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[quote=Anonymous]I (1) haven't read all the posts, (2) am a huge advocate for supporting women who breastfeed, and (3) breastfed 3 kids myself.

You have a lot of options open to you.  None of the will damage your child and you are an awesome mom regardless of which path you choose.

You can choose to persevere with the breastfeeding plan laid out for you.  If you do that, talk to your lactation consultant about what the path is to offramp from pumping, since this doesn't seem to be working for you.  Every woman's responsiveness to pumping is different and where one woman can get a steady 4 oz per session, other women don't.  This doesn't mean anything is wrong with you.  If you're really set on exclusively breastfeeding, talk to her about getting access to a medical grade pump.  A lot of women report that this is much more effective for them than a standard "free with health insurance" pump.

The fact that you seem to be really interested in breastfeeding and that you are being steered towards exclusively pumping and that it's not working for you kind of makes me want to tell you to find another lactation consultant right off the bat.  I know there are women that are able to transition from pumping to breastfeeding (at the breast) and there are things that can help with this.  I am completely not an expert here.  I am concerned that you're being steered towards a path that is causing you to beat yourself up, though.

Alternatively, you could choose to continue breastfeeding some and supplementing some (this is the route I went after I went back to work and couldn't get enough with pumping).  Talk to your LC for tips and tricks, but if she's really not supportive of this option, don't hesitate to find someone else to help support you.  Usually this means to offer the breast when the baby is hungry but not starving and then give them a bottle if they're not satisfied after nursing for a while.  Don't let you or Baby get to the point of tears!

Or you could choose to stop breastfeeding entirely and bottlefeed instead.  I don't have a lot of experience with helping to dry up this way early on as I continued to breastfeed until weaning age, but please don't hesitate to seek out help if you're uncomfortable.  I would say to taper off rather than going all at once because becoming engorged is actually a health hazard for you.  You do NOT want to end up with a plugged duct and mastitis.  You can use a pump to relieve engorgement in this process, but you will need to taper off to signal to your body to stop producing milk.

As I said, you're a great mom to your baby and no matter which route you choose, your baby will be fine.  
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