Second day of working full-time and my body thinks it should have fed Charles by now. I haven't felt this full in ages.

I wonder how long it will take to adapt - and why it didn't happen yesterday.

Lots of people! And interesting panels! And childcare (and Charles seemed to love it)!

We failed to pack enough nappies so this morning I ventured out on a bus into local suburbia, and managed to time it with a small snowstorm. My lovely new long black skirt is not ideal for splashing around in the snow, but being made of light cotton, it dries fast. Multiple times over.

Leo is here, what a lovely surprise. Also I just ran into morgangallagher, who I 'know' in the context of breastfeeding communities on LJ.

And that reminds me that I wanted to point people at her post on a brilliant advertising campaign for breastfeeding. The brief is really ambitious - normalise breastfeeding among young mums in Lancashire - and the result definitely more interesting than the usual breastfeeding campaign.

Charles developed a mild fever during Thursday night and so on Friday we kept him home and Tony worked a half-day so I could go to work. The fever responded well to infant paracetamol but he was fairly clingy and desperately thirsty much of the day and night.

We decided in the end that Tony & Louise would go to Sheffield by train, and attempt to amend the railcard tickets at the station (thanks lnr for that idea!). Conrad can come back on my ticket. Overall we probably won't be much out of pocket. I rang the B&B to let them know it would just be Tony, but it turned out they were full and unable to move him to a cheaper room.

This morning Charles was no longer feverish. But still very clingy and tired, so after 2 minutes consideration I decided not to pack hurriedly and go along at the last minute after all. I felt more down than I expected when we waved them off though. I was really looking forward to seeing people, and I already know Charles and I won't be at the next big Finch gathering (it clashes with the Wychwood festival).

These last two weeks I have been very glad that I can still breastfeed Charles.

My formula petition closed recently and so (like everyone else who signed it) I got an email linking to the official government response. Colour me underwhelmed: a lot of "consulting" and "exploring" and "discussing" and "reminding". Some "enforcing" or "prosecuting" would be nice, in the la-la fantasy land of my mind where public health is valued more highly than corporate profits.

Today I got an email about another petition I signed, about assumption of fault in insurance claims for car accidents, and the government response appears to completely miss the point of the petition.

Still, at least we're getting involved. Feel that warm happy involved glow.

Now, there's a word: comfort. I remember, pre-motherhood, challenging a friend of mine who was breastfeeding her 18-month-old child. "But isn't it just for comfort?" I said. "What's wrong with wanting to comfort my child?" she said.

I got the "and you're still breastfeeding him?" question today. From another nursing mother. In the breastfeeding area at John Lewis. I swallowed my annoyance and wittered sweetly about how he ate solids 5 times a day but still wanted to feed.

The childminder I interviewed today didn't blink at him being nursed though. I made a comment when leaving that sometimes I was asleep before Tony came home (in the context of how soon I could sensibly give her a decision) and she said "well, you're a nursing mother, you're allowed."

Now that Charles is 1, and also now that he is quite clearly a hulking toddler, I am getting asked more when I'm going to stop breastfeeding him. I even had someone tell me outright last weekend that "now he's 1, he should be purely on solids". I put them right politely[1] but I'm feeling a bit more exposed and isolated, as I don't know anyone locally who nurses a toddler. Oh, that's not true, my lovely colleague Danielle is still nursing her son, 1 week younger than Charles. Hurrah.

[1] "Actually, the current advice is for babies to be primarily milk-fed until a year, and he can't just flip a switch on his birthday - we're offering him solids 5-6 times a day and letting him set the pace."

Anyway, yesterday I managed to get in touch with someone from the local branch of La Leche League and she's emailed me with useful information. Their regular meeting-up is on Friday mornings, which I can't do, but they have an email chat list. I think I'll find it useful for boosting my confidence that I'm not being a freak.

The two most common reactions to criticising formula advertising that I've come across in the last 2 weeks are as follows:

1. It's a mother's choice whether to give breastmilk or formula, no-one else gets a say (and heaven help you if you are not a mother, as some of my friends have found)
2. How dare you make mothers who formula-feed feel guilty for doing so?

In answer to 1:
Yes, it is a mother's choice, because it is her body that will get used (or not), but it needs to be a fully informed and supported one. The choice is not between two equal options, although the formula manufacturers have a huge vested interest in making mothers and those around them think it is. Formula feeding carries higher health risks for the child (and is worse for the environment), and costs more, while breastfeeding has a much harder learning curve to get started. It's very hard for a mother to get a fully informed and supported choice when the formula manufacturers have a much bigger advertising (and product placement) budget than the government and charity breastfeeding support campaigns. Regulation of advertising is one of the tools to keep the information flow balanced.

In answer to 2:
Why the hell should mothers feel guilty?
- if they thought formula was pretty much the same as breastmilk?
- if they thought breastfeeding would "just come naturally" and found it frustrating and difficult and painful?
- if they had no support, or even people actively encouraging them to "just give them a bottle and get some rest"?
- if they didn't know that starting to give bottles before breastfeeding is established can lead to a downward spiral of milk supply and the need for more formula?

Why the hell should they feel guilty? Why aren't they feeling angry at the way they have been systematically lied to and undermined? It is a stroke of twisted genius to characterise anti-formula-advertising as "making mothers feel guilty", when the aim is to give mothers a truly informed choice, not just what the formula manufacturers would like them to believe.

