Ugh, this is so hard!
So the last few weeks, my daytime/afternoon supply has been dwindling. Evidenced by the Z's marathon hour+ nursing sessions last weekend. And by the fact that I'm getting 5.5 oz combined MAX from my 2 daily at-work pumping sessions, instead of my former 8-10 oz. And really what I'm seeing is a relatively normal 4-4.5 oz session in the morning, followed by a 1-1.5 oz session in the afternoon that has had me asking why I'm bothering.
I don't know why I'm losing my afternoon supply. This all started the week that my colleague died, and that week I chalked it up to stress. I ate well and drank tons of water the following weekend, tried to make my peace with his death, and saw a slight rebound in my supply. I continued those good practices, but what I listed above is as good as it has gotten. At this point, it may have been initially a reaction to stress, but I don't think it is necessarily recoverable, and honestly I don't know if I want it to be.
I mean, yes, in a perfect world, I don't feel ready to be done nursing. And in a perfect world I'd stay home with my baby, and we'd keep our 4 daily nursing sessions: morning, down for both naps, and night. But I've got to get it through my head that we don't live in a perfect world. And I can't be with her for 2 of those sessions on 5 days a week. And that is 10 pumping sessions. And I am soooo sick of pumping. Especially for a 1.5 oz yield. And my place of work has been really understanding, but I can't go on like this forever. Maybe this is my body's way of telling me that it is time to drop a session.
But when I think of how excited she gets when we ask her if she wants milk and she sees me getting ready and then how sweet she is as she falls asleep while nursing... well, I'm crying, again.
I keep trying to remind myself that we're not talking about total weaning. Just about 1 session right now. 5 obnoxious pumping sessions per week. And 2 sweet weekend nap nursing sessions. Sigh. I worry about how we're going to get her to go down without the boob. And I worry that once I've taken this step, it'll lead to the eventual decrease of my supply for another session. And then another. And then another and she'll be weaned.
But that's all a part of her growing up.
But I'm not ready yet. And Zoë doesn't seem ready yet. She still responds so positively to nursing. And her little immune system is still only 60% of an adult's. And she's in daycare. And it's flu season. Ugh!
You know, they say that the very first time you give a baby solid food, you've begun the weaning process. And she did take less at that point: she went from 40+ oz per day to only 30+ oz per day. But she still ate or nursed what seemed like constantly (every 2 hours, and for a while even more often than that), so I never really felt it then. Even until very recently she was still nursing 6 times a day. It has only been in the last few weeks that I've really noticed that she only seems to need/want to nurse when it is time to sleep... I was able to drop the 5pm mommy-just-got-home-from-work nursing session with absolutely no difficulty at all. And dropping that one and the 3:30am pumping session - well, honestly, both of those were really a relief! And these 2 daytime ones will really be a relief on the weekdays, too. It is just the weekends I'm not sure about.
I just feel totally torn up about the whole thing. But I've managed to vacillate long enough to say for certain that I'm only pumping once today. And I only pumped once yesterday. There's no going back now.
*tear*
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