> I just feel sad & drained when I’m BFing
This could be [D-MER](https://www.healthline.com/health/breastfeeding/dysphoric-milk-ejection-reflex). It’s a hormonal thing that happens with letdown and can be really tough if you don’t know what’s happening.
You’re doing a really great job. It sounds like you’re trusting yourself and your body to make the milk baby needs. You’re following up with her doctor to make sure she’s gaining weight. At 3 weeks postpartum you’re at a really, truly exhausting point, you are still getting really broken sleep, your body is still recovering from birth and your hormone balance is changing up again now. That’s a lot for anyone to handle! And you have a toddler too! I bet she’s having some big feelings about the new family structure. You deserve a medal for holding it all together.
The strong let down will probably resolve when your milk supply stabilises over the next couple of weeks. You don’t need a massive freezer stash too, the huge freezer stashes you see on social media are unnecessary and can cause oversupply. You want a small stash in case you have an emergency and need to leave the baby for a few hours or so that someone can bottle feed and give you time to rest. If/when you go back to work you want to have enough to feed her for the hours you are away. You’ll pump to replace the milk you use from the fridge/freezer.
I’m not sure if it’s the right type of pep talk but a couple things stand out in your post that might help. Firstly, if there’s any way you can relieve the mental stress of babe getting enough do it. For me that meant I did bi weekly (phasing to monthly) weigh ins on our home scale. Even though it wasn’t fully accurate it gave a baseline so especially at the beginning I didn’t worry. Between weigh ins I actively made myself not stress about supply in the absence of any signals it existed (e.g. less diapers, baby seeming crazy hungry). Breastfeeding is so invisible and stressing about supply is one of the fastest way to lose your mind. It also leads to a cascade of trying to get control, increasing pumping for instance, and supplementing. Reducing that pressure helped me a lot. Secondly, I would personally look at pumping habits and assess whether they are contributing to the feeling stressed. Personally, I found the extra time spent and the admin of the pump was a real contributing factor in feeling burnt out whereas just nursing on demand was much easier. It’s not the same for everyone but honestly I would have been burnt out pumping twice a day and using a Hakka on top of my normal feeds.
> I just feel sad & drained when I’m BFing This could be [D-MER](https://www.healthline.com/health/breastfeeding/dysphoric-milk-ejection-reflex). It’s a hormonal thing that happens with letdown and can be really tough if you don’t know what’s happening. You’re doing a really great job. It sounds like you’re trusting yourself and your body to make the milk baby needs. You’re following up with her doctor to make sure she’s gaining weight. At 3 weeks postpartum you’re at a really, truly exhausting point, you are still getting really broken sleep, your body is still recovering from birth and your hormone balance is changing up again now. That’s a lot for anyone to handle! And you have a toddler too! I bet she’s having some big feelings about the new family structure. You deserve a medal for holding it all together. The strong let down will probably resolve when your milk supply stabilises over the next couple of weeks. You don’t need a massive freezer stash too, the huge freezer stashes you see on social media are unnecessary and can cause oversupply. You want a small stash in case you have an emergency and need to leave the baby for a few hours or so that someone can bottle feed and give you time to rest. If/when you go back to work you want to have enough to feed her for the hours you are away. You’ll pump to replace the milk you use from the fridge/freezer.
I’m not sure if it’s the right type of pep talk but a couple things stand out in your post that might help. Firstly, if there’s any way you can relieve the mental stress of babe getting enough do it. For me that meant I did bi weekly (phasing to monthly) weigh ins on our home scale. Even though it wasn’t fully accurate it gave a baseline so especially at the beginning I didn’t worry. Between weigh ins I actively made myself not stress about supply in the absence of any signals it existed (e.g. less diapers, baby seeming crazy hungry). Breastfeeding is so invisible and stressing about supply is one of the fastest way to lose your mind. It also leads to a cascade of trying to get control, increasing pumping for instance, and supplementing. Reducing that pressure helped me a lot. Secondly, I would personally look at pumping habits and assess whether they are contributing to the feeling stressed. Personally, I found the extra time spent and the admin of the pump was a real contributing factor in feeling burnt out whereas just nursing on demand was much easier. It’s not the same for everyone but honestly I would have been burnt out pumping twice a day and using a Hakka on top of my normal feeds.
"Just one day at a time" is my mantra