A Call For Help, Input, Guidance, Support, Info or.....

whatever you wanna call it. I need HELP tweaking this breastfeeding routine. Especially at night. It is so not working for me. Time wise it does, but for my long term goals, it doesn't. It just does not fit into this picture in my head. I'm trying to look ahead to when the girls are just a smidgen older, and what I am doing now, isn't where I want to be in 2-3 months.

My goal: To be bottle free as much as possible. Maybe a bottle here and there if necessary. IF. And to only have to pump 1-2's a day (just enough for those occasional bottles)

My routine now:

Daily: Most feedings, tandem 2, bottle one. They are all on the exact same schedule. Nice, but making this difficult seeing as I have only 2 breasts and 3 hungry babies. Sometimes. One baby will sleep just enough longer to nurse all 3. But not very often. As soon as feeding is over, I pump.

Nighttime: Same waking, all 3 at once, but instead of tandeming 2, I bottle all 3. Why? I'm not sure. Mostly to be sure they get a really good amount to give me a decent stretch of sleep at one time (and by decent, I mean about a 2 hour chunk by the time we change diapers, feed and pump. I usually get 2/2 hour chunks a night. 3 if I'm really lucky) Also, because I am so tired, I have a hard time staying awake even for the bottle feeds. So what I do is heat up the bottles that Aaron prepares before he goes to bed. Change all 3. Prop all 3. Burp all 3. Settle all 3 back to sleep. Pump. This process takes about an hour to an hour and a half. Repeat every 3 hours or so. You do the math. I get about 2 hours of sleep per chunk.

It does work. But I'm getting no breastfeeding in at night. Nighttime is the best time to build up your supply, as the baby will linger on the breast for longer periods of time. I need to figure out a way to breastfeed 2, get them FED and back down, they nurse the 3rd as long as she wants to while I sleep. I miss that the most. Latching the baby on and going back to sleep. I loved that. I got sleep and the baby got fed and comforted all at the same time. It was awesome. Am I naive to think that it's at all possible with triplets? Is there a better way?

Last night I tried "Plan A". (My first, I think, of many attempts to get this right) The plan was to hope that one would stay asleep for just a few extra minutes. One did. I changed 2, bottled 2, burped 2 and got them settled. Or so I thought. Baby #3 awakens. Changed her and layed down to nurse her and get some sleep. Babies #1 and #2 were not having that. They start crying. Alot. It is impossible to nurse laying down while trying to quiet 2 other babies. Can't be done. Believe me, I tried. I unlatch poor Baby #3 to quiet down the other 2. You can imagine how well that went over. End result? All 3, bottled, as usual. Pump, as usual. Plan A, down the drain.

Aaron and I practice Attachment Parenting. We co-sleep, cloth diaper, breastfeed, selectively vaccinate, child led weaning and baby-wearing to name a few things that we do as parents. It's very relaxing and we love it. That is why scheduling food is so hard for me.

My gut instinct for feeding is to feed on demand. When a baby is hungry, feed her. Is that even possible with triplets? I would be like a 24 hour Breast-au-rant. It would actually be ok with me during the day, but at night? I don't see it. Is it possible to feed on demand during the day but not at night? Everyone keeps telling me that they have to stay on a schedule to keep me sane. Um, yeah, too late for that. I'm long gone at this point. My thoughts are consumed with this breastfeeding stuff. That on demand daytime thing was going to be my Plan B, but I still hadn't solved the bottles at night issue. Is it even solve-able?

I won't even go into the fact that all this stress and inconsistency is causing a drop in my milk supply. A big drop. I like to see alot of pumped milk in the fridge. It reassures me. I'm down to only about 20oz at any given time. Not enough. I am reassured that I have about 2 gallons frozen in the freezer, given to me by fabulous friends. I'm eating oatmeal, drinking gallons upon gallons of water, inhaling Fenugreek
(an herb to help produce more milk) tablets like they are candy, and it's still dwindling. I just ordered some More Milk Plus pills. Basically, it's Fenugreek on crack. I'm praying it helps. I may even call the Dr. to get some Domperidome.

So you see, I gots to get this figured out. Any HOM mom's out there with some advice? Any singleton moms that are really creative? Anyone? Hit me with your ideas! I've got nothing left to do but TRY!