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Anyway, as a post-script to this rantage, I wanted to note the most important things I learned about breastfeeding before Charles was born. It was these, rather than the "breast is best" mantra, that kept me going in the first few weeks:

* It would not come naturally, and we would both have to learn.
* It would hurt at times.
* It would be damn inconvenient at times.
* If we could get through the first six weeks, we'd probably be ok.
* Never ever to use a bottle until either we'd got nursing established or I was definitely giving up.

I was ready to have a steep six-week learning curve, and I promised myself if I couldn't cope after six weeks, I would give in and use formula instead. It took us 10 days, plus the exciting growth spurt around 3 weeks (the one where he fed for hours on end). I had mother and mother-in-law and friends and The Internet to support me. They say it takes a village to raise a child; I think it takes a good portion of a village to help a mother and child learn to breastfeed.

It's now 4 weeks since Charles started drinking much less while I was at work. I haven't pumped at work for a week (just at home as-and-when I need to, which I'm finding much less stressful) and tomorrow I'm going to return the keys to the room I was provided, and let my bosses know I won't need a pumping break any more.

I no longer need to pump for my own comfort as my oversupply has eased up in recent months and I'm much happier not scheduling the break at work. I'm keeping up with what Charles drinks while I'm gone and he gets plenty of feeding from me in the afternoons and evenings, so my supply isn't threatened. Work have been generally supportive of my breastfeeding so far, but I don't need to pump at work any more and I'm heartily glad to stop.

I've been getting steadily more fed up with making time to pump at work recently. The worst part is finding a good moment to take a 20 minute break which leaves me more tired than before I went. The current atmosphere at work isn't helping.

At the same time, Charles has been really reducing his intake of expressed milk. It doesn't help the resentment to get home and realise that he's eaten so little while I'm gone that half a bottle has to be thrown away, there's no containers left for us in the freezer and everything I've made may as well go to the Milk Bank. (I don't mind donating one or two portions a week of spare milk, but my entire output for a day is annoying)

There's been a couple of recent posts on working_cows regarding reducing/stopping pumping during the daytime, and I've been fairly reassured by the answers that it wouldn't drastically spoil my supply to do so. He takes in plenty of milk directly when I am around, eats quite a lot of solids, and is beginning to take water from a cup fairly nicely (if we hold the cup for him). I have ~22 portions of frozen milk, most of which will cover 2 days under his current intake, so if I never pumped again we'd get through another 1-2 months.

On the guess that he's just getting fed up of bottles, and because I'm a bit concerned about him getting enough fluids, I've ordered 2 Doidy cups. He may go back to his old levels of milk consumption, or perhaps just drink water instead (fine as he's no longer exclusively breastfed).

Since late last week I'm no longer pumping every day, only when more supplies are needed to feed Charles or to replace frozen milk rotated out of the freezer. In practice, this has been about every 2 working days. If I know I've got a free afternoon, I'm not even pumping at work, but waiting until I get home. I get a bit full but not to the point of discomfort, and every day I don't have to make pumping time at work is a bonus.

I've been trying to think, and until just over a week ago, I don't think I'd seen any other woman nursing in public since Charles was born. I've seen other women in the nursery at the hospital when we were all trying to work out how to do it, at an NCT coffee morning, in the breastfeeding room in Boots, and I've seen a couple of other mothers in their own homes. But not in public, that I can remember.

Last weekend, there was a mother nursing her little baby (about 3 months old) in the compartment next to us on the steam train. On Thursday I saw a toddler being fed on the bus and had to resist shouting "yay, you're still nursing your toddler, that's great!" (As Debbie pointed out, this would rather destroy the sense of normality with which I wish that was regarded - I settled for giving the mother a great beaming grin, but she looked tired and I'm not sure she saw me.) At Wychwood I saw lots of babies being nursed - at one point I was nursing Charles and could see two other babies being nursed within a short distance.

Maybe I've just got better at spotting other nursing mums - after all there's not that much obvious from a distance unless you're looking, or the baby is "helpfully" lifting your top as Charles likes to do. Or maybe there really has been a recent increase in women happy to nurse in public. Either way, I feel happy that it's not just me.

I have 23 bottles of breastmilk in it - one will need defrosting on Monday morning, and there is a 24th bottle in the fridge against need over the weekend. I've been getting mildly intimidated by women talking about their 300oz EBM stash, but it occurred to me this week that 23 lots of 120-200ml (4-7oz) is not at all bad by comparison. I have a few Milk Bank bottles in there, taking the odd surplus and waiting for the weekly collection.

At the start of each day I ensure there is a warmed bottle in bed with Tony and Charles, and a spare bottle in the fridge. I take 2 more bottles to work to fill. I have finally this week reached equilibrium where I rotate 4 bottles during the week - each day 2 in the fridge, 2 being sterilised and taken to work. On Friday milk goes in the freezer, and on Monday the oldest milk is removed and defrosted. It lasts about 3 months.

Usually Charles just demolishes one serving, and I produce a little more than one serving at work. The fridge/freezer storage helps buffer things a little. I used to leave him 120ml back in January to last the 6 hours I'm gone. Then for a while he consistently ate 150ml or so, now it is consistently 180-200ml. Thankfully my production is keeping pace.

Charles's appetite ramped up suddenly yesterday afternoon. I've spent the time since either feeding him, winding him, feeding myself or sleeping. He hasn't let me go long enough between feeds to even contemplate expressing something so I can have a break from feeding. I think the longest gap I've had is 4 hours during last night - I slept. Most of the time it's been around an hour, if that.

I couldn't do this on my own. Sue fed me dinner last night, and when I went to bed, Tony kept taking baby away to soothe him to sleep so I could nap in between feeds.

I wonder if we should expect a growth spurt imminently.