I Just Want to Comfort My Baby

Last night was rough the toughest night I have ever had with Luke. The night left me physically, emotionally and mentally exhausted. This morning I feel horrible. Yesterday, Luke’s pediatric gastroenterologist started Luke on a 10 day trial period of exclusive hypoallergenic formula. You can read more about it here.

Thanks in large part to my incredibly low supply, Luke is used to bottle feeding during the day while I attempt to pump. At night he breast feeds for his last meal of the day and then in the middle of the night when he wakes up at 2ish and 4ish. It’s kind of become our nightly routine. Well…..until last night anyways.

Luke started getting fussy and was ready for bed at about 10:30 p.m. When I tried to give him a bottle, he freaked out and started screaming like I had just cut his hand off. He wouldn’t take the bottle or the pacifier, he wasn’t happy in the swing or bouncing on the yoga ball……he wanted to nurse himself to sleep like he has done every night since we brought him home from the hospital. At one point before I got him to bed (and several times throughout the night) he was clawing at my shirt, trying to lift it to get to my breasts. It took a couple hours but he did finally settle down, accept the bottle and fall asleep.

All throughout the night he kept rolling into me, trying to nuzzle into my breast and comfort feed as he had done so many times before. I felt like I was trying to run away from him all night long. Every time I gave him the bottle instead of my boobs he would wake up screaming and take FOREVER to get back to sleep. He would grab at my shirt and root like mad. He was definitely a little boy who knew exactly what he wanted….momma milk and comfort sucking.

I am so drained. I have given so much to breast feeding. I have done literally everything I could possibly do to increase my supply enough to feed my baby. He loves to comfort nurse, even if he isn’t really getting much by way of nutrition. Now that I have been taking the Domperidone and finally have milk to give him, I can’t even feed it to him. I have about 155 ounces of liquid gold in the freezer that I don’t even know if I’ll ever be able to give him.

I feel like I have been knocked down time and time again on this journey, but have fought my way through each obstacle only to run into another wall. At this point I am wondering if God was trying to tell me something this whole time by giving me issue after issue. Maybe he was trying to warn me that my milk isn’t good for Luke this whole time and rather than give up, I stubbornly  kept on trying.

And to be honest, it isn’t even about the milk. I am struggling with my son wanting so badly to nurse, to seek comfort in my breast, and having to deny him that. He hasn’t been the easy baby that I am used to …… well he’s never been easy, but at least I could give him some comfort. Now I have nothing. He is very hard to soothe and even harder to get to sleep. He isn’t happy anywhere, doing anything or being with anyone.

 

I guess Luke is more like momma tha I thought…..he hates change too