kept seeing the body of my dog, you know, cause we had her in a wagon as we were like, preparing her grave. And she’d point to her and be like doggie! Awoo woo woo woo woo! And like, trying to pet her. I mean, I let her pet the dog, it’s not like it was a gross.
thing, you know, so recently deceased. But she just didn’t understand that she was dead, obviously, because she’s one. And it was really hard for, like, my son and my husband and I to see her interacting with our dead dog like it was alive. God, it’s really hard. Kids and animals, man. Like, that, that special relationship that they have is, Enviable, really.
Because it’s like, is there a more pure relationship than that? I don’t think so. Yeah, and it’s been hard for my son, too. But, I don’t know, I’m trying to explain to him, you know, why. Why things die. It’s not easy, even though I have like, lots of logical explanations. he’s still just like, okay, but why?
Yeah, it’s it’s really hard to get that concept across. Even with human death. Like my, I had to take Theo to my grandfather’s funeral a few years ago, and he was four or five. And it was like a beautiful burial. And my grandpa was in the military. So the military was there. It was like pretty, it was very formal.
And my son just kept yelling at the funeral, what’s in the box? What’s in the box? What’s in the box? And I was like, Oh my God, shut up. I cannot with you. We talked about this and I’m like, I’m like. Pops is in the box and he’s like, who’s Pops? And he just couldn’t remember from the last time I was like, Oh, this is a nightmare.
Yeah, I think my son made a ruckus at my grandfather’s funeral, too. And. I remember the priest was just like in the middle of the sermon came over and he was like, he was like, Jesus loved the little children. Yeah, thank you. Good. Thanks. I’m glad. Also still embarrassed. Well, you know, I didn’t even get to tell you this yet, but my grandma’s on hospice.
So, You know, we know it’s coming. She’s being very well taken care of. And so we’ll probably be going to New York soon. And that’s really hard because it’s not even like I can call her. You know, we’re kind of like past that point. Where that’s happening. So it’s just a weird season for everyone. And we appreciate all of your love and support that you’ve given us on Patreon and everything like that, because you all get to know kind of what’s happening before anybody else.
And that’s been really, really helpful for both both of us during this time. Yeah, thanks, guys. Yeah. Speaking of which we have some patrons to thank Yes, I would love to thank Rachel Schuster and Jen Velikoff, live and good. So thank you. Yes. Thank you both so much. We are so happy to have you. And if there’s anything you all need, just shoot us a message and we’ll be answering you promptly.
Which means within 24 hours. That is pretty prompt. Like, you send a message through my chart to your doctor, good luck. Yeah, good luck. In two weeks, when your leg falls off, they’re definitely going to call you back. Okay, well, are you ready to jump in, do you think? Yeah, I think so. Can we muster a little energy for this because it’s about caffeine?
Yes. Yes. Let’s start with a question though. Oh, yeah. So, today’s question is from one of our lovely patrons, Alyssa from Delaware. Alyssa says, a lot of things suggest to wean off a bottle around one year of age. What do you do for daycare with sending breast milk beyond one? She takes to a straw cup really well and knows how to use the open cup, but lots of spills still occur.
Do you warm breast milk in an open cup or straw cup? Is now too early to offer milk in a straw cup? Thank you so much for any thoughts. Your content has truly gotten me to this point in my nursing journey. No way would we have made it this long without all of your advice. I’ve learned so much in the past year.
Okay, well, Let’s, weaning off a bottle is a process, right? And if you’re still warming baby’s milk, kind of getting to cold milk is a different process. So I’d say like, choose one of those and try that first. I, I think it might be easier if you want to stop warming the milk to maybe try offering cold milk in a bottle.
Seeing how that goes. Your baby may just be like, cool, cool beans, no big deal. Ooh, something new. Yeah and seeing how that goes, and then, when you’ve transitioned to that way then you can just like, every once in a while be like, oh, you want some milk? Here’s a cup of it. Why not? Like, with a straw. I would definitely say a straw cup.
You do not want your baby to dump an entire open cup of milk on them because I would cry. I like the Dr. Brown’s straw attachments because they fit on regular narrow mouth bottles. So you don’t have to buy a bunch of new stuff, and they’re super leak proof. And yeah, you can totally send that to daycare in a straw cup if you want.
