Turtle Monkey

I feel pretty awful about my supply.

When we got to Texas, I had been nursing with the SNS at every feeding except for overnight (because he’s usually nursing pretty much nonstop overnight to begin with and the SNS is hard enough to deal with during the day). I had been on the domperidone for a week and I really felt full of milk.

With the stress of the holidays and being in someone else’s home, I stopped using the SNS and I was not adamant about nursing him first before every bottle. I also wasn’t very good about taking the domperidone. I just feel stupid about this. I should have done it. I should have always made an excuse to do it. At first I would leak like crazy if I missed a feeding. I could squirt milk everywhere. By the end of the week, it was like my supply dropped back down to what it was.

So now I’m back at home, back at work and I feel like I’m right back at square one again. I’m still making milk, but it doesn’t feel like as much as before. I felt like I was so close to getting at least a bit of a supply and I let it slip through my fingers. Stupid, stupid Lynda. Seriously, this is the dumbest thing I’ve done regarding breastfeeding and I’m not sure how I can forgive myself.

My plan is to go back on the domperidone - 3 pills 3 times a day. I will try nursing with the SNS any time I am at home with Elias (or at the very least, will nurse him before bottles). Once I get access to our Mother’s Room here at work I’m going to try pumping every three hours at least. I might try to see if I can sneak away every two hours and pump - it theoretically shouldn’t be hard since the rooms have network access and I have a work laptop I can use. If I can find time, I may also try pumping after feedings when I’m at home. Since I don’t have access to the mother’s room yet, I’ve been hand expressing in the bathroom, but I haven’t saved any of that milk, nor do I know how much of it there is.

I really hope I can get my supply back up to at least what it was when we got to Texas, but I’m kind of doubting that will happen. I wish there was a reliable way to measure how much breastmilk Elias is getting every day, but there isn’t. It would be really nice to cut back on the amount of formula he’s getting once he starts solid foods, though I still think nursing him exclusively at any point in his first year is a pipe dream.

It’s nearly noon and Elias is doing pretty well today. He woke up at 8am and just wanted to be sitting upright. I propped him up on my pillow, keeping a close eye on him as I made the bed, gathered his toys for the day and started the diaper laundry (my 5 extra BumGenius diapers came in the mail! Woo!)

He ate around 9am and was content after that in his swing for about 20 minutes while I did some dishes and folded the clean diapers I neglected yesterday. TMI, I know, but he seems to prefer pooping when he’s in his swing. He will keep it in if I’m carrying him around, so I just put him in the swing after his morning feeding. He usually only poops once a day.

After changing his diaper and giving him a morning sponge bath, he played with his musical gym toy for another 20 minutes or so. Then I put on my Moby, popped him in and did a few more chores and made myself something to eat. At one point he wiggled around for about a minute (he does this when he gets really tired and it usually precedes him crying for a few minutes, fighting off sleep). But then he just put his face into my chest and fell asleep. Win! I love it when we get through the morning without crying. He’s been asleep for probably about an hour and a half now and will probably be ready to eat when he wakes up. From what I can tell so far, he seems to be feeling better than yesterday. I hope this continues.

In the past few weeks since I’ve been completely off the Reglan, I feel like my milk supply has lowered dramatically. I don’t really know why I feel this way other than I no longer leak from one side at night, which had started when I started the Reglan. I’m still taking herbal supplements, but they don’t really seem to be doing any good at all. In one more attempt to try to up my supply, I’ve ordered Domperidone from a UK website (since the FDA won’t allow it to be prescribed in the US for breastfeeding purposes). People have said wonderful things about this drug, so I hope it does something. I feel so defeated about not being able to exclusively breastfeed. I hate formula. I hate bottles. I’ve gone back to using the SNS full time, but it doesn’t really make any difference supply wise.

Anyway, Elias is waking up, so we’ll start our afternoon together. I hope it goes as well as the morning did.

Yesterday went well! My mom came over and brought a 22lb turkey, cranberry sauce, ingredients to make stuffing and a green bean casserole. I made pumpkin pies and macaroni and cheese. We also had rolls and country crock sweet potatoes, but the latter wasn’t really all that great.

Elias was a bit fussy last night after everyone left, but I think that may have been because he was a bit overstimulated during the day and just refused to take an evening nap. He was up for four hours straight from 7:30-11:30 and wanted to eat most of that time. I’m not sure if he was really hungry, but he kept shoving his fists in his mouth and kept spitting out my nipples, which he doesn’t do if he wants to comfort nurse. He’d just cry inconsolably until I’d give him some formula (we’re doing bottles now mostly, especially at night, though I still use my SNS too because I prefer to at least feel like I’m breastfeeding him.)

He’s getting SO heavy. He definitely went through a growth spurt over the weekend. He seems longer and he’s absolutely heavier. My mom and Jim noticed a big difference in him from when they were here on Saturday.

