Who wants to talk about my boobs?
I have a supplementation question...
Apparently breastfeeding alone causes my little baby not to thrive, so we were instructed to supplement with formula. However, I worry that supplementing with formula will mess with the supply and demand factor on my milk production. I'm hesitant to talk to a lactation consultant just yet because I know about the bias many of them can hold against formula. But my girl's gotta eat!
Here's what we do:
She nurses about ten or more minutes on each side. We then offer her formula to see if she is still hungry (she usually is). She generally then takes in 1.5 to 2 oz of formula.
Isn't that like a whole meal? About 2 oz.? What does that say about my milk? I nurse her as often as she wants, which can be anywhere between 1-4 hours. I wake her up if it goes all the way to four hours.
I had no supply with my son. I know I have at least a little with this baby because I pump around 1/4 oz. total of both sides when I pump. Not much, but with my son I only pumped droplets. But is supplementing a good idea? I mean, it keeps her fed and that's the ultimate goal. Also after nursing on both sides for 10+ minutes, she's still hungry, and my boobs just can't take anymore!
I'll call an LC when I'm not so emotional. This breastfeeding thing is causing major frustration and crying fits from me every single feeding. It's very emotional. But I feel guilty for wanting to quit 
"Overcome the angry by non-anger; overcome the wicked by goodness; overcome the miser by generosity; overcome the liar by truth." -Buddha
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Major major major vibes, V!!!! God, I so remember this time with T, I just wrote about it a little on our family blog. I cried so much, I was so frustrated and overwhelmed. I cried A LOT over breastfeeding.
We had a nurse who came 5 days after T. was born who weighed her (damn freakin' scales!) and she had lost more weight than they were happy with. Also, T was more interested in sleeping than nursing. She'd nurse for a few minutes, then fall asleep. She suggested supplementation- which I really didn't want to do, but offered an option that I really liked-- I think it's called a SNS system (I think the
"system" is redudant), also called lactation aid...
SNS has a cylinder type thing that you fill with formula, then that goes down a tiny tube which you tape to your breast. So when the baby nurses, she gets both breastmilk and formula -- so your supply can stay up. I think it's just meant to be used for a short amount of time. We used it for a couple of days.
Can you call a LLL leader? I know they have the rep of being a bit over-the-top against supplementation, but every time I've called they've been super supportive and full of ideas and suggestions for helping me continue breastfeeding.
Also, I really like Jack Newman - http://www.nbci.ca/index.php?option=com_content&view=category&layout=blo... That's his clinic's website with pdfs about breastfeeding support, I hope it comes through.
There's a bunch of stuff you can do to up your supply too. (but yeah, your supply is more than you can pump too-- babies are better at getting breastmilk than the pump is, apparently). Lactation oatmeal cookies, eating lots of oatmeal, Mother's Milk Tea, fenugreek & blessed thistle supplements, breast compression...
I gotta run, T needs me. but sending you big hugs Give yourself a break, okay-- postpartum is such a tough time!!!!
Find ecstasy in life; the mere sense of living is joy enough. -- Emily Dickinson
You want to do what you think is right and what matters to you, and if other people don't like it, as my father would have said, they can go fuck themselves. -- Amy Bloom
Jack Newman is a wonderful breastfeeding resource. Thanks for mentioning him 
Drink lots of water, eat oatmeal and oatmeal cookies and drink the mother's milk tea or take fenugreek. Your supply may increase. If not, it is better to have a satiated baby than a hungry one, particularly since the stress of a hungry babe will likely stress you out and cause you to dry up more! I supplemented my guy in the first month and ended up breastfeeding for over 2 years. You and the babe will figure it out.
Great advice! Its not a means to an end. You can supplement and keep nursing.
I think you need to do with what will make you happiest now, and in the long run. BF is a very personal choice and if you are looking for folks to tell you its okay to formula feed, you don't have to look far! It is okay to formula feed! However, I'll tell you, I was told the same thing with Bella - I WAS TOLD ALL KINDS OF THINGS about how I wasn't going to be able to nurse her, and because I knew she was gaining weight {slow} and growing {slow} I continued to nurse. And I did it exclusively for her first year of life, despite being told to FF her by three different doctors {dermatologist, allergist, and her pediatrician}.
Max was constantly attached to my breast his first year of life, Bella, not so much. Max never seemed to get enough, he was a chunky monkey. Bella, she didn't thrive either, but was still slowly growing and gaining weight. She fell off the chart at one point, for a couple of her appointments. Charts... Farts, that's what I say about those things... and that is what several elderly ladies with many children said, too. Bella was hitting all her other developmental milestones, so there really wasn't a need for worry as far as I was concerned. I remember this young ped who was new at my reg ped's office telling me Bella's second week of life, "she hasn't gained as much weight as I would have like to have seen. if she comes back next week and hasn't gained what i'm comfortable with, we'll supplement and see if that helps." HAHAHAHAHAHAAH. She about fell over when I flat out told her I would not be giving Bella formula. She was really surprised. Then she started changing her tune, "well, we can wait longer and see what happens."
