u/timid_turtle_

I'm hoping for some advice from the EP community. Today marks 6 weeks postpartum and my left breast is feeling engorged. I pump 8x a day with a medela pump in style pro and just upgraded to silicone flanges and have been wearing pumping bras basically 24/7 since coming home from the hospital on top of drinking about 200 oz of water every day.

To help, I'm manually expressing after pumping and getting quite a bit out of my left, trying a power pump cycle now while massaging and squeezing the hard spot, just took a hot shower and plan to use ice once I'm done with the pump.

Is there anything else I should try?

My sweet darling is 6 weeks old and struggling to sleep at night with either colic, PURPLE crying, or really bad gas. My husband usually has the night shift but he had to go out of town and we don't live near friends or family, so it's all on my shoulders until tomorrow evening. She drinks pumped breast milk and my next scheduled pumping isn't for another hour and a half, but I have a feeling she'll either not fall asleep at all or will fall asleep and give me just enough time to fall asleep myself and waking up will feel so hard. I'm tempted to either pump early or skip it all together and just power pump later in the day.

I love this little being with all my heart but good grief I'm so exhausted and just wish I knew how to help her.

She's getting gas drops and gripe water plus we suspect she might have CMPA but she's been tolerating my milk recently and I haven't cut dairy out of my diet completely by this point. Her eyes are finally closed but I'm afraid to put her down in her bassinet so soon.