u/Sufficient_Meal6614

I’ve been unable to directly breastfeed since my baby was born six weeks ago. The birth was exhausting and traumatic and I had health problems afterwards. I started pumping to maintain supply so that I could hopefully start breastfeeding eventually. The latch hasn’t really happened yet, which is another story, and I am pumping six times a day and getting about 50 ml per session.

I am now reasonably sure the latch won’t ever happen. So the main reason to pump is now only to provide some portion of my babies diet in breast milk. Pumping six times a day to provide such a relatively small proportion of his intake (about a third) seems like a lot of work for not much benefit. I pump three times from evening through the small hours and I find these sessions particularly difficult In terms of sleep lost in order to pump, especially the one at the end of the night before I go to bed because it delays me being able to sleep. I haven’t found a good way of caring for the baby and pumping at the same time so the pumps only really take place when my partner is caring for the baby or I have put him down to sleep.

Does anyone have any wisdom? Is this small portion of breastmilk actually benefiting the baby? Did anyone else have a similar situation and find a sustainable way forwards?

Edit to add: I use a Minbie pump, for about 20 minutes each time. I’ve tried a Spectra and manual pump too, it didn’t really give much different amounts.

This is probably a silly question but I can’t really ask anyone in my normal life. Basically I’ve noticed that what my family is doing with the baby is different from what some others do and I wondered if there are negatives I should be considering.

The baby struggled to latch from birth (tongue tie plus a traumatic birth for me, and the fact I have small flat nipples). This means feeding a combo of expressed BM and formula, so baby’s dad can care for baby just as effectively. We are still trying to get a latch six weeks in, with some modest successes.

Since birth I’ve been happy to hand my baby to his dad and share the caregiving pretty much equally. This means that when I’ve left the house, I have sometimes not been with the baby, and when I’ve run into acquaintances, people have asked me; “Where is the baby?” (I’m like … obviously with his father? Where else would he be…?) Meanwhile, when my partner takes the baby to the shop or etc, people say to him: “Ahhh, are you giving mum a break?”

I had assumed that sharing care between the two of us is completely fine. But I can now see this isn’t the norm. Reading Lucy Jones’s Matrescence I can see that many mothers are basically the sole caregiver, and feel deep guilt for leaving baby with another - even for a few minutes.

I don’t feel that guilt, nor the same intense sense of tug or failure when I step away from the boy for an hour or two (I do think of him and his lovely face while I’m gone, but it’s not painful). I am curious and have been wondering: Is there any reason to think what I’m doing is less good? Is there any evidence about attachment or biological outcomes that suggests I shouldn’t share care in this way?