Or you can just, like, send cow’s milk. That’s fine too. Yeah, and also, if you’re trying to do the open cup thing, I mean, I’ve heard of some daycares and, you know, those Caregiving scenarios to be pretty like adamant that they’re drinking from an open cup right at that point so if you’re feeling the pressure there, you can actually practice with water that way if they spill it who cares, you know Just put a tiny little bit of water and let them play You know, I made the mistake of buying a series of cups that were different colors and trying to entice my children into using an open cup.
I would let them choose the color. Don’t do that because then they have too much power and they will always want the blue cup and then the blue cup will never be found and it’ll always be dirty and it’s just a whole situation. So get the same color of every cup so you never have to have an argument with a tiny hostile toddler.
Oh, and I did want to mention weaning off the bottle around age one is generally the recommendation for proper dental development and hard palate development, but it doesn’t have to happen like the day they turn one. Not unless you’re my grandma. My grandma walked all eight of her children on their birthday to the garbage can with the bottle and said, bye bye, send it to the garbage man.
And she was like, we’re done. Like, hardcore grandma, but, I mean, they made it. That’s fine, yeah, but you don’t have to do that. You can be like, okay, whatever, now we’re 15 months and I’m finally ready because crazy stuff happened and we didn’t have the spoons for it, so. I feel like I don’t have the spoons for a lot of things lately.
Anything. For anything.
Alright, it’s Maureen here, and I want to tell you that I have finally set up a link so you can instantly book virtual lactation consults with me. Thank the lord. I know, Heather, it took me a long time to take the leap from in person visits to virtual, but I did it! You’re gonna love it. I love doing virtual consults.
They are the best. It serves more people. I’m so glad you took the plunge. Thank you. And if you guys out there want to book some time with me, you can go to highlandbirthsupport. com and then click on my Lactation Services tab. Is that H I G H L A N D? Yes. Okay. I will see you on Zoom, everybody. I love caffeine.
It’s every parent’s BFF. Morning, morning coffee. If you can get it hot, it’s even better. Oh. Lukewarm, lukewarm is pretty much the best that most postpartum parents get. You know, I think one of the wonderful treats about being chronically forgetful is that I forget that I had coffee. Just ever and then when I find it again, I’m like, Oh my God, a cup of coffee.
That’s so great. There you are cutie. I left you in the microwave over here. I still need you. Yeah, you know it’s, it’s a good friend of ours, but the question for everybody is, is it safe while breastfeeding? Of course the answer is there’s a lot we don’t know, but we do have pretty good guidelines and we do have some data to work from.
I’m gonna go with yes. I’m gonna say yes, it is. Yes, yeah. The simple answer is yes, it is safe if you want to stop listening now. We have had caffeine for thousands of years. Absolutely. And I definitely want to say, like, if somebody in your pregnancy or postpartum was like, oh my god, you cannot drink coffee.
You’re pregnant. Your baby’s never gonna sleep. Or like, I feel like when I was a kid, we were told it would stunt our growth. Right. I don’t know. All kinds of weird stuff. Folks, you can drink the coffee. And let’s talk about why and what we know. So. And if this episode is really serving the purpose of educating the people that are ruining your coffee life, we’re talking to you as well.
Don’t worry. We’re not going to be too mad. We’re just going to help you understand. Just like how to be kind. Why you need to back off Becky. She’s basic and she needs to go to Target and get her Starbucks. And then come home and nurse her baby. That’s the one thing she wants in her postpartum period.
Leave it go. Well, caffeine is an L2. Right, we’re classifying it as most likely compatible. Limited data suggests that there are very small risks for a breastfeeding infant. Here’s what we know pretty definitively. Caffeine appears in breast milk really quickly after maternal birth. The levels peak in your milk about 30 minutes after you drink it and are a little bit more than half that much in like two hours after drinking.
And The thing about caffeine is it is highly available to us. 99 percent of the caffeine consumed is absorbed within 45 minutes of ingestion. And I bet that is because it’s been around for thousands and thousands of years. Yeah, I mean so many plants naturally have caffeine. We have a couple of cool species here that do.