I’m worried that he may be getting too much formula, but I’ve also heard that young babies don’t overeat if they’re not hungry, so I’m not sure. Who knows how much milk he’s getting from me (he nurses on both sides before each feeding for maybe 15-30 minutes total in addition to comfort nursing throughout the night and day) but I can’t imagine it’s more than a couple of ounces total. Up until last week he was taking between 20-24 ounces of formula a day. Now he usually scarfs down 28-32 ounces a day, most of which is late at night. He’ll drink between 8-12 ounces within a 4 hour period late at night. It doesn’t seem right… it definitely seems like too much, but nothing else will make him happy. We’ve tried every other method we have to comfort him before giving in and letting him eat and eating is the only thing that makes him happy. Maybe he’s still just going through a growth spurt and it will taper back down to ‘normal’ soon. I wouldn’t be surprised if he was up to 12 pounds, so 28 ounces wouldn’t be so far off from that, but I am concerned when he takes 32 ounces in a day.

I hate not being able to exclusively breastfeed. After reading tons of information about it, I definitely do feel like I have low milk supply due to insufficient glandular tissue (especially since the Reglan, very frequent nursing and herbs didn’t make any substantial differences in my supply) but I think the poor start we got to breastfeeding didn’t help matters any. Hindsight is 20/20, but if I had to do it again, I probably would have waited even longer before introducing formula. I felt that there was something wrong with the fact that he nursed half the day away and got frustrated at my nipple, but I now know that at least he was getting SOME milk from that if he had to nurse 24/7 to get all the milk he needed, it wouldn’t have been the end of the world. I think having people around me constantly and feeling like I needed to “do something” didn’t help matters any. Whenever I see a post in the breastfeeding community of someone complaining about the amount of time their baby wants to breastfeed I feel like slapping them. I would kill to go back to having that opportunity.

I think our next child may have a better chance to get more milk from me. I don’t think my supply right now can be built to be enough to sustain Elias, but maybe I should at least try it… skip his next formula feeding and just let him nurse and nurse and nurse to try to pull as much milk from me as possible… I don’t know. I’ve read the information on kellymom about relactation and I’m already doing 90% of that stuff in my normal daily routine with him since the start and it hasn’t made any difference in my supply. Sometimes I can hand express up to 1/4 of an ounce in 15-30 minutes, however I haven’t been able to hand pump more than a few drops and I got the same results with the hospital grade electric pump. These results truly just make me feel that it’s an IGT issue and not me giving up too soon or not doing the right thing. But if it is IGT, then with my next pregnancy I should build more glandular tissue and with a good start, I may be able to exclusively breastfeed, or at the very least supplement with much less formula.

I didn’t mean for this to turn into a breastfeeding post, but it did. I try not to let it bother me, but I do still have a lot of guilt over the formula thing. I am happy that I have at least a little milk so he can comfort nurse and I can nurse him in bed, buying an extra hour or two at times overnight.

This was my first day going out on my own (well, with the baby) since having the baby. I hadn’t driven in nearly a month! It was a bit difficult juggling two bags and a carseat, but I managed.

He’s now up to 9lbs 11oz! Holy Jesus! We were expecting him to be at least 9 lbs, but we had no idea he’d chunked up SO much in the past week and a half! He was 8lbs 4oz the Friday before last. The LC said he’s gaining more than what he should every day, so I can probably cut back on the formula. She recommended that I continue trying to skip the SNS a couple times a day (she recommended night time and early morning feedings) and see how he does.

We tried the pump in her office and I didn’t produce a single drop. It kind of makes me feel better about not using it, although I am somewhat discouraged that when I go back to work, he’ll probably need to be on formula exclusively when I’m not around. I will get to work from home 3 days a week, though technically I am not supposed to be taking care of my child at the same time. I am all for breaking the rules though if I can do it and still get my job done, but I’m not sure how demanding a 3 month + child can be. I can’t imagine it’s more demanding than a newborn, but I don’t think I’d be able to work from home at this point at all.

Now that I’ve braved going out into the world with a baby I might try going to the grocery store or someplace close (like to a drive thru to get lunch) one day soon. As I’m sure is pretty typical with babies, if he’s well fed, driving around in a car seems to put him out like a light!

I meet with the lactation consultant again tomorrow. I think there’s been at least a slight improvement with my supply since starting Reglan on Saturday, though the amount of formula I’ve been giving him hasn’t really gone down too much. I was able to nurse him twice today without any formula at all. Both times he fell asleep after nursing with a little bit of milk dribbling down his cheek, which I take to be a good sign. (Although after the first time, he took 5 ounces of formula over the next 2 hours which is more than usual for him. This time at least he’s been asleep for about an hour.) I’m hopeful that if I can’t cut the formula out completely, I’ll at least have a few feedings a day that don’t require me to get the SNS ready. That would definitely help my spirits and my time constraints. There’s nothing worse in my day than hearing my baby cry in hunger while I get formula ready in the SNS.