Goodbye breastfeeding/pumping

I’m officially done! It was an eventful 6 1/2 months with you, but overall good!

That’s one thing I can cross off from my daily to do list: finding time to pump!

Now that he’s on formula, I now realize how expensive it is. OUCH for me and Joseph’s wallet! Unfortunately, we don’t qualify for WIC :(

Six month goal

So I made it through my six month goal of breastfeeding/pumping. Would it be horrible if I said that part of me wants to stop? 


I guess it's safe to say that part of me feels selfish for wanting to stop. It's gotten more difficult the past two months because of work. Of course, that's not the whole reason. As I've mentioned before, Travis gets a bottle of formula here and there and to be honest it seems like that he favors the formula more these days.


So, would it be bad if I stop? 

Travis had his 2 day follow up appointment today. Everything went great. He’s almost back to his birth weight of 6lb 3oz. When we were discharged from the hospital, his weight was 5lb 13oz and when he was weighed today at the pediatrician’s office he was at 6lb 2oz! We have a follow up appointment at 2 weeks, hopefully he would gain more weight.

Breastfeeding has been giving me some problems. While at the hospital I had a consultation with the lactation consultant due to Travis not opening his mouth wide enough so I can get my nipple and aereola in. She helped me latch him on and he was nursing alright while we were in the hospital. Once we got home (about 3 days old), I would put him to breast and he would latch on for about a minute or so then come off and start screaming. On top of that I noticed that he wasn’t really urinating that much (he only had two wet diapers for that whole day). My mom then urged me to give him a bottle since he was literally crying, screaming, and rooting. I was feeding him both breasts every 2 hours (I would wake him up) and try to nurse at least 15 minutes on each, but for some reason he was just not having it. I would put him skin to skin, annoy him so he would stay awake, etc. Anyhow after giving him a bottle he ended up urinating a few hours later and sleeping much better.

To make a long story short (as if what I wrote in the previous paragraph wasn’t long enough), feeding time became a constant battle of trying to make him open his mouth wide, latching on, making him stay awake, etc. He was miserable and I was miserable. Thankfully, my best friend gave me a single electric pump for my baby shower and I’ve been using it to pump my breast milk. I have had to supplement formula from time to time since I’ve been able to only pump 1-1.5oz. It just seems so little so I’ve been supplementing with 1oz formula if he’s still hungry after I give him my breast milk.

I was going to invest in a much better pump prior to returning to work, but I think I will have to invest in one sooner (as in now) since this single electric pump isn’t very effective in terms of time. I’m thinking of either Ameda, Medela, or Lansinoh double electric pumps. Has anyone tried any of those brands?