You know those, those Velcro plants, cleavers that like stick to your pants when you walk by? Their seeds have a lot of caffeine. No way. Yep. Wow. Pretty cool. Do other animals eat them? Oh, I’m sure they do. Yeah. Hmm. Interesting. Yeah. Yeah. That’s, that’s. One of those things where it’s like the longer it’s been around and humans have been using it, the more efficient human bodies get at using it.
Absolutely. So it’s like, I’m not mad at that. Thank you. No, no. Thank you, caffeine. It’s a wonderful thing that we have available to us. sO like I mentioned a little bit before, we have a half life of caffeine, right? The amount of time it takes for your body to metabolize about half of what you ingested.
The half life of caffeine is a lot longer while you are pregnant. Hmm, okay, it can be up to like nine hours. Pray tell, why? Ha, I’m gonna get there, hold on. So but it should return back to normal within the first couple weeks postpartum. So the mean half life, like the average out of all the people you post of caffeine in your plasma is about five hours, but it differs really widely.
So for some people it’s like one hour, and for some people it’s like six. It’s pretty crazy. But this is good to keep in mind. And here is why. Most of the studies we have on caffeine in the human body are done on people with penises. Shocker. And we recently realized that changing estrogen levels have a large impact on how we metabolize caffeine.
Because, caffeine is almost exclusively metabolized in the liver by the cytochrome, which is also where we eliminate extra estrogens from the body. Oh. So, imagine we have two major highways merging. And one is all the caffeine cars, and one is all the estrogen buses, and they don’t always merge perfectly, right?
Like sometimes, sometimes the caffeine cars just like, wing, wing, zoom out of there, and then we have this backup of estrogen. Sometimes the estrogen gets metabolized faster, and we have a little bit of a caffeine backup, and there’s really not a whole lot of predicting, like, how that happens. Is this why they tell you to give up caffeine and it’ll help your acne?
Yes. Oh. That, from my understanding, yeah, because it affects how you metabolize some of your hormones. Pretty wild. Anyway, after that fun fact like alcohol, caffeine is water soluble, so it’s gonna move freely in and out of your breast milk the longer it stays in your body. So, now let me know a little bit about our good friend caffeine.
What do our studies say about caffeinated booby babies? Well, I do know that the studies point to exposure in pregnancy having less side effects than the infants being breastfed postpartum. Sure does. So, if you are pregnant, Congratulations. Congratulations. Keep drinking your coffee. Yes, keep drinking coffee.
Or whatever. Maybe not a Four Loko, but, you know. I, my husband did not know what that was, and I was like, we had very different teen years. Four Loko, if you don’t drink it, you might be able to use it to take off the finish off a coffee table. Yeah, no, I think it’s still out there, but I think they changed the alcohol percentage or something.
Anyways, if you’re pregnant and you’re drinking two cups of caffeine a day, Totally fine. Totally fine. You can continue drinking to postpartum and your baby probably won’t notice a difference because it’s already been exposed. So we do have, you know, a number of reports from breastfed infants.
whose mothers have a high caffeine intake of like fussiness and jitteriness and some poor sleep patterns. But these things are hard to strongly correlate with caffeine, right? Because those are kind of like normal things for a lot of babies, just like we talk about with any medication. It’s like, okay, is, is my baby fussy because of the medication or, you know, this supplement I’m taking?
Or is it just fussy because it’s eight weeks old? Hard to know. But the studies where we have these increase in reports. of side effects are really with parents who are drinking like 10 or more cups of coffee a day. Yeah, 10 or more cups a day. Some of the studies I read actually start consumption in their group at 10 cups of coffee a day.
Also, as a provider, let me just say if one of my patients is drinking 10 cups of caffeine a day, I’m looking for other things. Yeah. Do we have ADHD? Right? Like, are you sleeping okay? Are you self medicating in some way for a thyroid problem? Are we hypo? Like, are we so lethargic that we are just describing my body over here?
I’m looking at my friend. Lovingly, you know, so we need to be looking at why you feel the need to drink that much coffee in the first place for sure. And so this applies to other sources of caffeine, too. I’m going to say coffee a lot because it’s like 90 percent of where my caffeine comes from. But, you know.
Coca Cola, energy drinks, yerba mate, guarana, all of that, like, it’s all the same. It’s not that different. So, if you drink a different caffeine source, just pretend like we’re talking about that. Studies in parents who were drinking five cups of coffee daily found essentially no stimulation in breastfed infants three weeks of age or older.
