help please! fast let down?

[nicm]

hi,

can someone give me some advice please?

ds is nearly 4 weeks and is ebf. however when he latches on sometimes he starts to cry and wriggle and others you can hear him gupling and his stomach gurgling then he pulls off and his face is covered in milk or i can feel it running down me. he also has a lot of wind and i could wind him every couple of minutes but think this is becasue he is gulping so much.

i really want to keep bf as i bf ds1 to 20 months and would be a shame not to be able to do the same this time. :(

so any tips to slow the flow down as it's quite distressing for him and me as it's getting to the stage where he screams everytime i try to feed him and he realises it's not his dummy. or do you think it could be another problem?

thank you.

:)

I had same, used to express that first bit into a muslin just till it settled down a bit. After a couple of months it wasn't as bad.

thanks for the reply, did you hand express or just let it flow out?

this is very useful

The link from Mawbroon is very good. The positions it shows are all gret ideas to try.

With regards to expressing you can hand express a bit first to get the letdown and then just let is spray around and calm down before latching baby on or just pull baby off as soon as you feel the letdown and latch back on once it has calmed down. Be careful expressing, you don't want to end up boosting supply and adding to your troubles!

It can take a fair amount of time to sort out and you may find youself having to fanny around feeding in odd positions for some time but as the baby gets bigger he will be more able to cope with a fast letdown.

Yes, when I said 'express' what I really meant was 'catch' baby would pull off when the fast let down started and I would just hold a muslin over it until it settled down. When I was organised enough to have the muslin to hand, that is ....

thank you all, it's a bit better. have let it spray into a towel, feed him when he's sleepy or lying down. hopefully not be a problem at all as he gets a bit older.

:)