Sorry this is so long. I just wanted to make sure I am giving all relevant information.
My daughter will be 17 weeks on Thursday and has been in day care for about a month. She is EBF and I pump a little more than what she eats every day.
After a little hiccup in the beginning where she did not want to nurse when I got home from work we are back to a really good nursing relationship with one small issue at night.
Here is our basic schedule:
5:30AM Pump right side- usually about 4oz
6:15AM BF left side for 20-25 min (she will only nurse from the left first thing in the morning)
10:30AM Pump both sides - usually about 5-6oz total
3PM pump both sides- usually about 5 oz total
6:30PM nurse both sides 30 min
8PM-10PM Nurse pretty much non-stop- both sides
She gets pretty drowsy between 9:30 and 10 and typically sleeps through the night.
This has remained the schedule since daycare started and she gets a few bottles on weekends from DH but mostly nurses. She does not do the 2 hour nursing thing on Saturday or Sunday nights if I have been with her all day.
She gets dropped off at daycare around 7AM and picked up around 5PM. During this time she has 4 3oz bottles. 3 bottles at daycare and 1 that my DH gives her around 5 when he picks her up.
I have tried giving her a small bottle (1.5oz) after about an hour of nursing in the evenings but she still wants to comfort nurse. If I dont let her go for at least and hour and a half she will not sleep.
We do not co-sleep and that is not an option for us. She also does better if I put her down a little drowsy and let her put herself to sleep.
My problem is that I am up every night until Midnight trying to get stuff done around the house and I am exhausted. I have a few medical problems and need to get some more sleep. My husband is great and does a lot but he cant do it all either.
I am having surgery in a few weeks and I do not know if I will be able to keep this up while I am recovering. I just need some help with other ways to help her relax at night and get some sleep. Unfortunately bath time gets her very excited and we have to do that much earlier. She has never been great at napping during the day so i really want to make sure she is getting enough sleep at night. We have tried putting her down earlier but that has not worked. I also tried putting her in the ring sling so I can try to do some stuff while she is nursing but she just fusses until I stop moving around.
Has anyone been through this or have any suggestions for comforting her faster at night or modifying the schedule? I can send more milk for her during the day but I am not sure that is really the issue since I think this mostly comfort nursing. I dont know how much longer I can reasonably function on 5 hours of sleep.