talk to me about expressing

[addictediam]

Dd2 is 3 days old, I'm ff as bf just didnt work, dd couldnt work out what to do and after 8 hours and a distressed dd and me I gave a bottle, tried again but the same thing happened. I am happy with my decision, so please dont say you can try again, its not too late etc

My milk came in last night and I am so engorged I'm considering expressing to feed to her (i have a pump as I was going to express as well as bf)

My question is if I decided to express how often would i need to? is it around every 3 hours the same as she's feeding or just once/twice a day?

Anyone shed any light?

Hi addicted- do you mean you want to try and feed her exclusively with breast milk in a bottle?

If so, you would need to pump about 8-12 times in 24 hours I think. It can be done, but obviously it's a lot of hard work to maintain a supply long term.

hth

I'm not really sure.

Maybe mixing with formula or exclusive bm?

Exclusive expressing is very hard work ( a lot harder than BFiing).

Have a look at:
www.mumsnet.com/Talk/breast_and_bottle_feeding/1381484-Anyone-had-to-express-feed-how-long-were-you-able-to-continue-a-supply

Maybe you could mix feed for a while to maintain your supply until you think about what you really want to do? I was still incredibly hormonal and emotional on day 3 but after a few days I calmed down.

I just spent 10mins expressing and got enough to fill a tea spoon. So I don't think that's going to work! I just thought it was worth a think about and a try.

I expressed using a double pump for three months. It's hard work! But expressing itself gets loads easier after the first few days. Once my milk had properly come in I could get average of about 8oz in half an hour / 40 mind from each boob (varied wildly according to time of day / night).

I think I expressed about every 3 hours for the first few weeks, got that down to 5 times every 24h in the end but that included a mammoth 4am session! Basically you need to spend as much if not more time pumping as you would BFing your baby "normally".

It was hard hard work and I think in retrospect not necessarily the best thing - and I certainly am not planning it for number 2, no way I can manage that with a toddler and a newborn!

However, expressing to mix feed your baby would be a lot easier. What does your milk look like at the moment? If its still clear it's colostrum and every tiny drop of that is worth giving to your baby. Next you get buttery yellow milk which is v difficult to express - there's not a lot of it and it is thick. But nutritious. If you carry on expressing and your milk starts coming out looking more like milk IYKWIM then you will see an increase in volume. Expressing two or three times a day would probably be enough to give your daughter the odd feed of milk.

But really the best thing to do if ypu want to BF would be give BFing "directly" another go, it's not too late. Is there a local BF clinic / cafe you could get to? Have you asked your midwife? You may also need to get your DD checked for a tongue tie.

Sorry I know you said you didn't want us to say "it's not too late" but I do wish I'd had another go instead of spending so many hours on a bloody milking machine!

Honestly, if things don't work out and you FF I wouldn't lose sleep over it. There are so many other things to feel guilty about as a parent

Dd1 has tounge tie so when dd2 was born I asked mw to check, pead to check and then mw again.

I tried again to latch her on but shes doing the same thing she was in hospital (and the same thing she does with a bottle) she takes the boon, but then spitssome ofbit out and sucks on the very tip of my nipple. Its agony, nipple shields havent helped.

I ff dd1 and wanted to give bf a try, which I did but dd2 just can't get the hang of it.

The more I think and hear about expressing, the more I think it wouldnt work. Dd1 is 15 months and is currently being very clingy and needy, it would also not be fair to restrict her activities (eg toddler groups she enjoys) because i need to express every 3 hours and we wouldnt be home in time.

Nope ff is what we will do. It wont kill her!

God no, if you already have a toddler I really don't think you could do it full time!

Have you got a pump? Even a hand pump way easier IME than expressing by hand. If you want to that is. Although if you want to dry up your supply ASAP that might prolong the agony!

I didn't attempt BF with DC2 and started expressing from Day 2. A lot of colustrum first time round and then a lot of milk. DC1 was 2 at the time so i knew i couldn't express all the time so gave myself 3 time slots in the day to do it and for a certain time only (mostly morning and early afternoon for 10 mins each time.

As a result DC2 had at least one bottle of expressed milk every day for about 6 months - i was pleased with that and wish i'd known how to do that first time round with DC1 when BF was disastrous.

HTH

3 months not 6 - sorry

Has baby had a proper assessment at the TT clinic? If not could you ask for a referral to it? Did DD1 have her TT snipped and if she did, did that improve matters?

How is DD2 with a bottle? Is she a 'messy' feeder (milk coming out the sides of her mouth, teat in and out of her mouth, chomping on the teat?)? If she has problems bottle feeding she might still need to be assessed for TT as it can impact on bottle feeding too.