Help me not be so crazy about my supply

[halfpint]

I feel like I live and die by the pump these days.  Bad pump session = major blues, good pump session = everything's coming up roses.  Of course, my mood surely affects my supply as well, so it's a vicious circle.  I just pumped 3.5 oz in a session, which is great for me, and I felt like skipping!

I'm really trying to be zen about this whole thing - any breastmilk is good, it's not going to kill him to supplement if we have to, blah blah blah...but I still stress majorly about this.  Any tips to help me chill the eff out?  Like, maybe I just need to go buy a thing of formula so that I mentally know it's available if we need it?

[Brie]

My entire attitude changed once we'd given him one bottle of formula. I was all stressed and freaked out about supply, and then he had a formula bottle and it was a TOTAL non-event and I cried I was so relieved. After that it was like a huge weight was lifted.

There's so little discussion of combo feeding that it was a total "duh" moment when I realized that I could give him a bottle of formula, and he'd still nurse when we were together just fine, and I still pumped the same amount of milk.

[arch01]

What @brie said.

Granted, we had to supplement from the beginning, and I'd absolutely do it again. I had a HUGE mental block about formula-I wanted desperately to EBF and with DS' issues and my supply it wasn't going to happen. I got to the point where I was killing myself pumping and it was a round the clock feeding fest-BF, pump, 30-60m break, repeat.

Once I accepted that it wasn't going to happen, it was totally fine. It also took some of the pressure off me too-I wasn't always tied to the pump.

[chickens987]

supplementing was awesome for my nursing relationship, like Brie. I was SO OVER pumping and that, combined with work travel at 10.5 months meant I quit pumping altogether. Because she was getting formula already (1-2 bottles a day), it wasn't a big deal at all and I continued to nurse her when we were together with no problems until we weaned at a year.

[greycat]

Similar to Brie said, supplementing helped me immensely. I just couldn't keep up with DS and my freezer stash quickly ran out. I continued pumping but made up the difference with formula. DS took it without any issues. On the weekends I continued to feed on demand without supplementing. I am still nursing at 9.5 months. I recently left my job and he is nursing on demand. I still don't have much of a freezer stash so DS gets formula from time to time when it's convenient. Supplementing really lifted a weight off my shoulders.

[zacksbride]

I feel your pain. With baby #1, I was completely stressed about pumping enough so that he didn't have to get formula. I had this perception of inadequacy if I had to give him formula. It was all in my head. I was a resident at the time, and my ability to pump at work was HIGHLY variable. Like @brie said, once I gave him a bottle of formula, I felt this huge sense of relief! I still pumped as much as I could, and I nursed him until I felt ready to wean, but it was totally NOT a big deal to give him formula (well, I shouldn't say not a big deal b/c he did have an allergy to milk formula, but once we tried soy everything was fine). It was nice for me to finally realize that I did not HAVE to be his sole food source, and that some breast milk is better than none. Actually, in the end when I wasn't pumping any more, we decided to give him 1 bottle a day from our freezer stash so that he could get "some" breastmilk daily for a longer period of time, rather than using the whole stash up in a few day if we fed him all bottles everyday from the stash. I was able to get over a month of 1 bottle a day from my stash and felt better that he got some BM for longer.

[Velar Fricative]

I expect to be in this situation when I return to work - I just can't see myself pumping enough during the workday based on my current pumping output and I expect my freezer stash to run out at some point. It's great to hear from combo feeders in this thread. I don't know yet what my limit is in terms of boosting my output but I just tell myself that since I BF for the health benefits for me and DD, if she needs a bottle (or more) of formula per day, that formula will not cancel out the benefits of all the breast milk that I can give her. Yes, I'd love to go as long as possible EBFing, but it won't do me any good to go crazy over my output.

Now I just have to remember my own advice when the time comes.

[soozy87]

I went through this too. It was hard to start supplementing, but once we did it was so much easier for everyone. It took away a lot of the stress of wondering if there would be enough milk for the next feeding or not. I am trying to keep it mostly bm, but I have come to a realization that formula is okay.

When I pump just a little I am also sad and ready to give up BFing all together, but then later I'll get a lot more when I pump and think 'okay, I've got this!'. The most frustrating part of all of it is nursing him. He seems to hate it, it puts me in a lot of pain and then 45 minutes when he is "all done" he is hungry 5 minutes later when I go to pump and will suck a bottle down very quickly. I have pretty much given up nursing him and am just pumping as long as it makes sense.