Anyone else absolutely fed up?!

[Itsychik]

... with pumping??

It feels like one of the most unrewarding things I do. My supply has been on a downward spiral since my DD was 7 months and as a result she's not gaining much weight (a couple oz per month). As she's been eating more solids she's gradually been reducing the amount of breast feeds she gets but every time she drops a feed I have started pumping at that same time frame every day to try and keep up my supply and also to be able to store enough bm to send to daycare with her on the days I have to work.

For the first months after I returned to work I was able to pump enough for all of her bottles, but around 7 months my pumping output suddenly dropped in half and has only continued to decrease since then.

Fortunately my DD is down to only one 4oz bottle when at daycare but it takes me anywhere from 2 - 5 pumping sessions (depending on the time of day) to pump enough for just this one bottle! I always pump before I go to bed (have been doing this for nearly 6 months) and tonight I only pumped HALF AN OUNCE!

WHY DO I EVEN BOTHER!

Okay, so I know why I bother--because it was my goal to give my DD only BM until she was a year old and I'm SO SO SO close and am desperate to meet the goal (wasn't able to with my DS due to a low supply!) but on nights like this, when I'm staying up to pump for the FIFTH time in the past 3 days and still don't have enough for the bottle I'm sending to daycare tomorrow (meaning I'm going to have to 'plunder' my nearly-gone freezer stash) it just makes me throw my hands in the air. WHY CAN'T MY BODY JUST DO WHAT IT'S SUPPOSED TO!

*sigh*

Thanks for the rant... some days it just feels so hopeless!

 

[misspriss]

I am so sorry to hear you are struggling! I got really fed up with pumping right at the end, I wasn't getting anything.

Has there been any other change besides her eating habits? Did your cycles return or you start BC or you might be pregnant?

My supply did not drop like that until I got pregnant. I was going on 18 months, 15 of pumping.

 

[noon_child]

Is there anyway you could get a Daycare closer to work? Luckily for me my LO was a year when I returned to work but she refused to take bottles off the staff there, so I just went down on my lunch break and bf her until she was eating enough solid food to not want any milk.

 

[kajastarlight]

Shortly before my DS2 weined himself I started noticing a big decline in how much I was able to pump. And I think I was around 7 months. I thought it was probably because he was hitting a growth spurt but because I worked he was cluster feeding at daycare and I was only regular pumping at work! Luckily my boss let me split my lunch into two 15 min chunks so I could pump more often and I did a pump after he went to bed in the evening. I also pumped one side while he fed on the other to make my body realize that it needed to get going on the producing. It only took a week or so and my supply was back up to more than enough to get him through the day. Then at 9 months old my crazy early talker informed me that bottles (that is what he called bottles and my breasts) were for baby's and brothers (DS1 still prefered his bottle) and that he wanted a cup and that was that!

 

[AK89]

Shortly before my DS2 weined himself I started noticing a big decline in how much I was able to pump. And I think I was around 7 months. I thought it was probably because he was hitting a growth spurt but because I worked he was cluster feeding at daycare and I was only regular pumping at work! Luckily my boss let me split my lunch into two 15 min chunks so I could pump more often and I did a pump after he went to bed in the evening. I also pumped one side while he fed on the other to make my body realize that it needed to get going on the producing. It only took a week or so and my supply was back up to more than enough to get him through the day. Then at 9 months old my crazy early talker informed me that bottles (that is what he called bottles and my breasts) were for baby's and brothers (DS1 still prefered his bottle) and that he wanted a cup and that was that!

Your baby said that to you at 9 months?!?!

 

[kajastarlight]

Shortly before my DS2 weined himself I started noticing a big decline in how much I was able to pump. And I think I was around 7 months. I thought it was probably because he was hitting a growth spurt but because I worked he was cluster feeding at daycare and I was only regular pumping at work! Luckily my boss let me split my lunch into two 15 min chunks so I could pump more often and I did a pump after he went to bed in the evening. I also pumped one side while he fed on the other to make my body realize that it needed to get going on the producing. It only took a week or so and my supply was back up to more than enough to get him through the day. Then at 9 months old my crazy early talker informed me that bottles (that is what he called bottles and my breasts) were for baby's and brothers (DS1 still prefered his bottle) and that he wanted a cup and that was that!

Your baby said that to you at 9 months?!?!

Well, technically he said "bottles for baby's and brotters. Ima cup" lol but yep, like I said he was a crazy crazy early talker. Didn't walk till he was 15 months old thought! Blew everyone, including his Pediatrition, away.

 

[luz]

Around 7-8 months i stopped pumping during the day and just let LO have water, juice, and solids while i was at work. I would make sure to feed before i left, right when i got home, and again before bed. Also if she ever woke up during the night i'd let her feed. Perhaps something you could try? It sure does reduce the stress once you aren't pumping all day long.

 

[Itsychik]

Thanks for the responses ladies

Has there been any other change besides her eating habits? Did your cycles return or you start BC or you might be pregnant?

