Should my milk drip or flow?

[Icanonlytry]

Hi, just wondering what should be happening when I am expressing my milk. My milk is just dripping into the container but I was expecting it to kind of flow, I am having problems with my supply meeting Ds' needs and am wondering if this is a sign that it isn't going to work? Wish breastfeeding was easier for me, I really want to be able to do it right but I seem to be having one problem after another

Hi sorry I have taken so long to reply. Saw a breastfeeding advisor today who has shown me some different ways of positioning ds so he gets more milk and it seems to be working. Ds has not needed any top ups, have fed more often to boost my supply so hopefully after a few days it will get better, really annoying and sad that midwives dont seem to have a clue. Trying to convince dp that he hasnt had a bottle all day and he has been fine. He isnt the most supportive at the moment and thinks I should just formula feed ds so trying my best to just ignore him.

Oh,I am so glad you've come back to update us and it is wonderful to hear you have had some help.

Your DP might find this useful. It can be very difficult for men to realise that 'just giving them a bottle' doesn't solve things, not really.

Come back and keep us update, won't you?

Great news Icanonlytry

Who am I kidding, i am never going to be able to feed ds properly, he just needs more than i can give him and unless i starve him for a few days until my supply catches us which i am not prepared to do i need to accept that. I am so upset and feel like such a failiure as a mother because i cant even feed him properly, this has spoilt our first five weeks together and that is time i can never get back. Every time i feed him with formula or even see the box it makes my heart break a litle bit more

Oh no Icanonly . What has happened?

I just cant satisfy him. We stayed in bed until 2.30pm today having skin to skin cuddles and he just needed feeding constantly, every time he came off he would bring his wind up then cry to be fed again. Only got up to get dd from school and he was in a right state. I just cant fill him on my own and its not fair to leave him hungry and unsettled.

How old is he now?

He is 5 weeks old

Sorry, I just went back to read your other 2 threads again to remind myself of your situation. Am I right that initially you had a problem with supply and was readmitted into hospital as your DS was not gaining weight and having few dirty nappies? The paediatrician then advised formula top-ups of 30mls after each feed, right? There was also a diagnosis of a mild TT made at some point.

A more recent post said that he didn't need any top-ups any longer. Has that been for a few days/weeks? How is your DS's weight gain now? How many wet and dirty nappies is he having per day?

I'm sorry about asking all these questions, I just want to get a cleared picture of what is going on.

Yes thats right.
He didnt have any top ups on monday or tuesday this week but was very unsettled yesterday, was having 2-3 dirty nappies a day when on the topups but none on monday or tuesday and there were less wet nappies aswell.
He was weighed on monday and had put on 6 oz so is now only 10oz over his birth weight at 5 weeks old.

It is excellent that he is back up (and over) his birth weight.

Were you doing anything differently between your last post and seeing the breastfeeding counsellor? I don't think it at all necessary for you to starve him until your supply catches up. As he has been getting top-ups after feeds from a young age, it will take your body longer to adjust to his demands and going 'cold-turkey' may not be the best option at this stage.

Skin-to-skin is an excellent way to help boost supply and an excellent way to bond with your baby, so please don't feel like it was a futile exercise.

Will you be seeing the BFC again or going to a group again soon? I really feel that you would benefit so much from seeing knowledgable people in person.

I really have to go to sleep now, but I just wanted you to know that you are not alone and that there are many posters on this board who are willing to support you.

Hope you get some rest tonight and have renewed energy in the morning. Will check in again tomorrow.

Ican sorry you feel so down about this....but in fact what you are doing is the right way to 'fix' the difficulties you have had. The only concern is that you phase out the formula gradually, maybe a bit more gradually than you have done.

Feeding virtually non-stop is what babies do when they have catching up to do, and when the milk supply needs a real boost, so your baby's keenness to feed is a good thing.

Can you have your situation assessed again by someone who knows what they are looking for and work out a plan to keep your milk supply on the up, and keep your baby happy in the meantime?

You had such a terrible start with such truly useless help - I think it was you who was advised to top up 30 mls at every feed with a new baby and whose baby was prescribed lactulose? :( You are doing great to have come through all that and still be breastfeeding - but it will take a little bit more time I think for everything to be perfect.

The breastfeeding advisor sugested trying fenugreek supliments and try and feed him as much as i can and avoid giving him the formula if i can so my body knows it needs ti produce much more milk.
I was with my friend yesterday and she was giving her dd a bottle of her expressed milk and it looked so much thicker and creamier than mine

Sorry on my phone and pressed post too soon.
Never seen anyone elses milk before and i was surprised at how watery mine is compared to hers, could that be part of the problem?

Tiktok yes it was ds who was prescribed lactulose at 12 days old and i was advised to top him up with 60~90 ml after each feed but they would discharge us if we agreed to give him atleast 30 ml after each feed. That was when he was 15 days. Feel like noone wants me to feed him with all the crappy 'advice' i have been given.
Thanks for your replies nice to be able to sound off. [Smile]

The thing about your milk being less creamy than a friends really struck a chord with me.

