"good boob, bad boob" how best to manage?

[abigailj]

Hi,
I need some advice for my sister who is EBF her 6 week old. Her DD fusses and refuses to drink for long on her left breast, so she has been offering it first then expressing after a feed but still ends up with "a watermelon and a golfball" - obviously she has lower supply or a slower letdown in the left breast.

She would like to keep her supply up in her left breast, but is struggling to know how to manage.

Should she stop expressing to allow the milk to build up (and hopefully get a quicker letdown and more milk so that DD will be less fussy)?

Should she keep expressing to keep up supply, essentially sticking with the same strategy?

Should she give up and just feed from the right boob?

Has anyone had a similar experience and what have you done?

(I have EBF my 6 month old, which I feel is a bit of a marathon effort, so am very keen to help her persist)
Thankyou

Sounds like she's doing the right thing. I have Bfed 2 children so no expert but I would be doing the same thing in her shoes.

It might be worth not expressing after 1 feed, so letting supply build up for next one and see if a greater let-down helps. And maybe let baby feed from right first, then try left when her appetite isn't so urgent - just different things to see if anything works?

Has anyone checked that the baby is latching pproperly onto left? I had that prob with DS2 it was so painful had a few days where I couldn't bear him feeding from left, so I expressed from left and did half feed from right, other half from a bottle. Not ideal.

Above all tell her well done - this stuff is really hard to deal with esp with first baby.

Hopefully someone will come along who has some expertise - there is really good help on here!

Has she tried a rugby hold on the left?

i have had this problem. my let down on one side (right) veeerrry slow and ds often gets frustrated and cry until i swap to other side. also that side much smaller, didn't increase in size much in pg or when milk came in so i think less glandular tissue.

i have done various different things to keep what little supply there is going.

with ds1 i used to feed more on the right as i had read that would help even it out. he ended up crying lots and with failure to thrive so didn't work for us!

this time in the early weeks i found that if i started on left ds would be full up and not take R if offered second. so i started every feed with the right.
with ds2 and now ds3 i often start and finish on the right (so 3 breasts per feed).

agree try rugby hold or try to feed lying down from top and bottom breasts without changing position.