How long do I have before it dries up?

[Viagrafalls]

So many problems recently with combination feeding but my 14 week daughter always took the breast for comfort so there was always a little milk there which made me feel like a 'real' mummy, but since yesterday she has screamed when I offer her the boob and wont take it at all! I cant stop crying now - how long do I have to get her to take it again before I stop producing milk completely?

:( :(

Sorry to hear, viagra. Without knowing your history, it's not possible to say if your milk really is on its way out as it were, but what you can do now is just to offer loads and loads of skin to skin, have a bath together, don't force the feeding/latching on, and just let her come to you in her own time and in her own way. (Risk with continuing to take a clear initiative is that she will associate the breast with struggle and that's absolutely what you don't want. Ensure she is not hungry at these times).

Mothers can and do continue to enjoy sharing breastfeeding with their baby even without much/any milk transfer...that could easily happen with you :)

Exactly as Tirol advised, the best thing possible is to have heaps and heaps of skin to skin contact. Relaxing together and letting her take the initiative to a certain extent.

I dunno. But maybe if you look for the next couple of days on breastfeeding as a source of comfort and closeness first and foremost, she will pick up on that cue and latch on more happily?

When ds1 had a bit of a nursing strike at 8 months that seemed to work - we shared baths and generally just mooches and when ith of us were calm and purposeless, he sort of came back into feeding.

Tyrol? Where the hell did that come from???

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Hi everyone, I woke her from her nap earlier nd put her on half asleep and there was no problem but then before bed she went ape s**t and got very upset when I tried to offer her again. Am going to try some skin to skin tomorrow and follow advice, I think, if I'm honest that I can cope slightly if my milk goes but the thought of her not being able to turn to me for comfort breaks my heart in two. Just had big chat with OH as he thinks I have PND because I am always crying (I have suffered with depression and anxiety in the past) But I dont think I am depressed, just exhausted. I think we are also going through some kind of growth spurt as she is all over the place - bedtime used to be so easy and now its a screamathon and waking more often in the night. When I try to get her to latch on or suckle and then cries and arches her back it feels like she is rejecting me

Hi, if you are worried that you'll stop producing milk because your daughter's not feeding, why not try to keep up milk supply by expressing, there are some really good electric pumps now x

Hello browny I have a fantastic pump but the last time I tried to express it took over an hour to get less than an oz out of one breast. I am going to try getting her to relax at the breast tomorrow and see where it leads...

Don't worry if using a pump doesn't appear to produce much milk - it isn't really an accurate reflection of how much milk you're producing. I simply could no get the hang of expressing eith dd unless she was actually feeding from the other breast simultaneously. My let down just did not happen with the pump and the more I worried about it, the less productive I was. Dd thrived though and fed until 12 months.

I was wondering whether you'd looked at www.kellymom.com

It's a super website with heaps of info on breastfeeding and you might find some tips or guidance that reflects the issues you're having.

Incidentally, I'm sure that I remember ds1 doing the back arching and struggling. I think that something I did to help was to squeeze my nipple to get a small amount of milk at the tip to give him an immediate nice taste and to encourage him to latch on more happily. I think I also 'primed' my boob with the pump before I fed to try to get the same effect of more immediate milk flow.

Dd used to arch her back at times too - but when she was younger and had colic. I sound Kellymom an excellent source of info for all three of mine, who all had different issues at different times - ds2 hated the fast letdown for example and ds1 was slightly tongue tied. Dd was my first so I hadn't a clue!