Yesterday I did a pumping 'yield,' in which, beginning at the midnight feeding I fed them bottled breast milk, and pumped. I did this all day, for six feedings (they regularly get 1 bottle of breast milk, and two feedings of formula overnight).
MyBoy drank a total of 28 3/4 oz and MyGirl ate 26 1/2 oz.
And I pumped 26 ounces.
It doesn't take an advanced degree to do this math. I make enough milk to feed one baby, not two. I know that pumping doesn't produce quite as much as nursing does, but when you've got one week sucker, I bet it all evens out.
My conversation with the nurse practitioner/lactation consultant was uninspiring, to say the least. I was hoping for some "You can do this!" kind of encouragement, but none came through. She pretty much said that they were right on track for the amount they were needing to eat, but yep, it appears that I'm not making much milk. And what would I like to do, I ask.
I told her that I want this to work, I want to stick it out for at least another month. So she told me to go ahead and call my OB for a prescription for Reglan, and to basically cross my fingers.
So, I'll start the Reglan tonight, and see if it helps produce more milk, which I hope will in turn help the babies feed more regularly and continuously, thereby helping them to sleep more than one hour at a time. Or am I asking too much?
I'm going to think about my other option:
- Pump exclusively and bottle feed both. It's hard work, I know, but I'm so uneasy not knowing if they are getting enough nourishment.
- Pumping just for MyGirl, and continuing to nurse MyBoy.
- Keep going with this will-they-or-won't -they-eat nursing thing, and supplement with bottles when necessary.
- Quit altogether and go to formula.
I'm so lost, I really don't know what to do, and I know there is no magic answer. A lot of this is a control thing with me ... I felt like breastfeeding is the one part of this conception/pregnancy/birth/childraising that I can control. And I'm learning that I can't.
5 comments:
Laura, one thing that strikes me is that your two drank more than I would expect. I thought I'd been told that the basic formula is weight (in lbs & oz) x 2.5. Let's say we round YourBoy to 9 lbs -- that would be 22.5 oz per day.
Given that YourGirl is not gaining as fast as she should, you probably want to encourage her to drink as much as she wants. Maybe that's true for YourBoy too. But is it possible YourBoy overfeeds a bit when given a bottle as opposed to the breast?
Or alternately, is it possible they're going through a growth spurt? If so, you'd probably end up with quite a bit more milk in a day or two if you keep nursing them on demand. Maybe not enough, but more.
And as you say, pumping and breastfeeding yields are also not quite equivalent. Has your LC weighed each of them right before and after a breastfeeding, to see how much they're actually taking in?
As you may know I'm struggling with a lot of the same issues. Would you like to email me? I don't want to go on endlessly in your comments but I'd be more than glad to share any info I've picked up. And at the very least we can commiserate. I'm not ideological about breastmilk vs. formula, but I very much understand how badly you want this to work.
You've had many more obstacles to face than I have and I think you're handling them with so much more grace. In amongst the frustration, don't forget to tell yourself that you've done a fantastic job.
(p.phone AT gmail DOT com)
Aww- no advice here...But thinking of you. You are doing a great job!
Oh, man, I’m remembering just how hard this was in the beginning. I think your commitment is wonderful. While it may seem impossible, I think you will be so glad you did everything you could, whatever the outcome. If you can get through the hard parts, it will get so much easier! Have you looked at the info on Kellymom? Here’s the multiples section: http://www.kellymom.com/bf/start/basics/bf-links-multiples.html I think something few lactation consultants really seem to understand is that the situation of having more than one is particularly problematic with growth spurts. With one baby, the baby demands more and in a day or 2 your supply increases to meet the demand. Some fussiness is perfectly normal here; it’s part of the process. With twins, however, your actual supply needs to increase doubly, and while your body can most likely do that, it cannot do so twice as fast. What tends to happen then, is that the extra fussiness leads to doubts about supply, the doubts lead to more supplementation with formula, the supplementation leads to less stimulation, which, in turn, leads to not building the necessary supply. Which is to say, none of this means that your body is actually incapable of producing the milk. It’s a complex logistical problem though. Over the months I came to learn that my boys get much more from breastfeeding than I can produce with a pump, so your supply may not be as bad as it seems. I know this is a lot to balance, but if you nurse on demand (at least during the day), have lots of skin-to-skin contact, and pump after every feeding you can manage to, you might find that you can get past this hump. I couldn’t deal with the fussiness in the evenings when my supply was lowest, so I fed one bottle of expressed milk then, but always bf first. I had a weak sucker in the beginning too, and he got much better after a couple of months. Whatever you decide, best of luck to you. You are doing a very hard thing, you’re doing your best, and that’s all anyone can ask of you.
PS: I might post about this, because so many people find my blog looking for the same type of information
But Persephone, *I* want you to go on endlessly in Laura's comments -- taking notes over here!
I don't have anything particularly useful to say, either, other than that you've done a great job thus far.
All I can say is, you are doing a great job just by trying so damn hard. As long as you are completely emptying your breasts on a regular basis, then you should see a steady, albiet slow, increase in your milk production. Also, try eating oatmeal. I actually eat the Gerber baby oatmeal to get my supply up.
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