She nursed when she needed and I was able to nurse on demand. Now, if I would have had to pump for either of my children, and was not able to nurse on demand for any reason and especially if I had to go back to work, I have no doubt that I would have been lucky to make it the first six months, much less the first year. With Bella, I was able to pump a lot, but it was without pressure to have to do so. I can really see how pumping could be really stressful and challenging and would have been a total game changer had I been in the position to need to do it. When I pumped for Max, I got out maybe about an oz at a time. Having to pump would have changed my feelings about breastfeeding, I have no doubt. this is one of many reasons i feel strongly that women should have the first year after giving birth paid leave from work.
At one point, {and I almost forgot about this} when bella was around 10 months, I thought I was going to have to ff'd and was really torn about it. i ignored our pediatrician and went with what I knew - the ped was looking at weight and height, and she had fallen off the chart. If I would have done it, I would have felt really bad about it. However, knowing what I know now, those feelings would not have lasted. Especially seeing how just about every 4-5 year old I know was ff'd and is healthy, wise, and full of life.
Personally, I think you should continue nursing - but I don't know your whole situation and if it isn't realistic, than it just isn't realistic. You either can or you can't - no need for guilt about it and no need to feel like you have to have a good enough reason for anyone else but yourself, for choosing either way.
Good luck! I know this is a pickle.
PS: And I know its practically impossible to will guilt away. If you feel guilt, but know its the right thing to do, do it anyway and know that the guilt will fade with time and you will wonder why you ever felt guilty at all!
Hey mama, sorry about the long winded response. I got lost in my own past there. I'll leave it up, though.
I have to go to class, and one of them lasts about 4 hours. In January, I'm going to have to work. So if I'm going to continue to BF, I'm going to have to pump. So yeah, it's going to be hard.
I'm doing the fenugreek, eating oats, drinking water, and nursing all the time. I've decided that I'm going to keep it up at least until the next doc's appointment. Then after that I'm going to keep it up as long as my stress level will allow.
And if I have to switch her to formula, I'm not going to feel bad about it because I'm doing what I have to do to take care of my baby.
Now I just have to figure out how not to cry 8-10 times a day
Oh yeah, and thanks for this response it was very inspiring!
Pumping is a whole different hell. I never had a problem with it but I will say successful pumping depends more on the quality of the pump (you can rent an industrial strength one if ponying up 250 bucks isn't feasible) and your "letdown." If you can feel a letdown, even with low supply, the pumping will be fine. When it comes to that, if it does, post and let us know. Or, if you're inclined, check out the lech league online message boards-- those ladies rock.
For some reason I never felt letdown, ever. I pumped exclusively for the first five weeks (preemie in NICU) and after that formula fed. He never actually nursed from the breast. I always wondered why I never felt this letdown everyone seemed to be talking about! Wonder if it has to do with the fact that he never actually nursed? I don't know.....
He was a little preemie and I couldn't get enough milk in him...I had supply problems the whole time that I nursed him (1 year). We supplemented him and it was fine. People told me it would affect my supply if I supplemented, but I don't think they realized that I had so little milk to begin with, it didn't make much of a difference. I never had much luck producing more than a tablespoon when I pumped either.
I did both and it ended up being fine. I was still producing some milk when ds was a year old, so even though we supplemented with formula, he still got 12 months worth of milk - and it didn't completely overwhelm me. I had a great LC who told me, "Every drop of milk counts - so do what you have to do to be able to nurse longer without it completely stressing you out."
Hope this helps. I still remember those early days and all those tears, even though it was five years ago...
I think talking to a lactation consultant really soon might be helpful. Or a La Leche League person, if you are comfortable with talking to them (some people aren't).
They can help with latch, if your boobs are being hurt by nursing. Nursing should not hurt after 10 minutes, or 20 or even an hour. They also have cool supplemental nursing devices that get the formula to your baby in a way that doesn't make them forget how to nurse effectively at your breast. They can help you figure out how to increase your supply, if you want to and can even prescribe drugs to increase your milk supply if you want that. They are breastfeeding experts and they can help you get through this.
O.K. so that's the official side of my post...
On a personal note,
(((more hugs)))
it's crappy to have newborn and breastfeeding trouble and be sore from birth and tired and weepy and frustrated and have an older child to care for as well.
Take care of yourself as best you can and be kind to yourself. You are doing the best that you can and that's all that anyone can expect of you.
i went through that too...it was one of my first posts here...it sucked dog balls.
anyway, come to find out that it wasn't my imagination, my gestational diabetes had not, as they had decided it had, gone away, and my blood sugars were very high (i wasn't checking them cause i had been cleared in the hospital) which, hormonally, was definitely affecting my supply. you know your body. feed your baby at your breast and use formula if she is still hungry! try not to cry...there are so many women for whom this is difficult, and it doesn't make you less of a mom, you know that!!
just wanted to throw in my support and two cents, mama.
