XP: Vent
Stillharbor
member
I love my DD And DH, but I'm really getting depressed living life in 3 hour increments. Every 3 hours I hook myself up to a pump and sit there for 30 minutes and pray I get close enough to what LO is consuming so that I don't have to use too much formula. Everything I do from eating, shopping, sleeping is based on my pumping schedule. Like now, it's 11:30 Christmas night, LO is finally asleep and MH just laid down (after he took a nice nap this afternoon, while I entertained his mother) and I have to sit up for another hour waiting to pump again. I'm SOOO tired and I just want to sleep!
We have free tickets to Disney (expire the 31st) and MH had the great idea to go and take pics of animals to decorate DD's room, with the camera we got for Christmas. My initial thought was wow great!! But on second thought, how am I supposed to pump and store the BM through a day at a theme park?!
Here's another instance of the limitations my life has become with pumping! **sniff, cry, scream, cry.**
Re: XP: Vent
My problem was, ds was in the nicu and he was already being given Neosure with extra calories. I would sit with that darn pump every three hours and would get an ounce if I was lucky. Why? Because without ds there next to me, I had no let down. I even tried smelling the blankets and clothes he wore and it still didn't work.
It sounds like your majorly sleep deprived and frustrated. If you really want to give BM and not formula then I would maybe reach out to the lactation consultants from the hospital. They may give you some better advice.
Good luck girl!
My flow was not all that great also so what I used to do for my visits to the nicu is pump after holding him for a while (the nicu had a room set up for pumping) on my morning visit and then do it in the evening again when I went back. I usually get roughly 10 -12 ozs per day that way.
I feel your pain. DH hangs out with his friends every other Sunday and it's been a point of contention for a while because it's hard to spend the day alone with my super active son and the baby. DH just doesn't get how exhausting that can be. He keeps pushing me to find something to do so that I can go out and get a "day off" and I have to keep reminding him that I CAN'T because I've got to pump and where am I going to do it and where am I going to store the milk? I get very cranky too because we can't do anything spontaneously because I have to factor in pumping and storing. He says "you can BF the baby there" but I'm not comfortable with BFing in public. I usually retreat to the car but that's not always practical.
{{hugs}} for you. I've got 4 months to go and then FREEDOM - well about as much freedom as you can have with 2 kids, lol.
Sorry you're so stressed. Maybe get DH to give you a backrub or something? Does he have a problem with you pumping in front of him? If not, maybe watch a movie together or something.
((hugs)) Hang in there! I know how much pumping sucks! I Ep'ed for DS for 6 months and it was awful and I hated every minute of it but I felt like it was the least I could do to help him when in reality it wasn't really making much of a difference. I had to add formula to my BM for added calories so he wasn't even getting plain BM :-( I totally understand what you mean by living life in 3 hour increments.
My biggest suggestion that I wish I would have figured out with #1 (we did this with #2 when nursing was unsuccessful again) is to write out a list of pros/cons. Figure out your real reason behind wanting to offer BM, be completely honest with yourself and in the end if it seems like there are more cons than pros give your self permission to quit. I would suggest not quitting on a bad day or you will regret it and always look back and think "I could have gone longer". What DH and I did after 6 months of misery was set an end date. 5 months in I was hating it so much that DH said if I was still hating it in 3 weeks than I could quit with no guilt knowing I gave it my all. It really helped and sure enough by 3 weeks I still was miserable and really wanted to quit- didn't regret it a bit!
I also would say that you need to give yourself breaks when possible- I realized that I could go 1 day of stretching it to every 4 hours and the world wasn't going to end- just having that extra hour in between pumping sessions helped me regain some sanity. What pump are you using? I would think that you could bring it with you in a diaper bag w/ a small cooler with some ice packs in it. Pump as needed and store the milk in that while you walk around the park- won't be ideal but I also wouldn't miss out on a fun family experience just because of pumping.
ETA: I totally agree that you need to invest in a hands free bra and a good pump if you haven't already! A hands-free bra makes all the difference- I would pump while I drove, pump in public with a nursing cover on, pump while I was on the computer and even pump while I fed DS milk from a prior pumping session (sit on the couch, prop the baby in the boppy, get yourself hooked up and hold the bottle while your hands free bra holds the flanges- kill 2 birds with 1 stone!).