Lump in boob..

[ohthegoats]

.. another 'giving up breastfeeding' question.

I've got down to two feeds a day - morning and bedtime. She's been increasingly uninterested in the morning feed and probably feeds for about 5 minutes max, so really I've only been 'properly' doing a bedtime feed for about 2 weeks now.

Last night she bit me almost as soon as I started feeding her - I eventually managed to get her off (she's grinning and clamping down.. ouch), but just thought 'that's it'.

This morning I haven't fed her as she wasn't interested, but I've now got lumps in my left boob. I expressed a little in the bath this morning, but the lumps are back already. This boob always got lumpy/hard towards a feed, so it's not necessarily blocked ducts or anything.

BUT.. should I hand express enough to get rid of the lumps/hardness, or will this just encourage production? Just wondering how much I need to just deal with in terms of discomfort.

[ohthegoats]

Anyone?

I've just woken in the night in complete agony with two rock hard lumpy boobs. Was meant to have stopped feeding her, but just had to to deal with the aching.

Am I meant to 'push through' the ache? Am scared of mastitis. Hand expressing yesterday didn't really give me enough relief.

[owainsmum]

You might be better off stopping more gradually, just feeding for a very short time and then keep reducing it. That way your supply will reduce and you shouldn't get too full when you stop. If you don't want to feed then hand expressing just a little bit will help.

[ohthegoats]

I thought about stopping feeding but pumping a bit once a day and slowly reducing the amount I pump? At least then it doesn't get wasted and I can just add it to her normal bottles. I thought that by only doing one feed a day for 10 days that it would be relatively easy to drop the last one.. apparently not.