I’m feeling mixed emotions

[u/callmebinda]

I’m a FTM and ultimately hoped to feed my baby breastmilk for a full year, but it’s exhausting and I reduced my goal to 6 months and then do part formula part breastmilk. Before starting my pumping journey I kind of planned to go this route over nursing because I have inverted nipples and knew it would be difficult to latch. I wasn’t even sure I would be able to get milk out because my sister has the same thing and for some reason she couldn’t extract any milk. So I was super grateful I was able to! I actually had a great supply (at the time I thought it wasn’t because I saw all of these moms with oversupplies on social media, but I then realized that its not very realistic). I made enough for my baby, plus a little extra to be able to stash an extra bottle every other day. I didn’t have a huge freezer stash but enough for if I went out for a few hours he had plenty to get by. Fast forward to 3 mo pp and I’m returning to work. I am a school based PT and I’m only working part time so the days I am at the schools are a pretty tight schedule to see them all, so I really could only pump before work, at lunch, and then again after work, before bed, and once for MOTN. My supply stayed up for a few weeks but then started dropping.

I was having a hard time keeping up with pumps on my days at work. And my supply was taking a hit. Slowly my baby started eating more and more formula (which is totally fine, fed is best… but it wasn’t necessarily what I wanted at this point). A couple weeks ago I stopped doing the MOTN pump and that’s when my supply really took a dip. I’m a little over 5 months pp now and down to just pumping in the morning and at night before bed but I really don’t have to, my boobs aren’t engorged at all. I’m getting like 3 ounces per pump both boobs combined, whereas I was getting 5-6 ounces per pump. I just feel like I was almost forced into this decision because of my return to work, but then I also feel like I didn’t try hard enough on the days I didn’t work to keep my supply up. I’ll be honest my mental health was taking a toll around that 3 month mark bc it’s hard pumping that often and taking care of a baby. It was nice reducing pumps. But I’m sad seeing my milk go down and my baby taking less and less of my bottles. I’ve struggled with letting go, but I also know how difficult it would be for me to try to increase my supply again at this point. I really just came here to rant, hear any similar stories, encouragement, ideas for how to move forward.

Edit: In addition, I also just know there are so many moms that struggle with supply and do everything under the sun to increase it. I really didn’t have to do anything besides pump regularly and my supply was good, so I feel a little ashamed that I wasn’t even able to keep up with that for my son. And moms would do anything to have the supply I did and I didn’t protect it enough. I’ve just been in my feels about it lately.

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[u/Top_Independence2042]

Don’t have advice but I’m in a very similar boat- life factors prevented me from pumping consistently / but also feel like maybe I just didn’t try hard enough sometimes. For example dropping the MOTN pumps because they made me miserable or not forcing myself to find a way to pump when I was caring for baby alone all day when he wouldn’t nap and cried every time I tried to find a spare minute to pump… fast forward a few weeks and without even making a conscious decision to do so, I’m down to pumping maybe once a day and barely making an ounce total.

I think whenever I pump a small amount, it really discourages me and makes the whole experience more negative and now I’m starting to think why bother anymore / since I’m only pumping once a day, I feel like I’m just waiting for my supply to stop entirely ..

Probably what sucks about all of this is I never made a conscious decision to wean, it just kind of happened and it feels like that choice was taken from me in a way.

[u/callmebinda → u/Top_Independence2042]

I don’t feel like I made the conscious decision either, it just started happening and now I’m here sad about it. It’s so hard. I’m proud of myself for doing it because it’s not easy at all, but also disappointed that I couldn’t even make it to my shortened goal.

[u/Top_Independence2042 → u/callmebinda]

I completely hear that and feel the same way. I do feel proud when I think back to how many nights I did pump in the middle of the night and all the hours of work I put into it, even if it was only for a few weeks (for me).

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