[KatSG]

My baby is 12 days old. Our first week of bf was great, she latched on better every day and I let her eat until she pulled away. She always seemed satisfied.

Last week I let the pediatrician and my mom and her friends talk me into letting her have a pacifier, with them telling me she had a high need to suck. This may have been a mistake. That, and then I pushed it one day and woke up with a congested left breast. I called the LC at the hospital where I delivered and she talked me through using my Pump In Style along with very frequent nursings to unclog it.

That worked but by the end of the day I was worried that she wasn't getting enough. She just never seemed satisfied and she was fussy and really wanted to nurse non-stop. I called the hospital birth center. They let me come in and weigh her (she was up 6 oz from her previous weigh-in 6 days before). They also supplemented her with a syringe so she would sleep longer, the rationale being that I needed to rest so I could heal.

Well, we did sleep well that night, but now, 2 days later, she is still ravenous and I nursed her most of the night and almost non-stop since 11 AM until 9 PM and she was never satisfied. So I broke down and supplemented again. I even tried to pump and there wasn't much there--I got 1/2 oz in 30 minutes of pumping both breasts. She had 1/2 oz of formula last night and almost 4 oz total of formula this afternoon and this evening. As you can imagine, this is absolutely killing me and I've spent the whole evening crying and feeling like a total failure.

So now I'm doing all the herbal things I can think of: fennugreek tea, TM's Mother's Milk Tea (been doing this for 4 days). Tomorrow I'll do barley water and fennel seeds. I also just started taking Blessed Thistle tincture. And lots of water, of course.

So the pacifier is off limits unless we're using it while I'm getting to my nursing station and getting situated. But I'm wondering now if this supplementing is further wrecking my supply. I just can't stand to see her so hungry and I don't see much use in putting her to a breast that's barely putting out anything. And both me and dh have to get some sleep or we're going to break down.

If anyone has any suggestions for getting back to exclusive breastfeeding, I'd be so grateful. I should also mention that soon I'm going to have to start pumping to store milk for when I return to work in late November. Right now that seems like a complete impossibility. But for now I just want to concentrate on getting my supply to keep up with her needs. Thanks in advance.

 

[wombat]

Your baby is gaining weight fine so I can't see any reason to supplement her at all.

Your baby might just be going through a growth spurt so WILL nurse frequently to rev up your supply.

Get rid of the pacifier, for any reason. Find another way to comfort her. At this early stage, the pacifier will cause more trouble than it's worth. I had to hide it from my husband in the early days, new father was desperate when baby cried. Give her your finger to suck on instead.

kellymom.com talks about other reasons babies fuss and cry :
http://www.kellymom.com/bf/concerns/...e-nursing.html
Babies do fuss and cry a lot the first 6 weeks. Fussiness kinda goes up and down. I think I read crying peaks at 2 months.

The supplementing could quickly become a habit, so long as you baby is gaining weight, stop the supplementing. It won't hurt your supply if you are pumping for that supplementing though so don't worry about that.

If you had a plugged duct for a day or two? and your baby is growing through growth spurt, this could be why you feel your supply is low. But your milk supply is very adaptable especially at this time so you don't need to do anything other than nurse, nurse, nurse.

Oh and babies will take a bottle of formula even if they've nursed enough. Just like we keep eating sometimes if there's still food on our plate. And with a bottle, just sucking causes the milk to come out so her need to suck kinda forces to swallow this milk that just keeps coming. Make sense?

And don't listen to anyone who tells you to supplement cause you need to rest. If you choose to do so, fine. And occasionally won't hurt I guess. But well meaning people will lead you down the road to nursing problems quite quickly.

And finally you sounded like you were doing a great job til everyone started 'helping' you.

 

[Yin Yang]

KatSG~ I know EXACTLy what you are going through! My baby is 8weeks now and I exprerience somothing similar.
I never gave him pacifier though.
But.....from the very bigining nursing went fine, until my nipples started to feel sore, but I thought that's normal and went with bf'ing as normal. I had so much milk I dod not what to do with that and he was nursing fine, just latching was slowly becaming a problem, b/c of my more and more sore nipples. Sore nipples changed into bleeding nipples and bleeding nipples into infected nipples...I cried and cried everytime I bf'ed. It was worse then labor! I could not get ANY help from anyone, so I fought it on my own. One night he latched so badly and almost ripped off my nipple from my breast!!!! OUCH! I screamed and broke down and said: "That's enought, I am NOT bf'ing any more" and cried and cried, and panniced b/c he was screaming with hunger and I did not know what to do. I ahd no bottles at home, no formula....plus that day I had very bad fever from my infected nipples!! I felt like shit! It was the worse day of my life. WE got into car, my mom stayed with my baby, and my DH and I went to buy sone bottles and formulas. WE came back and my mom was so exhausted from trying to calm him down! So we made formula and fed him and I cried and cried,b/c I NEVER wanted to do that.

