Overproducing

[lightgreenglass]

I am an EP, my baby is only two weeks old and I making nearly 60oz a day. At the moment he only takes 16oz roughly as is 37 weeks corrected.

Do I carry on with this or should I be reducing this? My freezer is chockablock so I am having to resort to throwing stuff away.

[lightgreenglass]

Sorry - on phone - I am making...

[slippermaiden]

Ring up your local hospital, they may take milk donations. You would have to have some blood taken to test you are healthy but donor milk is used in neonatal units

[stargoblin]

You are making this much because you are pumping this much.

Supply is produced in response to demand. Women can easily feed twins if they need to, and the body will cope.
If you want to cut supply then ramp down your pumping, take your time, done too fast may cause problems. Give yourself a week or two and gradually pump a little less a day.
Is having your baby suckle directly from you an option to save the hassle of pumping?

[lightgreenglass]

I only pump 5 times a day at the moment and most people recommend 8 times a day. Only pumping 4 times a day, 2 weeks after birth seems too little.

I want to EP as I did it with my first and it worked out for us so would rather not bf directly. Plus he's a very slow feeder with the bottle, I dread to imagine him on the breast.

[slippermaiden]

What about keeping they same number of times it reducing the length of time you pump for? Would help reduce the volume a little. Is there a breastfeeding group nearby you could talk to someone?

[lightgreenglass]

Can't reduce it now as developing mastitis now, got the shivers, sore breast and under a blanket.

[tiktok]

LGG, can you speak to a midwife about this?

Mastitis is a real risk with this sort of huge production. 60 ounces a day is off the scale :(

You can become quite ill very quickly with untreated mastitis - if you can't speak to a midwife, you'll need to see a doctor.

Breastfeeding direct may be a better option for you, and you are more likely to produce within normal limits.

Hope you can get good help soon.

[Tiggertum]

Hi OP

I hope you are feeling better and managed to see a doctor.

I was exactly the same as you, was an EP'er with a massive over supply. It really caused me so many problems with mastitis etc. I found that not many people could help me with managing it, so had to work it out myself a bit.

Am I correct that this is the second time you are EPing? I found with my second baby my oversupply was even worse than with my first and seemed to kick in straight away. I did end up dropping ( slowly) to 4 pumps at three weeks and I still maintained my supply ( I'm just stopping at 7 months now as I've had enough this time!). I also went down to three pumps very early this time ( certainly before 3 months). I still got several bouts of mastitis but it wasn't nearly as bad as with my first when I kept up the pumping multiple times.

I don't know what pump you use but I found that having a small manual pump was useful during mastitis so I didn't ramp up my supply trying to clear it - it meant I could pump just the mastitis breast. I found the avent one really effective at clearing it - actually better than my double electric. I also did this when dropping to 4 pumps - if one breast felt very over full I would use the hand held to take a little off without doing a full pump, so I didn't up the supply again.

I dropped by gradually merging my pumps - for me cutting down the time didn't really work as my milk came out so quickly ( 250 per breast in less than 10 minutes ).

Good luck - EPing is so hard and the constant battle with mastitis is horrendous - you have my sympathy.