Oversupply?

[pinkelephants]

Does anyone know anything about this? Is it possible to have too much milk? My ds (first baby) is 7 weeks. He was 10lb 11oz at birth and has stayed on the 99th centile ever since (now weighs 15lb!) He is fully breast fed. I seem to have loads of milk - I leak loads between feeds and loads from the other side while I am feeding (am getting very fed up of having to change my top all the time!) At the start of every feed ds coughs and splutters frequently and comes on and off the breast several times and can get quite upset. There is always more milk than he can swallow (extra milk dripping from his mouth.) He is sick after most feeds often more than once and I'm wondering if he is either getting too much milk and/or taking it too quickly. He has a bottle of expressed milk in the evening and he is rarely sick after that feed. I only ever feed from one side per feed as he never empties the breast. Any suggestions would be welcome. Thanks.

Totally possible!

Info here:
www.kellymom.com/bf/supply/fast-letdown.html

you can block feed - go back to the same breast for a number of feeds. an 'emptier' breast has a slower let down... and there are other advantages iirc.

google 'block feeding'

oh, and johnsons breastpads absorb the most milk too

also, if he is swallowng air because he is gulping, the air can get kind of 'stuck' under all that milk in his tummy, so when he burps, he brings up the milk on top.

as he gets bigger he will cope much better though

hth

Thanks for the replies. The kellymom link is really useful. I've googled block feeding and I think i'm already sort of doing it without knowing what it was! I only offer one side per feeding, he usually goes about 3 hours between feeds and if he does want to feed more frequently than that then I offer the same side again (so am feeding from the same side for a block of 3 hours.) Should I try 2 feeds from the same side?

I will try the johnsons breast pads - none of the ones i've tried so far seem to be able to cope!

I was the same. In the early weeks I couldn't shave under my arms properly as my armpits were full of boob!

It does get better as they get bigger and can cope with the fast flow, although I still had to sleep on a bath towel until DD was about 5 months old as I still leaked at night. I only fed from both sides when DD was about 10MO.

In the first few months I had so much milk I donated www.ukamb.org/
Mine went to a premature baby who was allergic to formula milk and mother was too ill to breastfeed.

I had the same problem, it was frustrating but settled around 10 weeks after I block fed, I had to feed on the same side for 6 hours!

I didn't feed on both sides for a long time too, I do now but she is almost two now!

I found la leche very helpful with email advice

I can't really add much except to say I was exactly the same and block feeding worked for me. It's definitely worth experimenting with as it seems you have plenty of milk. Maybe try feeding for a longer block of time like babyphat.
It does settle over time. I still have a strong letdown at nearly nine months but I no longer leak - hooray!!

Just to add, I only had to do the 6 hours thing for one day, after that was gradually able to build back up.

I was the same with DS1 (except he was on 0.4th centile!). Milk all over the place. I was told to feed off one side for as many feeds as possible, until the other one started to feel a little uncomfortable or a maximum of 12 hours, and then use the other one. It settled, for me, within about 2 days.

Thanks for all the advice. Good to know other people have the same problem. I will try feeding for longer on the same side. Also trying different positions for feeding that were mentioned on kellymom. Hopefully that will help. Sounds like it will improve with time anyway.