That’s great. Isn’t that just lovely? It’s great news. So the current guidelines say that maternal intake of caffeine should be limited to somewhere around three to five hundred milligrams a day as a very safe level. And correct me if I’m wrong, but I’m pretty sure one cup of coffee is a hundred and forty milligrams.
The average cup of coffee only contains 95 milligrams of caffeine. Okay, but my cups of coffee contain 140 because I make it strong and long. Sure thing. And, and, you know, I think that cup is like eight ounces, right? An eight ounce cup of coffee. So, of course it depends what your cup of coffee looks like.
Folks who are living in the UK, you know, are probably drinking an eight ounce as an extra large. And us here, we’re like, 24 ounces of coffee, please? That’s just a solid medium, so. Would you like to supersize that? Always, yes. Yeah but regardless, the guidelines just say three to five hundred milligrams is probably safe for most people, but just, you know, pay attention to your infant for some irritability or insomnia.
Right, and you know, of course, with everything, if you have a preterm baby or a younger newborn, they’re going to metabolize caffeine. slower and their serum levels of caffeine and other active caffeine metabolites might be higher and more similar to their mother’s levels. So a lower intake level might be preferable because also you’re, when you have like a medically fragile or premature baby, you’re looking for any indication that something’s going wrong.
Like we’re always looking for stability. So if there is some kind of GI thing going on, we don’t want to be like, Oh, it’s probably just the caffeine. Right. We want to make sure it’s not something more serious. Exactly. So you don’t want to mask anything and just blow it off like it’s, you know, part of the caffeine.
Oh, they’re a preemie, but I got to have my coffee. It’s like, well, they might have necrotizing enterocolitis. Like, let’s look into it. Yeah. Yeah. And let’s figure out maybe then something we can replace that with for you. Right. So interesting note that may not be relevant. That coffee intake of more than 450 milliliters daily.
Not sure how many ounces that is. Could decrease the amount of iron in your breast milk. And I say could very clearly. And might result in a mild iron deficiency anemia in some breastfed infants. Now, very limited reports to support this. Not really something I would personally alter my caffeine intake for proactively, but it is good to note if, say, at some point your baby is diagnosed with iron deficiency anemia, you could be like, oh, maybe I should decrease my coffee intake and see if that helps.
Can I pose a question? Devil’s advocate kind of situation. So I’m wondering also if people that are drinking 450 milliliters of coffee a day, Might also be doing something like working night shift, and maybe not eating the most well rounded diet, you know? It’s like, there’s a lot of confounding variables, you know?
Yeah, it’s not that much though, it’s like 15 ounces of coffee. Sixteen ounces, so that’s a pretty normal amount for a lot of people to drink. Yeah, I guess it is. Yeah, it sounds big when I say milliliters, like we’re in Europe. Yeah, I don’t know. I just, I don’t love that. I feel like there’s too many confounding variables.
Yeah, and that’s why I’m trying to emphasize like, might, could, maybe. I really don’t think that this necessarily should be a hard and fast guideline, but it is something to keep in the back of your head if you have a baby who’s struggling with iron deficiency anemia. Maybe a small part of the puzzle.
Okay, so what about the people that are like, I definitely think I’ve noticed a pattern that when I drink coffee or drink my pop, my baby has symptoms. Yeah, there’s the rub. A lot of people notice that their babies are sensitive to small amounts of caffeine. Is it possible it’s a coincidence? Yeah, absolutely.
Is it possible that your baby really does get fussy with when you drink one cup of coffee? Yeah, absolutely. There’s a really big range of what’s normal for humans, right? Now, most babies, it seems like, do get used to this over time. So if you’re like, Eh, fussiness now and then, we’re just gonna wait it out, that’s fine.
You know, we just don’t have great data about this. So a lot of people choose to abstain from caffeine because they don’t want to deal with that extra symptoms and baby and that’s fine. It’s fine as long as they’re not suffering because of it. You know what I mean? It’s just like, I’ve seen this happen so many times where people abstain from caffeine and alcohol.
