Using API to update cms items in realtime with staging environment

I have recently developed an external site that allows fields in a Webflow CMS to be updated from forms on the external site.

This worked great on a test site in a development environment using the /live endpoints for adding new items and deleting items and it being reflected on a test site in Webflow.

However, I recently moved this integration to our live site, but I have run into the issue that since we have a staging version on this site that all live creates and updates will throw a 409 conflict. I can remove the /live and have the updates occur on each publish, but this is clearly not ideal. Also, the removal of the staging environment would not be viable since it is used by the team managing Webflow.

Does anyone have a workaround for managing the live cms through apis while also having a staging environment on the site?