u/YarnNCaffiene

Hey all!

I am currently in tears in my parking garage at work. I think I might be done with breastfeeding. My daughter (6months) has been doing a nursing strike the last 2 weeks. I cant even pump .25 oz on the way in. I use to get 5oz same pump, new parts replaced within the last few weeks.

I want to give up pumping because everytime I pump lately I end up in tears. Baby girl use to drink (wish I was kidding but we had to supplement when I went back to work because I wasn't able to feed on demand and pump this much) 45oz a day. Dr and ibclc confirmed she was literally eating that much (also still 8th percentile so we have a working theory her stomach is a black hole)

I have an appointment on Friday with the ibclc to talk about weaning. I feel like such a failure. I dont know what to do.

Hi all. I joined reddit for this. Long time lurker... never poster. So I work in IT as a consultant, I am a mom of 2, and am 35. My youngest is 6 months old and is teething, this week is going through a leap amd all the fun. She is going on what my ibclc calls a nursing strike and this I can't figure out is going to be my end of my breastfeeding journey. My first wasn't like this.

We started out with 4 severe ties. That made us start with bottles until about 2 to 3 weeks when we got those fixed. Baby girl nursed like a champ. Amazing girl! Then I started back to work and we had to introduce bottles again at 12 weeks. At 15 weeks, we moved to our new house. Between these adjustments over night (ironically on mother's day) I got really bad mastitis. Pumping at work ( my company set up a special locking room with a rocker and a new cooler etc for me and future use as a medical room but I was so excited they did this for me) has been difficult. I can easily be in 10 client meetings in a day and God forbid if they are on camera. We'll that stress isn't fun and I tried to pump every two hours, and thats not working. I now settle for on the drive in, on the drive home and 1 to 2 times during the day.

Ok so why am I frustrated with pumping? I use to get 5 oz a session. Now after mastitis I am down to 2 if I am lucky. I am now in my head about if Baby girl gets enough, she is constantly hungry but also has a fast metabolism and on bottles only will drink 45oz average a day. Doctor confirmed ibclc confirmed. She's just hungry. We got permission from doctor to start solids by szearly and did at 5 months. He said we could at 4 because she was sitting and putting everything her mouth. That helped and shes back down to about 32 oz a date plus food. I still can't pump that much during the 9 hours I'm away from her. I am sad at the results and that makes my pumping sessions less productive.

Baby girl struggles with eating on the side that had mastitis. I went from 3+ oz to maybe .5 an ounce pumping on that side. Even if I power pump. Baby girl slowly refuses to eat on that side. She started last week screaming if I hold on that side. I switched to football gold and she will nurse for 5 to 10 minutes.

Friday I was being straight up refused on both sides. I started to cry and felt like a horrible mom. I thought I was done and tried bottles at night instead and it was an ok night.

Yesterday during the day she refused again. Last night lc sent me articles on nursing strikes. It mentioned trying skin to skin at night and it actually worked last night all night. After she missed for 30 minutes on both sides, I got a shower and honestly both sides had huge let downs in the shower. The mastitis side had some crusty stuff come out and then had a massive let down so maybe I had small clogs??? It didn't hurt though.

Extra info. I can manually with my hands get 2+ ozs on the left and that's when I can get .5 oz off the right. I have tried milk boosters. No effect. I have a wearable pump and a spectra in my home office.

I guess my plan is to nurse at night and weekends and pump only for comfort during the day? Im just tired of crying and this stress of pumping is really messing with me head. If you made it this long, thanks for reading.