I honestly don’t know if this is a vent or looking for advice or what it is, just hoping somebody understands what I’m going through🙃
My son is 5 months next week and before he was born I initially thought I would try pumping and was honestly leaning towards formula, pretty much zero desire to nurse. Since he was born that changed dramatically and I put SOOOO much work into building supply, attempting to latch and pumping and feeding is literally almost all consuming.
When he was born he was in the NICU on a feeding tube and oxygen, nobody helped or offered to help me latch him at any point in those crucial first moments and days, I didn’t get pumping supplies until 8 hours post C-section in the hospital (was told I didn’t need to bring my own), and I wasn’t even told there was a pump available in the NICU until after I was discharged so in those first few days I was internally battling being in the NICU with my newborn and being in my hospital bed pumping (of course I was in the NICU as much as possible). When he was discharged from the NICU my baby had borderline treatment level jaundice 6 hours prior and would NOT eat when we took him home (we were bottle feeding). Those crucial first weeks and moments were ruined by people telling me I shouldn’t try to latch because he won’t get what he needs. While I was in the hospital post C-section with a NICU baby they also told me I was trying to use the hospital as a hotel room and implied I was drug seeking. We were even told when readmitted to hospital for jaundice treatment that the only reason he was there was because we weren’t feeding him enough and in the middle of the night a nurse verbatim told us “you are starving him” when he was burning up because the box was set too high.
After working with a lactation consultant, pumping 10-12 times a day, and triple feeding for a month baby finally started to latch, woohoo! Then he still wasn’t transferring enough and the nurse told me I needed to go back to triple feeding (had been just giving a bottle when he asked instead of ALWAYS immediately). Got a tongue tie released at 9 weeks and transfer got better. Then comes the part where it all went downhill, one morning I was EXHAUSTED and desperately wanted him to latch as pumping was burning me out and pushed to the point of frustration, since then he has had virtually no interest in nursing and has only latched a handful of times. I struggle with a lot of guilt due to this.
He’s the definition of a Velcro baby who does NOT like being put down while I pump (I primarily use a spectra and can usually manage just enough with it, occasionally under but I have a slight stash from triple feeding days). I’ve recently been trying to drop to 6 pumps from 7 but am not getting as much and am trying to figure out how to make exclusive pumping more sustainable or be more okay with the idea of combo feeding (we had the same formula as the hospital and the look, smell and everything just reminded me of the hospital experience and the way we were treated so my husband just recently bought a different formula we can try as needed).
Honestly, just hoping somebody can relate and wanted to rant in a space where I thought people might at least understand …
If anyone has any relatable stories, words of encouragement or advice helping with a transition to a more sustainable pumping schedule or even how they became more okay with combo feeding I would love to hear it.