“You have your way. I have my way. As for the right way, the correct way, and the only way, it does not exist.”
Friedrich Nietzsche
even though i know better by now. but still... wtf was her damage?!! 
but one thing that will always bring me out of lurkdom here is supporting a mama who is struggling with this very sensitive issue, cause it sucks to be in that position. i am also glad that nobody seems to be on that type of warpath around here these days! i see in another post that the authoress is drinking a beer to help her, which i did too! best of luck!!
It "sucks"!
But yeah, it does suck. I'm surprised at how few people have tried to tell me not to supp. Hipmama tends to the most supportive site I post on.
I just actually went and read that link to your blog. Who the hell is that hilseb person and why is she so mean? Breastfeeding is physically difficult, but it's also emotionally difficult. And that so many people agreed with her is shocking. I'm sorry that someone like that reacted to your problem that way!
i think that is a truncated version of that thread, i remember it being much longer. or maybe it spilled over into other threads and my head's grouping them together in one. ugh, it went on and on and on. that was back when i had unlimited time to devote to this site, i actually kept a window open all day at work. ha!
but yeah, that's a famous thread in HM history. we all have our reasons for coming here, some are better than others.
on the nursing, i know you want it to work for you so i hope it works for taht reason. if not, rest assured you will make many choices during your parenting of this kid that will be excellent and totally make up for not having been able to nurse. good luck.
and if you see that realtor again, kick her for me. then ask her how she'll make a living when in two years people grasp that what they do is easily done oneself. she'll have to sell cars. or maintenance plans on.... whatever.
My landlord got an offer on the house, and guess what realtor sold it? Not the bitch that listed it! HA. HA. HA. Someone else's commission!
i too had major breastfeeding issues (you can see my post called "breastfeeding sucks" if you look at my blog - i'm too lame at blogging to figure out how to post the link). you are not alone and you should not feel guilty AT ALL even if you decide to stop tonight.
i did everything humanly possible to try to increase my milk supply (including perscription meds from my doc, every 2 hour pumping round the clock with a hospital grade pump, fenugreek, more-milk-plus, lactation consultants, Guinness; you name it - i tried it). all helped some (except for the reglan from my doc which made me so sedated i almost dropped the baby down the stairs); none helped enough. i felt super guilty that i needed to supplement. it was really freakin hard. ultimately, i had to just let go and accept that i gave the baby everything i could, and if she needed at bottle too, well that was a hell of a lot better than her losing weight, turning yellow, and not pooping for two weeks (which is what happened before i supplemented).
in the end i pumped during the day and then coslept & nursed her on demand at night. that made it easier for me to make sure she got what she needed volume/calorie-wise during the day (when what i pumped from the day before was gone, we moved on to the formula), and it let us have all that nice snuggly nursing time at night without worrying about getting out of bed and supplementing at 2AM. it also made the transition back to work super smooth since she was already used to the bottle. we did that for 13 mos. in retrospect, it was BY FAR the hardest thing i have ever done, but i feel like we were successful. on the other hand, i'm not sure if i'd be willing to go through all of that again this time around...
good luck and do what works for you and your baby. anyone that gives you a hard time for whatever you decide just hasn't been there.
I recently took a breastfeeding class. They tell you not to get frustrated and think that your baby is not getting enough. Who said your baby wasn't thriving? They tell you to stick with breastfeeding for at least a month before looking for other means to feed your baby. I would urge you to talk to a lactation consultant ASAP. Try not to worry!
The pediatrician told us she wasn't thriving when we took her. The exact same thing happened with my son as well. I think I'm just not a milk-maker for whatever reason. I'm totally more at peace with it now than I was when I posted this, or even yesterday! I'm just going to keep on keepin' on until it gets too stressful, at which point it won't be worth my failing classes and not feeding myself in order to spend time nursing, pumping, and weeping. KWIM? But thank you!
but how is the house situation? i've been wondering how that played out.
good luck on the supplementation. you'll do fine whatever you do.
Thanks for thinking of me, Filthy Mama! They have an offer on the house, and we have an offer on the house we want, so things seem to be going somewhat smoothly. And I haven't had to speak to that horrible realtor since the last time, which is good!
My son lost weight whenever I exclusively breastfed, even though I was nursing for hours at a time and he went less than an hour between feedings. It was really, really tough. It was the LC's who recommended I supplement, so they may not be as biased as you fear. To keep my supply up despite supplementing I pumped after breastfeeding (20 minutes of double pumping with a high-grade pump I rented from a pharmacy, some pumps are made for occasional use and hospital grade ones are best for establishing supply). At first I woke up at night to pump when I was establishing my supply but then I did what another poster mentioned, pumped during the day and co-slept with DS breastfeeding whenever he wanted to at night.
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I've used the finger feeding thing before with my son. I've heard of the SNS thing. I don't know if I'll try it or though, there's something I like about letting her switch between bottle and breast. And I nurse her every time first before I give her formula.
And yes to oatmeal! I eat it every morning!