wrote:

Could you pump after feeds during the day, so someone could do a syringe or
cup feeding at night, letting you get in 3-4 hours of sleep at a stretch?
Since Alli can't nurse yet, we're doing all feedings with EBM now, but I do
know that when we stopped trying to have her nurse and went to pumping and
feeding EBM (which let other people feed her), which let me get a longer nap
at least once a day, it really helped many of the PPD symptoms I was
starting to show. I can't go longer than 4 hours w/o pumping, but the
difference between 2 hours or less of sleep and 4 hours is dramatic.

For someone in your situation who has to pump and bottlefeed for a while
anyway, the equation is quite different. It's much simpler to avoid the whole
pumping/bottlefeeding hoohah to begin with, if one *can*, but if you're already
in the midst of it for other reasons, yes, it *can* work out that someone else
doing one feeding can help.

To me, reducing the general complexity of my life, so that I had few decisions
to make and few things to worry about, was the number one thing that made me
better able to relax and enjoy my babies. I was fortunate to have a sister or
grandparent around for most of my twins' first month (in addition to my
husband), and that made a huge, huge difference. I didn't have to be The One In
Charge every minute, so it wasn't nearly as scary or stressful. On the other
hand, I didn't actually need to be separated from the babies much -- they
weren't overwhelming me, because I had help.

Of course true PPD can set in absolutely regardless of how perfect your
circumstances are, and everyone has moments of thinking, "Oh, my gawd, what
have I *done*, I must have been crazy to think I could do this ..."

--Helen