my milk supply has dropped alot

[Sweedy]

Hi. My baby is 10 days old & I've been breastfeeding her since. Last couple of days I've been expressing milk alot & sometimes for 2 or 3 feeds at a time, so that someone else would feed her at night & I could sleep.
Now my milk supply has dropped alot, that I struggle to express even 60ml at a time.
Why has that happened? Could that be a reason that I expressed too much at a time & then didn't feed for 8-10hours?

& also please if I decide to combine breast & bottle feeding, what type of milk I have to buy? Can u recommend formulas ? & how to prepare them? I've read that they say you can do it from cold tap water. Really?

& the last question. If I decide to completely go over to bottle feeding...how will the milk dissapear from my breasts so that it won't collect there & hurt me?
Thanks alot!

Hi sweedy
I do think that going 8-10 hours without feeding or expressing at this age is definitely why your supply has dropped particularly when that is overnight when production is higher.
RE formula you most definitely cannot use cold tap water. You need to use fresh boiled water (ie not water that has been boiled several times in kettle) and cooled to no less than 70 deg C. The instructions are on the side of any formula pack. There are some DOH guidelines available on the web. Powered milk is not sterile so thus why water must be pre boiled. There was a long discussion about this on here a few days ago.
Can't really reccommend any particular formula but I have used Aptimilnfor odd top up without any reactions.
hope this helps

It is not a good idea to have long gaps between feeds at this time. Your breasts need frequent stimulation, preferably from your baby, to tell your body to make more milk as well as to establish your milk supply for 2 months and more down the road.

This is besides the problem that your baby may prefer the flow from a bottle over the flow from a breast later on and begin to refuse the breast.

]]analyticalarmadillo.blogspot.com/ Here]] is a lot of sensible information about the whole 'expressing so my partner can feed' theory.

Congratulations on your new baby and you are doing fantastic so far, despite this wobble. No, you are not yet losing your milk supply but you do need to feed your baby at least every 2-3hrs during the day and having no more than a 5 hr gap at night so your body and your baby can establish your supply.

Here

Hi sweedy, congrats on your new arrival. Expressing in the first three weeks isn't recommended unless it's to keep up supply (in which case you wouldn't be having 8 hour breaks).

That said, it's not the end of the world and def. understandable if you felt like you needed a break. It will be easy to recover, your LO might be growing through a growth spurt soon (there's one around 10 days, 3 weeks and 6 weeks). At these times, your LO needs to demand more, so your both more than ready and cut out for it. Don't feel guilty as its normal.

If you really want to combination feed, I'd wait until after the 6 weeks growth spurt, otherwise it most likely will be the start of the end. Which is fine if that's what you want. (speaking as someone who expressed bottle feed most days from 6 weeks, and more often than I should have done before 6 weeks)

Def have a real think about why you want to combo feed because as foxy has said it can be full of problems. Approach it thinking about worst case i.e. switching over to formula full time and how you would feel about this, then make your decision.

Quick hi-jack -

Foxytocin thanks so much for that link. Partner getting massively on my nerves about this right now. Getting good midwife support so no real worries although do want to smack the crap out of unsupportive partner.

Sweedy - good luck with your decision, which ever you choose. Like Climber says just make sure its what you want and not someone else making pressure.

Thanks everyone!