Advice anyone?

[graciemoma]

Greetings, I am a new first time mommy to a beautiful baby girl, Grace. We both had a rough start with her in the NICU and I in the ICU, unable to even get out of bed to attempt feeding my baby in the NICU. I pumped diligently and was blessed with a plentiful milk supply by our third day postpartum. Although Grace was bottle fed first with formula and then with my breastmilk for the first week, she latched on beautifully once we arrived home. She has remained a champion nurser ever since! One month ago, I returned to my job as an EMT on an ambulance in a busy city with portable pump in hand.
Here lies my question for any experienced breastfeeding mothers out there. While I am at work (48 hours a week total, divided into 4-12 hour shifts) overnight I pump whenever I have a chance. Usually yielding from 12-16 ounces per shift. However, She has begun screaming at night when I'm not home to nurse her to sleep and it's causing extreme stress for my sister and mother who watch her while I'm at work. I don't feel she or I are ready to begin weaning. I've tried giving her formula just as a test and she refuses to drink it. Knowing this is causing me great stress over leaving her to go to work however, being a single mother I have no choice but to work. PLEASE....Any ideas, suggestions, comments, I would appreciate some input.

[mama24-7]

COngratulations on the birth of your daughter Grace! What a beautiful name (it's my dd's middle name!).

It sounds like a very stressful situation for your daughter as well as everyone else. How old is your daughter? You mentioned she won't take formula. Will she take expressed breastmilk?

You also might get more ideas in the WOHM forum. Have you called an LLL Leader? She might be able to help you work through this.

Sus

[velcromom]

I hope some moms with better experience with bf & working can come along and help out, but in the meantime there are good resources for working moms & also about infant sleep at kellymom.com and the LLL site too.

Although I did not have to go back to work, there were a few times I was away when ds needed to go to sleep and after a certain age he was aware enough to realize that DH didn't have milk and accepted other forms of soothing to sleep.

I kind of doubt it would solve the problem if you weaned, it sounds like she's just becoming aware of the fact that they are not mommy and that's what she wants. Changing what's in her bottle isn't going to change that! Are they keeping her in arms while giving the bottle to make it as much like nursing to sleep as they can?

Another possibility is the fact that some babies go thru a colicky phase, where they scream for a while in the evening no matter what.

Direct link to LLLI's FAQ's about bfing, alphabetized by subject:
http://www.lalecheleague.org/FAQ/FAQSubject.html

[wendy1221]

This is one of the reasons why I quit my job to SAH. I was a temp and they would have hired me full-time--if I worked nights. Since I have older kids, I already knew that night is the worst time for a nursing baby under a year to be away from mom. During the day, they are more ,likely to take a bottle or even wait for you to get home. At night, ime, babies really need the breast.

I'm sorry I don't really have any suggestions. Just (((HUGS))) and the thought that maybe this is a phase.

Are your mom or sister willing to take her to bed with them? I left my 7 month old w/ dh around 4 AM a few months ago. We co-sleep, so dh snuggled him and fed him a bottle of expressed milk until I got home around 8 AM. Having someone to snuggle with may help.