Drying up boobies after mucking up supply....only 1-3oz a time...easy to dry up?

[JimmyChoo17]

:( I mucked up my milk supply so am thinking about stopping all together now, to be honest I was always thinking about stopping around 6 months (which he will be at Xmas) once weaned but he's on formula 99% of the time now! I'm only getting between 1-3 oz twice a day from them both not even from one! So I'm guessing it will be pretty easy to dry up now? I'm sad about not making it to 6 months but trying to look at that I made it so far when I thought I would never be able to do it in the first place plus all this extra time i will have not plugged into the wall listening to my boobs being milked ;-) So 4 and a half months of the good stuff wasn't too bad going I guess. Sooooo drying up your boobies....does this sound easy enough at my stage considering I'm not producing much at all.....

The advice is to drop one feed a week, so you should be able to stop quit easily. Just drop one pump seasion at a time and give your boob's time to ajust.

And well done you've manage a lot more then most.

How do you know you've mucked up supply?

How much you express is not indicative of your supply - I found expressing harder the longer I bf for. Also I'd I had a period expression was impossible.

How is he feeding?

I have just written a long reply and iPad crashed....!!!

Basically he refused boob along the line so I went to feeding him 100% expressed milk. Started to struggle as he grew so introduced formula and it's just got harder to keep up supply. Pumping was taking over my life so I had to reduce expressing time and it's just got less and less. He used to feed durin gnight which helped but as soon as he stopped that supply really dropped. I've been away recently too and dropped expressing then too and never been able to bring it back up since. I saw a bf my and she told me to express all day and night...I did and no change seen.

He is a healthy weight and puts on plenty so he does alright so luckily there has been no impact there. He is a hungry baby and likes his food! Shame as he was brilliant Breastfeeding baby!

Thanks migril I'm trying to look at it like that as I was so upset when I had to start using formula so felt worse recently!

Blimey well you have done incredibly well!! Sorry if that sounds patronising.

Honestly I wouldn't worry about moving to formula. I think stopping bf at any stage is hard regardless! I felt sad stopping with DS even though it felt right at the time.

No not at all, I didn't take it that way :)

expressing all the time is like being a cow being plugged in to the wall!

I was so sad when he wouldn't feed off me as I loved the closeness of it, but then I was pleased I could express easily but now it's not even worth the time pumping away! I do think he will love his solids mind as he is eyeballing my food and trying to pinch it!

I feel bad giving up even tho it's a tiny bit now but it's how mummy brains work I guess. Just don't want to stop it the wrong way if there is such a thing!

Expressing for 6mo must be hard work. You have done so much for your LO. I don't believe I could have done it!

Major hard work! I never really resented it really tho as It's Ok when I'm just in the house but hard if you plan things! And I'm getting out and about more now with him so was a little full on.

Well I've stopped....and I get the odd tingly feeling but not engorged or anything. Tmi but...I squeezed as if manual expression and just a teeny bit of clear stuff came out. Im not sure if u r supposed to do it like this but seems to be ok so far. keep worrying I'm suddenly going to start leaking! It's been 3 days so far.

I felt sad BUT it's been great all this extra time back :) Goodness knows what I would have done Xmas day....I'd of been wired up to the machine rather than enjoying family time.