I cried today

Just wanted to rant. Long post ahead. Please don't flame. I had no milk when I gave birth to baby. I couldn't breastfeed on the first day because I was so busy vomitting and fainting. Then all the pains (e.g cramps, episiotomy) came in and I still didn't breastfeed much on the 2nd day. I was upset but baby had to be fed. So I got the hospital nurses to feed him formula. When I reached home I had no milk still, but I ate pills to promote breast milk, power pump, pump every 2 hours even waking up from sleep to pump every 2 hours etc and my output increases from measly 2ml on my 3rd day to 120ml in 4 weeks! I was happy. During feeding, my husband would take out and use the entire bottle, and baby cannot finish the bottle and would regularly waste 20-30ml. This was okay to me at first because I consistently had 100 to 120ml and baby was drinking 80 to 100ml. But now baby increased to 100-120ml. I thought full is best, a little wastage is fine. But one feeding today, baby refused to drink anything more than 50ml and wasted 70ml. Due to frequent checkups, long hospital visitsvand activities, and departure of nanny, I had frequent missed pumps and my supply dropped to 90ml. =( I fed baby 90ml today. I know I could have added 30ml from the next bottle but I guess I was now hesitant to waste the milk. But baby did not sleep and was fussy. My MIL help to carry baby, she asks if he is hungry. I said maybe and made 80ml. He nearly fell asleep after screaming and waste my 80ml but luckily my mil mansged to wake him. After a while after feeding baby was crying, my husband came out and asked if baby was hungry again. I then thought about (felt guilty) making my baby go hungry because of my hesitancy to waste milk, then thought about all the wasted milk before, esp the 70ml, thought about how my supply May not be able to meet baby needs, worst of all, all the efforts that went into increasing my supply being wasted - I cried.

Vô danh

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hi mama, I know the pain... it's so much hard work to pump breast milk out, it hurts too. it is ok to feed formula, or do a mix of Breast Milk and Formula. whatever you do for your child is your best efforts. there is no shame in it. and no blame for your baby who cannot finish the milk you've worked so hard to pump out... prehaps think of it this way. many mums have low supply or no supply, and the priority is not just feeding breast milk, but just to feed baby. as long as baby is fed, regardless of type of milk or amount of milk or frequency of drinking milk, doesnt matter. you are doing your best 💗 my kids all grew up with formula milk because I couldnt produce much. my mum had the same issue, me and my siblings all took formula milk. and we (including my kids) are grown / growing up well 😉 have breast milk, great. dont have, also great, get formula. all types of milk will help baby grow well, and each has its own benefits. all the best mama, dont be so hard on yourself! you are trying your best already!

Understand your concern about wasting breast milk..I had a day when I was not producing enough, and baby was having diarrhoea from drinking formula, and it was so stressful coz i feared that my baby had nothing to drink. After that, I also didn't want to waste even a drop of milk. Don't feel bad about it. Your guilt is coz you want to save enough milk for your baby. Just continue pumping regularly and you and baby will be fine :)

I’m a low supply mom and I 100% understand what you’re feeling! I drank my bm when I was traveling cause every drop is too precious to go down the sink! Consider mixed feeding maybe? While waiting for your supply to bounce back to normal.

Don’t be too hard on yourself. Supplement with formula if you don’t have enough breast milk. Baby might not be hungry after feeding although the signs are similar. Baby might just want the comfort of sucking sometimes.

you can freeze the leftover milk for bath time! then use it in the bath water for baby skin

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Home Breastfeeding wanted rant long post ahead please dont flamei had milk when i gave bir