And socialization and, and, and, and it’s just like this slippery slope. Oh, and now just in case I’m going to cut out dairy. No, no, no, no, no, no. Yeah. Like this, we’re not cutting everything out. You don’t get an award guys. Like there’s no award committee that comes around and it’s like, congratulations.
You’ve abstained from anything that could possibly create any discomfort in your baby ever. Yeah, well, and I think when I have clients come to me about this, it’s definitely Like a little pink flag goes up about mental health stuff, right? Cause yes, maybe it is just a physical thing. Physical reaction.
Baby gets fussy because they’re sensitive to caffeine and that sucks. But we also often have these cycles of like guilt and self blame that aren’t always attached to real things. And that’s where it gets into what you were saying, where someone’s like, Oh, I cut out the caffeine and it’s not better.
So let me cut something else out and let me do something else. And then, okay, well, I left the house that one time we skipped a nap and then baby didn’t sleep at all. So we’re never leaving again. Mm hmm. And that’s where this becomes like a totally different beast. Yeah, this for me, this episode is not so much like do it or don’t do it.
It’s like, tell me how you feel about the things that you love to do for you and how you’re not doing them anymore and why. And is there something there that we need to talk about? And also, friendly reminder that as human beings, our brains are wired to look for patterns in things. We do it for survival purposes.
Oh, and we all do this, where your baby sleeps through the night for the first time and you’re like, Okay, so yesterday we woke up at 9 a. m. and then we took a nap at 11 30 and it was an hour and a half exactly. And then we took another nap at two and that was 45 and then we went to bed at eight and, and then you’re like, how do we replicate that every day?
You take the square root of your sanity and you multiply it by a schedule that doesn’t make any sense. And then if the wind is blowing in a northeasterly direction, your baby will sleep through the night with no farts. It has nothing to do with anything usually. Right. So we’re going to encourage you to drink the coffee.
Or the pop, or, you know, whatever it is that you drink that supplies your brain with caffeine. Be happy, you guys. And if you’re not happy and you’re suffering, Phone a friend. Yes. Call someone and be like, I feel like I am one cup of coffee away from seeing a therapist. And that’s okay. Yes, and we will pour you that cup of coffee while we make the phone call with you.
Yes. Absolutely. How do you take your coffee, by the way? I take it with cream, no sugar. Well, I go through phases I go through phases, but for the majority of the time, cream and a little bit of sugar. Yeah, I used to be a black coffee person because I was insane, insane, and I would just drink black coffee like all day long.
Huh. This knowing look you’re giving me. And then I got pregnant and I drank a cup of black coffee and just immediately vomited it everywhere. Oh yeah. And I was unable to drink it in pregnancy without some kind of milk. Do you French press? Yeah, I do. So do I. So for that pregnancy, I pretty much would fill half a mug of just milk and then like fill the rest with coffee.
And then I like slowly got back to actually drinking more coffee than milk. I love how you created a plan to continue your coffee experience. All right. My action plan for getting caffeine back into my life. I’m going to Slowly increase the coffee to milk ratio until I’m no longer vomiting. That’s dedication, folks.
Oh, yeah, it might have been self medication. Anyway, I do strongly love my coffee. And I have tried some, like, coffee substitutes and I’m just not ready for it. What do you mean? Like the mushroom stuff? Yeah, yeah, it’s great. I like it. But it’s like not a substitute. It’s like, I’ll have that maybe like instead of my fourth cup of coffee.
I like a blonde roast. Which, actually, did you know that blonde roasts have more caffeine than dark roasts? Light roasts have, in general, have more caffeine than dark roasts. I don’t actually really care about how light or dark the roast is. It is important to me that my coffee beans are not burnt. Mm hmm.
And that they are not stale. Mm hmm. So that they smell and taste fresh. Can I tell you a story about coffee? Yes, please. So when I was postpartum. Mm hmm. You know how I am a super smeller anyway? Like, I can smell. Anything. Anywhere in the home. I will sniff it out like Toucan Sam and I will get rid of it.
Samesies. Yeah. And my husband thinks I’m lying half the time. Isn’t that so frustrating? You’re like, stop moving because the smell is you and I’m not lying. Well, he kept, you know, he kept making coffee in the morning and I was like, yo. This coffee tastes gross. There’s something wrong with this coffee. And he was like, there’s nothing wrong with this coffee.
