This will be long. I'm having issues with being able to make enough milk for my daughter. I've been trying many things and none of them seem to work and that is just so frustrating! Some background: this is my second daughter but I've been having the same issues with my first. When I started nursing my oldest I've had horrible nipple pain for over 2 months, which resulted in very minimal supplementation with formula while I got a hang of pumping. Very soon we were able to exclusively bf. Even in the early days, when my milk first came in, I wasn't able to pump very much even when replacing a feeding so I started fenugreek, blessed thistle, tea, more milk plus, domperidone, pumping after feeding, pumping between feedings and none of these made a noticeable difference. My daughter was gaining weight, albeit slowly, so I just kept doing the best I could. When I went back to work after 12 weeks I was able to pump 4 oz in the morning and 3 in the afternoon. I've been coming home to nurse during lunch and nursed as much as possible when I was home with her. Soon I had to start supplementing because she wanted more volume and I simply could not keep up.
Fast forward to this day and I'm having exact same issues, only now my baby isn't gaining very well at all. She's only gained 6 oz in a whole month! (From 2 to 3 months) and she's suppose to gain around 5oz per week... LC said to nurse her for longer, which is exactly what I did over the weekend, nursed her longer (40 min on average) and more often, every 1.5-2 hours. Today in the morning I pumped and was only able to get 3 oz, which is not unusual. I've also been taking more milk plus special blend for about 5 days now. She eats 2 times at daycare if I'm able to come and nurse her on my lunch hour, otherwise it's 3 times. I nurse her twice in the morning and 3 times after work before bed. She sleeps 8-9 hours at night.
LCs keep telling me that I'm doing everything right. Then why am I not able to keep up and provide enough so that my baby gains weight better? Although I try to keep things in perspective it's extremely difficult not to feel like a failureI just don't get it. If it is what it is I'll make my peace with it, but I guess I need to go through a grieving process of sorts, especially as yet another study came out in July that establishes a strong correlation between months of exclusive bfing and IQ. I'm not sure if I'm looking for advice or words of understanding and support, but either will be much appreciated
. Sorry it is soooo long.