Then we went back to Target and I bought a pump and started to pump. I was getting a lot of milk and pump for 2 days and did not bf'ed him once. My nipples have attached to my breast again in those two days so on Monday I started to bf him again. but what happend? I did not have enough milk!! Just 2 days of pumping totally messed up the schedule and I did not have enough. I could not even pump anymore - there was nothing!! So I did herbs, teas, LOTS of fluids and soups, but nothing helped. And he wanted to eat ALL THE TIME. He wanted to eat all the time b/c everytime I fed him he got only tiny bit - that might be the reason why your baby seems to be eating all the time. And I still had to keep giving him formula, b/c I really did not have enough milk. But I notices, that the formula was messing up our schedute too! So I tried to do without it, but I still did not have enough........it was so frustraiting! Then I called my homeopath and she told me to buy homeopathicum RICINUS COMMUNIS 6C and take 5 granules 3-5 a day. So I bought it on the internet, had to wait LONG 4 days for it to come and took it........I swear god, that I FELT the milk going into my breasts withing minutes after taking that remedy!!!! It was like a miracle!! I WAS SO HAPPY! She told me it's a general remedy for goo dmilk supply. SO I kept taking it for about 10 days and slowly stopped using formula and now I am exlusively bf'ing again.
Sometimes though it seems like you don't have enough, but the baby DOES have enough. Keep nursing and milk should come back.
You know also, what I tried yesterday to increase my supply? I did that for the first time, b/c I read it helps. When he was bf'ing I pumped the ohter breast at the same time!! I could not believe how much milk I got out it that breast!! 5oz! And few hourse later BOTH breasts well SO BIG again, that did not happen before. If you pump/bf both at the same time, more hormons is being released and milk supply is increasing........I am really happy I did that! TRY IT!
Good luck and get rid of pacifier - babies do not need it! I never even thought about giving him one....
By the way- my baby WILL NOT touch formula anymore! He HATES it. I tried to give him some to get some sleep, when I could not pump much, but he would not touch it. So not always babies will take it........

 

[Quirky]

Hang in there, mama! You can do this!

You've gotten great advice from the other posters, but I just wanted to emphasize how easy it is to think "I can't pump any milk, I don't have any milk, baby is crying, ergo baby must be hungry - quick, get the formula!" when really baby is just fussy.

Especially in the evenings, hours-long nursing sessions are completely normal. It may not seem like baby is getting anything but she is. It's also common for babies to seem very fussy in the evenings. Believe me, I know how hard it is to resist the bottle at that point but it only creates more problems than it solves.

Look at this page of links from Kellymom. Read about how milk production works, and especially read the page about how to tell whether you actually have low supply, and the one about how to tell whether your baby is getting enough milk. Then, if you think you really do have low supply issues, there are a lot of pages there to help you boost it. You can take fenugreek and blessed thistle, 3 capsules of each three times a day, for starters.

Have faith in your body that you can produce plenty of milk for your baby. You are not broken. It sounds like she's gaining just fine. As long as your baby has plenty of wet and poopy diapers, she's getting what she needs, even if you don't see much in the pump.

The formula supplementation will lead you into a vicious cycle of decreasing supply and demand, so don't use formula. It really doesn't sound like you need it. You can pump 15 minutes after each feeding and save up what you get to feed her in a bottle if you really feel like you need to supplement her, and that will get your supply up.

Call your local La Leche League leader - she's there to help! You can also find a board certified lactation consultant by going to www.ibcle.org and looking up the US regional registry.

You can do this - you are not a failure!

 

[candiland]

Babies always seem ravenously hungry when they are building up your milk supply. If you offer anything BUT your breast during this time, your breast will make LESS milk, not more. It is the law of supply and demand: the baby nurses around the clock for a few days, you start making more milk to meet her needs, and then she nurses less frequently again until the next growth spurt.

Please save the breastfeeding relationship by going "to bed" with your baby for a few days. All you should be doing is eating, lying there and nursing. IMO, stop the formula immediately. She will be hungry for a while, but I can guarantee that your breasts will soon be producing enough to satisfy her. After that, do not offer anything but the breast for the next few months. The breast is supposed to be a pacifier for your newborn.