Here I am, my 3rd attempt at breastfeeding. I know I should have learned from my previous 2, but I still find myself sobbing at 4 in the morning because I do not have an adequate milk supply to sustain my baby. I pump. I nurse. With another child, I even took medication and tried herbal stuff to help augment my milk supply. Still never enough.
I still breastfeed, because, you know, breast is best. But I pump afterwards and supplement with a bottle of formula, too. I really don't like pumping. And I'm hoping that my 4 week old will finally be back up to his birth weight at his next Dr. visit in a couple days.
Nobody is judging me that I can't nurse exclusively. Heavens knows I've never judged ill another mom who bottle fed her baby! My husband is so supportive about whatever I do. Shoot, he has even suggested that I stop nursing just because of how stressed I get about it. So why do I beat myself up with guilt about this? Why do we do this to ourselves? Let ourselves feel inadequate, especially about things that we are trying so hard to do?
Why?
3 comments:
I'm sorry. That must be very frustrating. It's understandable to get upset because it's something you want to do, but can't. Maybe write a checklist of all you want to provide for your baby, check them off, and then maybe seeing that only one of them is not checked will help you feel better. Or maybe I'm just being a man and trying to fix your problem instead of letting you cry it out. Go ahead and cry it out. It'll be okay! Lots of love!
Hey, you are definitely the hardest on yourself. You give your children a lot of wonderful things...things that can't be replaced in any other way. But milk....well there's a lot of options. So keep in mind of the wonderful things you do do! You're a great mom!
Sorry Chris--I find breastfeeding extremely emotional. I spent so much of the boys early days stressed about making enough. But I have been blessed with the "heifer gene" from my mom and was lucky enough to have enough and to spare with them and Claire. I have already committed most of my freezer stash to a milk bank, but if you are interested I could give you the extra I have from now on? I have passed all the milk bank blood tests and know the proper storage, etc. Not sure that would make you feel any better about it but I'd be happy to help if I could.
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