Do I have any other options?

Baby and I have had a rough breastfeeding journey, and the journey continues. He’s 16 weeks old now and our issues started on day 1. I had an unplanned c section after a week long failed induction and after labouring for 19 hours. After this, baby was sleepy, had to be woken to eat, and I questioned whether he was getting anything from me. We ended up doing tube feeding top ups in the hospital which we continued at home until we started triple feeding. Eventually it seemed like he was gaining enough with breast milk only, so we started EBF. I will note that I never felt my milk come in. It obviously did, but I wasn’t engorged, leaking, etc. so I always questioned my supply. Around the same time, we learned that he had a tongue tie, but were advised by our paediatrician (who we saw once for something unrelated) not to do anything about it because he was gaining well. We saw an IBCLC who recommended body work with a chiropractor as a conservative measure. At around 6 weeks his tongue tie caught up with him and he started to fall off his curve, which we didn’t realize until his 2 month check up. So I started triple feeding again and we were referred for a tongue tie release. We got in for the release at 11 weeks but then he had to re-learn how to breastfeed. I continued triple feeding but after seeing the IBCLC again and realizing that recovery from the release and re-learning could take a while, I started formula top ups. Triple feeding while home by myself during the day with my baby and rambunctious dog was taking a huge toll.

One week into formula top ups we had a weight check appointment and he was back on his curve.

Fast forward another week when we realized that the formula wasn’t agreeing with baby and he was inconsolable. We quickly realized the issue and switched to nutramigen (I can’t eat dairy, so it wasn’t in my breast milk to begin with). Nutramigen works, but he’ll only take it if mixed with a bottle of primarily breast milk. So I started exclusively pumping so that we could add formula to breast milk in bottles.

I only get 21-25oz/day depending on how often I pump, presumably because of the delay in diagnosis of the tongue tie. Baby eats about 32oz/day.

We got to the point where he would take bottles of 3/4 formula to 1/4 breast milk. I was also latching him a bit during this time and his latch felt way better, so we decided to switch to nursing and I figured I could do a power pump in the evening to get enough to mix top up bottles for the next day.

After going back to nursing, baby started refusing the formula/breast milk bottles.

Baby enjoys nursing for comfort and I love it too, so I hate to think that it might be off the table completely but I’m feeling discouraged and at a loss. I’ve tried having him at the breast as much as he’ll take it the past day or two to see if that will help with supply, but he gets frustrated when the milk slows down and he’s still hungry.

I feel like we’ve hit road bumps at every turn and exclusively pumping might be necessary. Has anyone had similar issues and eventually n been able to primarily breastfeed? Any tips?