Being a parent with T1 Diabetes

[cobweb1979]

Anyone else out there? My son is nearly 8 weeks old, and atm I am exclusively pumping as he won't BF (lots of things led to this). Problem is the pumping is causing chaos with my blood sugars and nothing I do seems to help. Things have got so bad that I was 26mmol/l before I felt ill and thought to test the other day :-(

Just wondered if there was anyone else going through similar. I'm going to start cutting down pumping soon and introduce formula. He has reflux so we don't get much sleep, and having my 4 hours bed time interruped by a hypo is soul destroying.

Having to let him scream while I recover enough to hold him is also hard.

No personal experience except that I am the daughter of a woman with t1 diabetes. My mum tried to bf and kept it up for 6 weeks before the blood sugar chaos (and complete fatigue) got the better of her. I was ff from then on. I don't know whether hers was a common problem, but if you've made it to 8 weeks you're doing very well.

You might get some good advice on the bf/ff part of the board.

Thanks Chaotica. I started it here in case there were enough of us about to have a more general support/discussion, but I might post there too.

It is well known that bfing affects blood sugars, but I was just told to reduce my insulin a bit and then sent on my way. Feels a bit harsh given how much support I was given while I was actually pregnant. Oh well.

In the long dark nights I sometimes wonder whether I should have had him as I worry the diabetes will get in the way, but I think that is just the exhaustion talking.

Yes...i'm type 1 and have DS now 7 and DD now 5...i breastfed DS (expressed a lot) and i rememeber my levels were all over to place especially as he got bigger...so much so that the health visitor told me to start him on baby rice at 15 weeks ( i know they say not to do that now but it worked wonders for me!)..DS was a big baby to start with so i guess that was another reason to put him on solids early....after that i combined purees, BF'ing and formula

With DD it was harder cos i had a toddler to look after and a lapse in concentration due to a hypo would have been a disaster! So i combined formula and BF'ing from the outset with her and found it MUCH easier

I also found it hard getting my insulin doses right after the pregnancy as it reduced drastically!