A Little Update

Thank you for the supportive comments on my last post :) They really did make me feel better!

I've been working on increasing my milk supply for 2 weeks now. If you were to ask me how it was going, I would say "eh". I honestly can't say one way or another. But, I am less of a basketcase about the whole situation!

Here's where I'm at now:

- I am now pumping every 3 hours during the day, and twice at night (even though he doesn't wake up to eat at night)

- I get about an ounce an hour, which is what I was getting before all this. It does fluctuate between 2.5 and 4 oz. When I get 4, I do a little happy dance, because that really didn't happen before :) I get the most overnight for some reason, I can get about 8 oz. over 6 hours.

- He is eating about 5 oz. every 3 hours, so you can see the deficit, and why I'm still pumping at night.

- Occasionally we have to pull out a bag of frozen milk, so I've come to terms that once that runs out, we will have to give him formula. And I'm okay with it. And it took me a long time to be able to say that :)

The big change is that we have gone to almost exclusively pumping. I say almost because I have not really made the 'decision' to say that's what we are doing. It really just kind of happened. I have still been nursing first thing in the morning, and if he wakes up at night (which he really has only done once, such a good sleeper :) ). There are a couple of reasons for this:

1) he still requires a supplemental bottle after nursing

2) when he does nurse, he never really gets everything that's in there, he has always been kind of 'lazy' about nursing, and even after 45 minutes, he still doesn't drain the breast, and even if he did, he would still need a supplemental bottle bc I don't produce enough during the day (again, it's the nighttime pumping that's getting us enough for the day, which is the only reason I'm still making myself get up twice a night)

3) the whole nurse/bottle/pump routine was taking at LEAST an hour, usually more, and I just cannot do that everyday. Especially when I go back to work, I will not have that kind of time in the morning. I have to be at work at 7am, and I'll have to get up at 5 as it is, just with giving him a bottle and pumping. I'm sure that some people can say that is selfish or lazy something, but it's just the truth for me.

If my supply does ever get up to where it needs to be, I would definitely want to at least try nursing again. This was clearly not my first choice, but it is what's working for us. And I can tell you that I feel pretty good about it. And I can tell you that I have an extremely happy baby now :) Today we ran a couple of errands and after a little while, Lee said something about how Cooper was probably going to get upset soon and we should hurry, because that's what used to happen. But he never got upset or anything, he was just fine, and Lee was really surprised. I told him that that's how he's been for the past week or so, just really content. And that's why I think that we're doing the right thing.