Advice, please - adoptive breastfeeding struggles...LONG, sorry.

[hobbsandbean]

Okay, I'll try to keep this short. 

We are adopting a sweet little baby girl, Keelah. We brought her home from the hospital at two days old and she's now 3 1/2 months. She is our fourth child, the other three are bios who I nursed to a year or a little longer. I generally have had oversupply issues and love nursing. We only found out about Kee six weeks before she was due, but I saw an LC right away and started on Fenugreek and attempted 100 minutes of pumping a day like she recommended from then on - the 100 minutes was sort of a joke due to the other three, homeschooling and rushing an adoption. I also ordered the domperidone and once I got it (1 week before she was due) have been taking 20mg 4x a day. 

At one point I was able to have two feedings a day where she didn't want a supplement after. Oh, that's right - I need to explain why I'm not using the Lact-Aid. I tried it for a few weeks in the beginning and if I had been able to hire a full-time maid to clean and load the thing, it would have been great. However, no sleep and all of the above circumstances meant that I needed to stop trying to use it. So we're using a Breastflow bottle and if anything, her nursing has only gotten stronger. Okay, so I had it up to two feedings a day where she didn't need a supplement, but it's back down to one now. I'm under a fair amount of stress right now, not sure how to get rid of any of it right now, and it seems like my supply is dropping pretty quickly. 

Okay, that's a lot of rambling. I'm basically just not sure if, weighing all the needs of all my family if I should keep nursing. Another complicating issue is that Keelah struggles with constipation, which I feel guilty about because I can't make enough milk for her and she's had difficulty with formula. We switched her to goat milk a couple of weeks ago and that has helped, but it's still not a good pooping situation, lol. 

Any thoughts? What am I missing? Do I just need to suck it up and keep going? TIA.

ETA: Of course I'm also a huge hormonal mess, seems to be because of AF being held off by the dom. 

[germin8]

FWIW, (I am a low milk supply momma.)  I used an SNS and refrigerated it after the first use... which meant, I didn't have to clean it. I used it about 3 times before I cleaned it again.   Oh yeah, and I'd add more milk to get it ready for the next use.  Hmmmmm, I'm not sure how that works with goat's milk, but I use donated breast milk (free) from milkshare.com.  If you could afford a 2nd SNS, then you could go with about 6 feedings without having to clean anything.

I also refrigerate the pump parts after each use.  I don't wash those but once a day!

[hobbsandbean]

Originally Posted by germin8 

FWIW, (I am a low milk supply momma.)  I used an SNS and refrigerated it after the first use... which meant, I didn't have to clean it. I used it about 3 times before I cleaned it again.   Oh yeah, and I'd add more milk to get it ready for the next use.  Hmmmmm, I'm not sure how that works with goat's milk, but I use donated breast milk (free) from milkshare.com.  If you could afford a 2nd SNS, then you could go with about 6 feedings without having to clean anything.

I also refrigerate the pump parts after each use.  I don't wash those but once a day!

Thank you for responding. I really appreciate it. I ended up going to milkshare and a wonderful mama just gave us 160oz and wants to pump for us in the future as well. There are a couple other mamas who are interested as well and I am SO THANKFUL. Hopefully I can keep this up instead of the other options...it's interesting that as soon as I heard about these moms, my supply went up a little - I think because I was more relaxed, not stressing so much. Anyway, thanks for responding.

[germin8]

I am so happy to hear your supply went up!  Neat.  And, glad you found a donor.  It makes a world of a difference in the bowel movements!