Monday, March 24, 2008

La laitiere est ouvert 24hr/24

My days:

-1:00am- Wake up, change D's diaper, breastfeed. Usually both of us are back in bed by about an hour afterwards.
-5:00am- Wake up, change diaper, feed, sleep.
-8:00am- Wake up, change diaper, feed. Come downstairs, D usually gifts me some quiet time in his bouncy chair so I can eat breakfast. Sometimes even falls asleep in there.
-10:00am- Check diaper, feeed. D may stay up for 20 mins after, or up to an hour, then gets a bit of sleep before waking up for the next feeding. Repeat at 12:00pm, 2:00pm, 4:00pm, 6:00pm, 8:00pm.
-9:00/9:30ish- D goes to sleep. I scramble to get ready to bed, might get to sleep by 10:00pm. This usually is the beginning of his longer sleep stretch (if he has one).
-Start over again at midnight or 1:00am.

The times are not exact from day to day, but the schedule's been fairly consistent the past week or so. Basically every 2 hrs during the day, 3-4 hrs at night (sometimes 5). I'm... I'm tired. I'm also feeling frustrated, which is somewhat odd considering D and I had a pretty good day yesterday. But the frequent feedings are kinda getting to me. I also feel bad that Zach tries to help and so he'll take D between feeding so I can nap, and then I hear him crying downstairs, and so I feel bad for Zach who's getting this not-fun time with D, and I end up feeling stressed out b/c I'm listening to my baby crying.

I've really liked the idea of pumping my milk so Zach can feed D a bottle sometimes, especially on weekends, and for a a few nights the past few weekends Zach was getting up and doing one of the night feedings. Unfortunately this week I've barely been able to pump 1-1.5oz after a feeding-- normally I can get 4+oz, which is how much I need for 1 bottle. I don't know if this is a random dip in supply and it'll go back up, or if this is my supply regulating itself to D's demand and not leaving much extra. If the latter is the case, then that's really depressing b/c it means I'd have to pull out the pump 3-4 times a day just to get enough for 1 bottle, to grant me 3 hours away. I've also discovered that, even though I've read multiple sources claim that breastmilk stays good for up to 8 days in the fridge, mine apparently goes bad after about 2 days. Which makes it even harder to build up a stash for reserve (unless I freeze it right away). I actually just had to throw out a bunch of frozen milk I'd saved up b/c I realized it had probably gone bad already by the time I froze it.

And then the 3 oz I did manage to pump yesterday and today that Zach tried to feed him this afternoon, he refused. He's taken bottles fine before, so I don't know what this was, or if it will last or what.

So I'm frustrated, b/c I'm not sleeping much and I have no idea when I'll be able to get a good night's sleep again-- it could be next week, or it could be months from now. And at this point I don't even know when I'll be able to have much time away from D either, if it's gonna be this big a pain in the ass to build up some milk to leave at home with him (I'm sure feeling frustrated isn't helping my supply, either). And I know it could be worse-- he could be waking up every 2 hours to feed at night, too, and honestly he's so easy to get back to sleep at night, much easier than many other babies I've known. And THANK GOD he doesn't have colic.

But it would also be nice to get a bit more of a break here and there.

On the other hand, snow is falling right now. Not slushy snow like earlier this weekend, but nice big snowflakes, falling delicately onto the ground, and it's really beautiful.

2 comments:

  1. Breastfeeding is very demanding. My LO would not latch properly so i ended up pumping 12 times a day and bottle feeding for 4 months. Talk about wanting to shoot myself. Hope you get some much needed sleep!

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  2. Anonymous9:12 AM

    If he's still doing this, and leaving you with little "leftovers" to pump out, it could be just that he's eating more as he's nursing. If you continue to pump, your supply will regulate to the demands of nursing and pumping together.

    Also, just because the milk seperates in the fridge doesn't mean it's bad. it really should store in the fridge for a couple of days at least. If you're going to keep it longer than a day or two, I'd freeze it.

    Both of those are my experience, but I'm fairly sure I'm right on with the second one.

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