okay so heres our story; my little guy is 9 dsys old now. he was born at 35 weeks very unexpectedly. I was excited for our breastfeeding journey together that I had planned for since our 14 long months of TTC.

once born his sucking reflex wasn't very good at all, and since early, I wasnt producing anything. I could barely pump colostrum out. the hospital had me pump even if nothing came out as often as I could. around day 5 my milk started coming in. I got 1 oz from my right breast but my left wasnt doing much. found out all my ducts were clogged. (ouchhhh) I finally got all of that undone and pumped 2oz from it. this was on day 6. day 7 I was back down to sometimes getting an oz from one or both, or sometimes only getting around 10ml😐😭 now he has to use a nipple shield cuz they hsd to give him bottles in the hospital so he could learn to suck because he was on an iv for low blood sugar and needed to eat obviously. he does good with the nipple shield but I kill my nipple by using a size thats too small because the size that fits is too big for his mouth.😓😔

so right now, if I do it as a should and I rsrely do (which youll see why) I get no sleep at night. he wakes up. get a changrd. get a bottle warm. eat. by then it's been usually around 40 mins. if I do put him at breast first which I try to do most if thr time add another 10 minutes to this so its been almost an hour already. pump for 30 minutes. clean the pump parts. store milk. "sleep" for 30 minutes (its actually 15-20 by thr timr I fall asleep, or if i put him at breast first it's only about 10) before he wakes up to eat again 😭 its mentally, emotionally & physically draining because of the way we have to do this right now.

i need advice on what to do. or encouragement to keep going. Or how I can increase my supply so I at least have enough to feed him from pumping. how I can make that transition from nipple shield back to nipple. (he will latch but lets go after 2 or 3 sucks because it feels different than He's used to) I just don't know what to do 😭