Tandem Nursing questions

[MoonStarFalling]

I have a 3.5 year old an 11 week old and I donate milk. I need a little advice about a couple issues I'm having.

The first 6 weeks I felt awesome but then DD started nursing more and now I'm always tired. I also started working out a few weeks ago. If I forget my vitamins I will feel completely drained. My placenta caps help me feel more energetic but I'm going to run out of those. Any tips? I'm eating a mostly traditional foods diet and taking prenatals w/ extra iron and Bs. The second issue, I don't want to go wild on calories because I also want to loose weight. Anyone with experience on loosing weight/working out, still keeping up their supply AND not draining their energy levels? Is it even possible?

[kalamos23]

I'm not tandem nursing yet (not due until April) but I remember feeling incredibly drained between 4-6m pp with DD and feeling like I could just not eat enough. I actually lost the most amount of weight at this time and DD was a voracious nurser (24 lbs at 6mo and still nursing evry 1-2 hours). I'm guessing you probably need to up your intake of calories and see if that helps. If your body goes into starvation mode thinking you are not making enough calories (bc essentially you are producing enough milk for 2+ kids at this point) it will actually hold on to the calories instead of losing them. At any rate, I'd try to up your proteins - I started feeling much better when I was eating higher protein during that time since it lasted longer. 

[MoonStarFalling]

I think you've got a good point. Thanks. I do feel a lot better when I get a protein shake in. I tend to let my calories dip. I may just forget about loosing any weight. It's been 9 years of nursing and I've never had much luck.