Slowly Figuring it Out

What a rollercoaster this last week has been. Last weekend was probably the roughest time I've had since Kate has been with us. I learned that oversupply certainly was NOT my problem. For whatever reason, my milk supply just completely dried up Friday and Saturday. I did some reading on it and they say the best way to regain your supply is to basically constantly nurse, so that's what I did. Boy did that suck. By Saturday night, Kate was crying because she was starving and not getting anything, and I was crying through every feeding because it hurt so badly. That day I fed her everything I had in the freezer stash I had built up, but unfortunately I had to resort to giving her a bottle of formula. I cried through that feeding too. But I had no other choice, I wasn't producing enough for her. We gave her a bottle of soy formula because I still had dairy eliminated from my diet, so I wanted to keep that experiment going. Man, I feel sorry for any of you moms who have/had to feed soy. That stuff is NASTY. It smelled awful before it was even consumed, much less how bad it was coming back up! It really makes me appreciate how little breastmilk spit-up stinks. I was in so much pain that I had to take a break from breastfeeding Sunday, and pumped milk every 2 hours, as also suggested to try to increase your milk supply. I did that all day and I only had enough milk that she had to have 2 bottles of formula. But I kept it up, and both Monday and Tuesday I had pumped enough to keep up with her except for one bottle of formula both days. Yesterday, I had enough for every feeding!!! Hallelujah!! I know formula isn't the end of the world, but I'm very committed to making the healthiest choices I can for her, and I will continue to give her breastmilk as long as physically possible.

So, through this whole journey, it made me think about her "symptoms" of a milk protein allergy, and I think it was from hunger. She was crying through every feeding because she wasn't getting enough out of me! So starting with her Monday formula bottle, I gave a milk-based formula. It went great, no problems at all! So I started eating dairy again. YAY!! That was SO hard to go without for a week!! It's amazing how much dairy we consume. I've noticed she is a bit more gassy when I eat dairy, but she doesn't seem to be in pain from it. So I'll try to take it easy on the dairy, but for now it looks like I don't need to cut it out.

It's still stressful trying to get my supply back and all the work involved with pumping every two hours, but it's worth it to know she can get my milk. She has seemed less fussy in the last couple days too, although she isn't napping overly well. I think I've accepted the fact that she's just not much of a napper. She is sleeping GREAT overnight though. She's averaging 7 hours straight, and on Monday night it was 7 hours, 45 minutes!

I have another experiment to run on Kate though. I came over to my parents' house for the day because Jeff had softball, and I had Kate's swing set up for her naps. Amazingly, she took a 2 HOUR nap! I thought I died and went to heaven. When she got up from her nap, she felt nice and cool. At home, she always feels hot when I get her up from the swing. We noticed that where I set it up here at their house, it was right underneath some A/C vents, and where the ceiling fan gets her. At home, the swing sits sort of in a dead spot, underneath a window where the morning sun comes in. I'm going to move it to a cooler area of the house, I haven't figured out where yet, and see if that helps at all.

So I feel like we're slowly starting to figure things out. Everything with a baby is SUCH trial and error! But it's very rewarding when you start to get it right. This last week, or really the last couple weeks, were so stressful though, I just want to decompress for a while. I really look forward to the weekends when I can just be home with Jeff and enjoy Kate together.