When my supply dipped there hadn't been any changes. I posted on here looking for advice multiple times but nothing I tried increased it again. It's been steadily decreasing in the past 3 months (and no BC and not pregnant!)

Is there anyway you could get a Daycare closer to work? Luckily for me my LO was a year when I returned to work but she refused to take bottles off the staff there, so I just went down on my lunch break and bf her until she was eating enough solid food to not want any milk.

Unfortunately, no. Our daycare (child minder) is close to our home, which is WAY more convenient as I work an hour away, so on days I work from home it's much easier to drop the kids off when needed, and also allows DH to be able to pick them up in the evenings, which he couldn't do if they were near my office.

It's a nice thought though! I'm always a little envious of ladies who work close enough to home/day care to be able to do that.

 

[Itsychik]

Around 7-8 months i stopped pumping during the day and just let LO have water, juice, and solids while i was at work. I would make sure to feed before i left, right when i got home, and again before bed. Also if she ever woke up during the night i'd let her feed. Perhaps something you could try? It sure does reduce the stress once you aren't pumping all day long.

Thanks for your response

At 7 months my DD was still getting 2 bottles of ebm while at the child minder's and we had tried dropping one unsuccessfully (DD had a fit). By 8.5 months we had dropped down to one... but she's still getting 4 - 6 (milk)feed's per day, 3 meals with water in a sippy cup plus a snack (fruit). And she's been waking anywhere from 1 - 2 times a night for a feed. But she's very small (below the 3rd percentile for both weight/height) so I don't want to drop any of her feedings unless she weans herself off of them...

So she's still feeding pretty regularly. She gets a feed at 10am and at 2pm before she takes a nap, and these are the same times (approximately) I pump while at work, so I would think my supply shouldn't keep decreasing, but today again I just barely got over an ounce! (I used to be able to get 4 - 5oz!)

I appreciate the suggestions, but I've just accepted that my body sucks at this and am going to grumble through it for another 5 weeks (when my DD turns 1!!) and then reevaluate what I want to do.

Thanks for letting me whine

 

[noon_child]

Doesn't sound like your body is rubbish, just that your baby is probably taking smaller and smaller amounts of bm as she eats more food meaning your supply in general has dropped a bit, to the point where the pump isn't efficient enough to stimulate your breasts to produce milk.

The fact that she is small shouldn't make a difference - she's not abnormally small, she's in the normal weight range and growing in proportion.

Has she ever tasted formula? Do you think she'd drink it for the last month till you could move to cows milk?

 

[Itsychik]

Doesn't sound like your body is rubbish, just that your baby is probably taking smaller and smaller amounts of bm as she eats more food meaning your supply in general has dropped a bit, to the point where the pump isn't efficient enough to stimulate your breasts to produce milk.

The fact that she is small shouldn't make a difference - she's not abnormally small, she's in the normal weight range and growing in proportion.

Has she ever tasted formula? Do you think she'd drink it for the last month till you could move to cows milk?

But then I don't understand the sudden drop (literally, from one week to the next) at 7 months where I was only pumping half the amount, and nothing else had changed?

And even now, the times of her feeds during the day are pretty consistent, so even though I'm feeding her every day at 10am, when I pump at that time I'm only getting 1 - 2 oz max, even though it used to be 4 - 5oz? (and even just a few weeks ago, it was 2 - 3oz). And I pump every night at 11pm before I go to bed...have been doing so for months. I used to get 3 - 4 oz. And last month it was still 2 - 3oz, and now it's usually under 1 oz! Nothing else has changed (my DD was sick for 2 weeks in December and was refusing food but increased her nursing frequency, so if anything I would have thought supply would have increased). Anytime we "dropped" a feed with my DD I replaced that time by pumping. In the past I've tried all the 'usual' things to increase supply (fenugreek and combinations of blessed thistle, etc, extra pumping and nursing, oats, brewers yeast, etc etc) my lactation consultant is out of ideas, and we've checked the strength of my pump and it's still working well...

and she still takes the same amount of the bottle at the child minder's. And while we were recently on vacation we needed to 'use up' some expressed bm because we couldn't take it with us, so we gave her a couple extra bottles during the day which she also drank enthusiastically. So I don't know that it's a matter of her necessarily taking less...

I appreciate your suggestions though, but I really think the problem just lies with me. With my DS I had a low supply so he was combi-fed from a young age, and I was desperate to ebf this time so have been on top of pumping and not missing any feeds, no supplementing, etc. DD has never been given formula and I desperately want to keep it that way (to be able to meet my ebf goal of 1 year).

I'm going to continue pumping, and will continue to grumble to myself about it until she drops the last bottle/feed, but at least I know why I'm doing it so that helps manage the frustration

Thanks though

 

[luz]

Has your period come back yet? I just remembered that when i was pumping, the week before i got my period my supply always dipped. I had to add extra pumping sessions to make up for it, but within a few days it would go back to normal again.