Thanks everyone for your kind and compassionate support over the last few days.
Calliope's cough never really came back after the end of my last post, apart from the occasional hack here or there. And I did, in fact, pull out my neonatal stethoscope last night and lay it on her swaddled little body and from what I could hear from the position she was in (on her back)... she sounded clear as a bell. I also, of course, heard her heartbeat. That was interesting because I hadn't heard it since she was born, of course. All those times of listening to her while she was on the inside... and now, to hear it with her on the outside, knowing who she is, now, as a person (to the extent that you can know an infant)... wild! And amazing.
So I did sleep in the same room with her. And now that we are so close to my returning to work, I scrapped the nighttime bottle (since she will soon be getting them during the day) and brought her into bed with me to nurse. Of course, looking at my Bab.yCare app on my phone, I realize that meant that we nursed for an hour and a half! But at least we were both mostly sleeping during this. Given the roughness of these last few nights, this seems like an obvious win.
Of course, this means that the results of this morning's pumping were far less abundant. Which of course gives me one more thing to worry about. But I'm drinking Mother's Milk tea and planning to pump again in the evening, just for reassurance, so hopefully those will both help. I have to keep reminding myself that of course I'm not going to make much extra milk -- it's when I skip a feeding that I should have a lot more.
It seems so obvious but my crazy brain has trouble with the logic.
It's certainly a good idea to have as much frozen breastmilk as possible. It's hard to keep up with what the baby eats while pumping at work. By the time Fiona was 8 or 9 months old I ran out of surplus milk in the freezer and wasn't able to pump enough during the work day to keep up with her. So I had to supplement about one bottle a day with formula. You know what? No big deal! So what?!! I still breastfed her until 19 months old, when I was 3 months pregnant.
ReplyDeleteJust do what you can, be content with your efforts, and if need be give her a little formula when the time comes. It's really hard to work full time and single parent, so like a comment on your last post said, cut yourself some slack. In fact, cut yourself A LOT of slack.