Breastfeeding 3 weeks PP

[FirstBaba]

Hi, I'm hoping for some advice. I am 3 weeks PP and am EBF. Baby is thriving, has gained great weight and wakes regularly for feeds. On top of this I can manage to express one 5oz bottle which my husband gives at the night feed.

My issue is, it takes all day for me to build this 5oz bottle and I really hoped I'd be expressing a lot more milk by now - between feeds.

For background I have had a severe infection and have been in hospital twice over these last few weeks which is why my husband has been doing a night feed - in attempt to get me some proper sleep. Could this have damaged my supply? Is it already too late for my body to know it has to produce more?

Any advice would be amazing 😊

Some women just find it very hard to express, sorry. I’ve breastfed (more than one child!) for several years now. But expressing is still nearly impossible for me. Best time to try to do it is just before a feed. Your baby will still get milk as they are much more efficient than a breast pump.

Baby will be eating a lot. Infections also take a lot of energy. I didn’t get my supply properly established until week 7 and by then I was on tablespoonfuls of fenugreek per day to get me there. And I didn’t have any infections.

Keep drinking. Drink out of a pint glass instead of a normal size if you have to. Eat plenty of protein. Rest. Feet up on the couch all day type rest. All that energy that went into your infections needs to go into milk production and not much else. And allow time for everything to settle.

You have plenty of time to establish supply. I was supplementing with formula for a while but by three months dc was ebf and we were flying.

Thank you so much for the response. This has made me feel a lot more positive.
Health visitor told me that whatever I was producing by week 4 would be as much as I would ever produce and it just threw me off.
Thanks again x

That can't be right. I had low supply and had to supplement a bit for the first five weeks but then was fine.

Pump first thing in the morning! I used to get so much more in the morning than evening; still do :)

HV is wrong. Week 6-8 is more likely than week 4!!

Your prolactin levels are highest between 12-4am. This is a really crucial time in the early days to feed or pump. I would suggest you go to bed early, let your husband give the bottle for the evening, and you feed baby when they wake.

I understand needing more sleep but often stressing about expressing is counter productive. Could you just give baby a bottle on alternate nights? Try putting a sock over the bottle so you can't see what's coming out (takes the stress away of checking).

Expressing is not an indicator of supply - some mums can't express a drop yet their babies thrive on milk direct from source! (Equally, being able to pump a lot of milk doesn't mean a baby is getting loads when they feed).

I find this too @goodmorningsunny . I get about 3-4oz from my first pump of the day but barely 1oz from some of my later pumps. Good to know this is normal!

Some women just don’t respond well to pumps, I never got more than a teaspoon and couldn’t be bothered with the faff.
BUT - your HVs comment is bollocks, milk remains supply and demand as long as you feed, and your supply will go up and down with your baby’s needs, you’ve got a good few clusterfeeding growth spurts ahead of you! and there are some things that could help with pumping

• making sure you have the right size flange for your nipples, it’s really not one size fits all and this can make a huge difference. There’s a great Facebook group that could help - ‘breast pumping/estimate flange sizing and all things related’
• hold your baby while you pump, or look at pictures/smell their clothes etc while you pump. Oxytocin and our response to our baby is a big part of milk production (partly why you’ll generally get the most milk out feeding baby directly
• your milk production is highest in the roughly 1-5am hours, so if you’re up doing a night feed pump the other boob while feeding. You won’t run out of milk, it’s like a river not a lake and will keep coming as long as it’s summoned

@CocoPlum this is very helpful! Thank you.
We actually tried this last night. Husband gave baby his last feed before bed and I fed him for the two throughout the night. I'll try to continue this!
I'm more than happy baby is definitely getting enough milk from me, I just had big ideas about pumping and storing milk to freeze so that I had a supply for when I want to be out and about etc. Then the HV scared me by saying that when I'm only able to pump about 6-8oz a day at the min.

Unfortunately I've just been so sick I haven't been giving it much thought until now. It makes sense that I should have been feeding throughout the night to build my sully but I was barely functioning lol!

You could try power pumping but you might end up with an oversupply if you do that. When I had DS2 I could express a bottle's worth of milk from one side while he was feeding at the other side. With DS4 I would pump and pump and get nothing even though I had plenty of milk. It makes me suspect that sometimes pumping just isn't going to work out.

If you're feeding through the night maybe at 3 and 5am then just feed baby off of one boob - so feed them from your left boob then left boob again. The lonely boob will be quite engorged but the time you wake at about 6/7 and you should find it easier to pump. At that age I'd be surprised if baby was taking more than about 3/4oz anyway! So one pump in the morning should give you one bottle worth for later that day allowing you a block of sleep - personally I found it more restful not to pump at all - and just feed and hand baby over immediate oh to be taken away giving me a solid two hour block of sleep

Wow, 6-8 Oz at 3 weeks PP when you're sick sounds awesome to me!

I’ve breastfed one child to 1 year and currently 11 months into feeding the other. Both gained weight well and no issues….but I could never express more then around 2.5oz in one sitting. I would express every day and that meant every other day I’d make a bottle to store in the freezer. It just seems to be the way for some women.

one thing I did find was that if I tried to express with hands free bra while tending to baby hardly anything would come out. I had to be away from baby for it to work! I had to be in a room by myself, relaxed and I would actually visualise myself breastfeeding! Weird but it worked. If I was stressed output would be lower …obviously watching the bottles fill / not fill can be stressful itself!

sounds like you’re doing amazing! You could half and half with formula so you don’t have to spend all day expressing or just give bottle every other day / few days?

Hi OP well done for feeding for this long. I EBF two babies and never managed to express more than 3oz a day. With my second I was never able to express and he never took a bottle!