Felicity is nursing up to 5 times a day now!!! I am so thrilled with her progress. She still has some days where she doesn't want to nurse much, but most days she seems to want to nurse before naps, bed, and if she's cranky. It's really nice to be able to soothe her with nursing (although it'd be nice if Steven could soothe her, too! but hey, I feel needed) when nothing else seems to work. She seems to, for the most part, associate nursing more with comfort than with food, and I'm ok with that. I'm not quite sure how much she gets when she nurses, between my low supply and her low facial muscle tone, but I am thinking about an ounce per session. My hands down favorite part about nursing is that she wakes up almost every morning sometime in the 6am hour and, just by bringing her into bed and nursing her while I snooze, I get about 2 more hours of sleep! Unless we have somewhere to go, we don't get out of bed until sometime in the 8am hour, and she will sometimes stay in bed until closer to 9 which gives me time to pump, eat, or just generally get myself situated for the day. All my life I've been up around 7-7:30... I'm just not a sleeper inner. But you add in 2 pump sessions (1am and 4am) every night and I love having the ability to stay in bed at least until 8! So yeah, that has been the best 'side effect' of nursing that I've seen, besides the sweet cuddles with my baby girl, of course.
Felicity still drinks donor milk, and she still gets most of her calories from a bottle. The fact is that she can drink from a bottle a little better and I rarely have enough for her to nurse an entire feed anyway. Unfortunately with my supply issues it means that I don't really get to pump less. I generally delay my 7am pump until I get out of bed since she nurses the longest in the morning, but I am still pumping 8-10 times a day. I still hate it, but I'm at least more used to it. At first I was kind of pissy that not only am I pumping 8-10 time a day but now I'm also nursing 3-5 times a day. But as much as I wanted to be all "woe is me" and be a mommy-martyr, the fact is that I love the cuddle time with my baby and I love how much nursing calms her, gets her down for naps quick, puts her back down quick in the middle of a nap, and, like I mentioned, buys me extra sleep. My wish was that I could pump much less once she started nursing, and I might still ease up a little at some point, but that would likely mean more donor milk and less of mine. I like being able to provide half, sometimes a little more, of her milk during the day so for now I'm not going to change anything. I'll reconsider once she's a little older, possibly. I also still have my Reglax rx sitting on the kitchen counter (an off label use but it can help increase milk supply... but can come with weight gain and possibly depression), so maybe at some point I'll try it. Who knows? What I do know is that what we're doing right now is working for both of us for now, so we're going to keep on keeping on.
Glad it's going well! Have you looked for a La Leche League chapter in your area? I have gone twice and it is pretty helpful.
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