With ds1 I fed and fed and fed him, but he just didn't really gain weight and in fact went from 91st centile to 2nd over 3 months. I paid for a lactation consultant, did days of skin to skin all day in bed feeding, took fenugreek, drove myself mental. In the end I moved to ff because the hv actually used the term failure to thrive, but I expressed every 3 or 4 hours and added the expressed milk to formula on basis he'd still be getting the antibodies this way. My expressed milk was always 80 percent watery blue tinted stuff and the bottom of the bottle with a thin amount of cream on top. I showed this to the lactation consultant and she said that it seemed thinner than most but nothing more. I never really understood what had gone wrong with my feeding of ds1, I spent six months reading kellymom, trying every suggestion, I felt such a failure and so ashamed every time I had to get a bottle out in public.
Happily I now have ds2. Despite a truly terrible birth, and nearly 3 weeks in nicu feeding him has been easy. He has put on exactly
The right amount of weight each week. And guess what? Expressed milk looks thick and creamy, much much more so than with ds1.
I haven't done anything different, in fact I tried much harder, put much more effort into feeding ds1 than ds2. My conclusion, which might be totally wrong, was that for some reason totally outside my control my
Milk with ds1 just wasn't calorie rich. No idea why, wonder if anyone else does?
Anyway it is only now that the guilt re my failure with ds1 is subsiding. I guess what I am trying to say is don't beat yourself up, you are doing everything right, everything you can, maybe for some reason you can't control your milk just doesn't have enough calories? It will still have everything else though, all the good stuff, so if you look on formula simply as extra cals and bm as health giving and comfort that might help? And if there are any more dcs things might be different next time.

OK, let's knock the appearance of breastmilk thing on the head once and for all :)

Different mothers do not produce milk that differs significantly in calorie/cream content. This has been shown again and again in the research.

However, if expressing is not removing milk truly effectively, then the cream content will be lower. This is because the cream content of the milk is highest when the breast is emptiest. So, if expressing is not really getting the milk out well, the creamier parts ('hindmilk') will still be in the breast.

The same goes for babies - if they are not removing milk as effectively as they might otherwise do, then the breast does not 'release' the creamier parts, and in the longer term, production dwindles because milk production depends on frequent effective milk removal - this does not mean the milk has to drain to the last drop, BTW. It is normal for milk to remain in the breast and in fact the breast never truly empties.

It is not the case that some mothers produce 'thin' milk and others don't. Their milk contents will be more or less the same as anyone else's.

Usually, the main thing that drives a baby's growth upwards is volume of milk - we don't have to worry about 'getting to the hindmilk', because if the baby is really feeding often and sucking effectively, this will happen anyway.

shelfy, what happened with your baby is so sad and you really struggled :( The heart of your story lies (probably) at the beginning, when milk production needs to get off to a good start with lots and lots of effective feeding, and I wonder if that happened with you. If not you may have been playing catch up for some time - and while some women and babies can cope with a difficult start and make up for it, some find it harder.

The other thing is that fat content differs from time to time - sometimes if you have a lot of milk and you express, it will look less creamy. This is ok. Other times when the breast is less full it will look more creamy. This is also ok :)

Tiktok, I have heard that all milk is good, everyone can breastfeed etc many many times. All I can say is that I really didn't do anything different between my two dcs, even using the same pump. With dc1 the milk was watery and he did not put on weight when being ebf, with dc2 it is creamy and he is gaining fine. I really do believe that my milk with dc1 was not as calorie rich ad with dc2, and there is no reason I can identify to explain this. In fact dc1 was born after a 12 hour straightforward birth and latched on within 5 mins, dc2 was born by emcs, I wasn't even able to hold him for 3 hours due to haemorrhaging and then he was sick with jaundice so in a light box and therefore no skin to skin for hours each day. At 11 days he rebelled bronchiolitis and was in icu being tube fed for 4 days, I was only able to held him once a day, so if supply problems could be predicted, the odds were much higher I'd have feeding probes with ds2 than ds1.

Sorry about spelling, autocorrect madness, am feeding and typing!!

shelfy, I really did not say 'everyone can breastfeed' and I don't even think it.

There is no reason why you would produce milk that was generally waterier than another woman's - we know breastmilk production does not work like that.

I know it can be hard when you have a picture in your mind of what happened, and you clearly had a really hard struggle that first time.

But there will have been other reasons for poor weight gain and if it was also to do with the calorie content of the milk, this calorie content would have been affected by efficiency/frequency of milk removal, and not your inherent ability to include cream in your milk.

Thinking back tiktok in light of what you've said I think ds1 possibly didn't feed as frequently at the start as ds2 did. Ds1 was 9lb1 and generally seemed more contented than ds2 who fed lots. Could that have caused the difference in the appearance of milk even several mOnths later and if so, could it have been fixed?

If your baby did not feed frequently at the start, shelfy, then this would have contributed to a difficulty in getting a good supply - production is 'calibrated' in the early days, because of the prolactin receptors (google prolactin receptor theory - it's not a theory in the sense of 'just' a theory, but a theory in the sense of a scientific explanation that answers all the questions!).

But there may well have been other things going on, too. If you had low production and a baby (or a pump) not removing as efficiently as he/it could have done, then you may not have had creamy milk. I don't know, to be honest.

The description you give of your milk as being 80 per cent bluish is pretty standard for most women!

What is pretty certain is that there was nothing inherent in you that 'made' you unable to produce creamier milk at that time.

It could be that your milk was ok (the description of it sounds fine) but your baby was just not getting enough of it because your supply had been calibrated at a lower level....glad things are going well now.