And I was like, yeah, but you have the palate of a ape, you know, like there, I don’t think that you can actually taste this. So this goes on for a week and I finally can’t take it anymore. And we were using a traditional percolating coffee pot at the time. And I was like, all right, I’m going to clean this thing.
And so I got boiling water with white vinegar and I poured it into the back and a fricking stink bug floated to the top. And I was like, what? I’m done. I’m French pressing from now on. That is honestly Oh my god. One of the reasons I French press is because I can clean every piece of it and see it. Yeah.
So, I looked at my husband and I was like, There is a motherfucking stink bug in the motherfucking percolated coffee machine. And I threw it away. And he was like, What if we want it for guests? And I was like, what guest is going to want to drink stink bug coffee? We can get the biggest French press there is.
I am so done with this. Oh my gosh. Absolutely not. For folks who don’t live where stink bugs are a problem, you are the luckiest humans. They are so annoying. They they get in your house in the winter, kind of no matter how well sealed your house is. And then in the spring. They just, like, erupt from wherever they’ve been hiding and get into everything.
They have no purpose other than to just stink. And children think they’re hilarious. My children hate them and tell me repeatedly that I need to fix our house. So Griffin, I was tucking him into bed and a stink bug falls on me so I’m like, ah, you know, like, and he goes, Mom, that is my friend. And I was like, what?
And he’s like, the stink bugs are my friends. And he picks it up, like, scoops it up lovingly. And then he Climbs to the top of his bunk bed, and deposits it, and I look up there, and they’re Oh, no. There are so many stink bugs up there. I’m gonna throw up. I can’t do it. And he was like, and he was like, goodnight everybody.
I was like, I’m just leaving, goodnight. I can’t even. Good night, everyone. I don’t know what to do about this. How fun breeding in the top bunk. I guess I’ll just leave the window open and hope you leave. Oh, my God. No. OK, well, on that note, get a French press or a pour over. Get rid of your percolator.
It’s dirty and gross. Or just clean it off. Or just clean it super often and always trust your instincts when it comes to smells and tastes and making the right choices for you and your children. Absolutely.
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They have a great nipple shield that actually changes colors and it’s not clear like all the other ones. And you know how we feel about that. if You want to have your very own series chiller, please go to the link in our show notes and use code MilkMinute15 at checkout. That’s MilkMinute15 for 15 percent off your series chill products.
Enjoy!
Well I think it’s time to give somebody an award. Award time! Who’s it going to be? Destiny D from our Facebook group. Tell me what she did. All right, she said, Don’t quit on a hard day. This was some of the best breastfeeding advice I ever received. My son just turned one and we battled through so much to keep our breastfeeding journey alive and I couldn’t be more proud of our little family for pushing through.
From newborn boob trauma, to tongue ties, to mastitis, to weight issues, to exclusive pumping, and food allergies, you name it, I’m so thankful for the support we’ve had for the last year. There were so many highs too, I wouldn’t trade all my hours of snuggling for anything. We’ve nursed on mountaintops, on planes, in the car, in restaurants, at sporting events, on the floor, on the porch, and just about anywhere you can think.
And when will we stop? I don’t know. We’ll let him take the lead on that. We are so proud of you, Destiny. That’s amazing. I’m so happy for you. And it sounds like you had a pretty interesting journey. Yeah. But you didn’t let it get you down. You know, and that is incredible. And I’m super happy that you just kept moving forward.
So, let’s see. We’re going to give you the Feeding Fortitude Award. Absolutely. And happy birthday to your son and happy birthing day to you. And yeah, thank you so much for being a listener. Yes. And thank you for listening to another episode of the Milk Minute Podcast. If you would like to change this big old system that just isn’t really made to support you at all you can do that by telling your friends and family about this podcast and helping everyone learn about breastfeeding.
Yes. If you found value in what we produced for you today, you can join us on Patreon as one of our VIPs and get access to behind the scenes videos and cool merch and just general personal stories of what’s going on with Maureen and I. that we don’t always share on the podcast and you can make a small donation which goes directly towards supporting our project.
And that would be patreon. com slash milk a minute podcast. It’s quite simple and you should go right now because you’re amazing and we love you and thank you so much. Bye bye.
