Dwindling Supply

When I was pregnant with Drake, I knew that I wanted to nurse him. For me, assuming we did not have problems, there was not question as to if I would nurse. At first it was difficult; Drake lost over a pound in the first few days of his life and we were having to go to the doctor's office almost everyday for weigh-ins. I was told that we would need to supplement with either formula or breast milk and so started my intimate relationship with the breast pump.

When I was told I was going to need to supplement, I actually did not yet own a breast pump. My thinking had been that we would buy one about a month after Drake was born. So, my dad ran out to the store to pick one up for me and a-pumping I went. I started to pump about each of Drake's feedings and would would earn a precious half an ounce, which we would then put in a syringe to feed to Drake like a little bird.

Drake gained his weight back, started eating like a champ, but I continue to pump after the majority of his nursing sessions. I started to build my supply and once he stopped waking in the middle of the night to eat, I continue to get up and pump. I think at the "top of my game", I had 63 six-ounce bags of milk in the freezer!

My goal had originally been to nurse Drake until I started to travel with basketball, so the beginning of November. Because it was going so well, I altered that goal to 12 months; why should we buy formula when my milk is free and has all the nutrients that Drake needs.

Recently I have found that my supply is slowly dwindling. I am pumping much less throughout the day and now am taking a bag out of the freezer but am unable to replace it with new milk. My freezer supply has gone from the 63 bags to about eight. It was a tough day for me when I had to go from two storage boxes in the freezer to just one. I am not sure what is going on, but during the week, Drake is eating more than I am producing. I think part of it is due to the fact that the woman that watches him during the week gives him much more milk that I do on the weekends. He is eating it, so I guess that he needs it, but I just can no longer keep up.

I think in the next week or so, we are going to have to move to half formula and half breast milk. It really is not what I want to do, but I know that the majority of the nutriants that Drake is absorbing does come from his milk/formula at this stage in life. I have heard that oatmeal helps with mlik production, so I am going to start eating that and trying to do anything that I can to continue to give him majority breast milk. We will see but in the end, I know it is essential that Drake get the nutrients that he needs, so we will move to formula should it come to that.