Back story: My daughter is almost seven weeks old. About four days ago I feared that I was starving her and began supplementing her with formula. I did have low supply because of stress/exhaustion (I have to really concentrate to letdown), not putting her to the breast enough and reoccurring blocked milk pores in my right breast. I want to take her off formula as soon as possible. I have been taking three fenugreek pills three times a day for more than a week and a half, and have been pumping after all the milk is gone and am getting milk that I can feel through the skin on my breast now. I have been struggling with pumping, feeding her from the breast and, because she drains them, having to give her formula.
Question (Please be gentle, I'm the first in my family to bf and the first in my husband's immediate family to bf): The rut I've been in is that I wake up full after she's slept maybe five hours (she cluster fed to formula and was nursed to sleep at night), feed her, she sleeps, I wake her up after about two hours and feed her. She almost sleeps, but I guess I run out(?) because she fusses at both breasts and wakes herself up. So I give her formula, and try to stop giving her formula when she is obviously trying to comfort nurse herself to sleep. I might not have enough(?), or have a problem with letdown, or she's not sucking hard enough, because she fusses and so the bottle, then the breast, etc. until I finally get her to get on the breast. This just happened after I sterilized a needle a popped a blister on my nipple. She slept after nursing for less than a minute. So in a little bit she'll want to wake up and eat. My in-laws say let her sleep, which I have been doing, but by the time she wakes (or gets to 3 hours), she's so hungry that I have to give her formula because I don't have enough(?) and she fusses. It's a never ending cycle. My fil doesn't believe that cluster feeding exists and thinks I feed her too much and that her hunger signs are "playing." I don't know what to do, because my husband is having a hard time with the same things, I think because his father says it's not true. I know she needs to sleep, but she tries to find the breast at night and falls asleep when her mouth touches the nipple. I should wake her up and feed her, right? Not just let her sleep? I've been having such a hard time because I feel like I have to suppress my instincts and I hate it. I'm not looking for in-law hate conversation, I just need a strategy to feed her and I'll respectfully fight for it. Even if the best suggestion is feeding her every hour, I don't care. I want her off of this formula.