do i need to express?

[mrsred]

ds is 9 months old and has decided he isn't all that interested in bf during the day, he is eating three good meals, water throughout the day and a substantial afternoon snack. He will then have a breastfeed after his bath and before bed and then one or two more feeds through the night, would be useful to know if i should express morning and or lunchtime to ensure my supply stays sufficient to give him enough of a feed before bed. I am a bit nervous as recently he has started sleeping a bit better and i don't want to mess it all up by not having enough for his "last" feed.

the best advice i can give is to express every 2-3 hours if possible because sometimes if you stop feeding as often u may find you supply will start 2 dry up, so expressing every few hours will help this. u can freeze your milk & store it 4 six months and then defrost & at room temperature but it must be drank within 24 hours. u only need 2 express when your not physically feeding your son. bear in mind that every women is different, u may find your milk supply is fine with just feeding your son a few times a day but u could try what iv suggested just to keep your mind at ease. hope this helps. i used 2 work with mothers & babies so have had all the training, just see how u go.

I don't think you need to express, as long as he feeds well even once a day the milk will be there for him.

Does he really need the middle-of-the-night feeds though? Seems a bit hard on you. I got dd out of this by offering her water if she woke at night. She quickly went back to sleep and soon slept through.

Happy days

Thank you for your replies. I am not sure he does need to feed at night, but as its so much less than he was doing a month or so ago, i'm really grateful its only once or twice a night! I have never bottle fed, so offering water would be in a cup, and having tried this a couple of times, it seems that he is feeling a bit short changed, which i supose is the idea, but how do you persuade them its not something they need to cry about a lot? I suppose he is getting a nice middle of the night cuddle thrown in at the moment!

have u tried not giving him the feed at night? has he slept through the night at all yet?

OP, at 9 months your milk supply should be stable and flexible. Many mums carry on feeding a few times a day/night and it works brilliantly. A very few find that their milk dips too low, but, in that case you could then bring it back up by expressing a bit or offering the breast if he'll take it. It's unlikely you'll need to, though.

With regards to night feeds I'm afraid that I have to disagree with the other posts. Firstly, night feeding is a great way to keep your supply up (although it's not necessary at this age, it just helps) and your baby is still very tiny. Few babies "sleep through" at this age without something to help them back to sleep - boob, cuddles etc. If you're happy with feeding overnight you're offering a wonderful connection to your son, important breastmilk, and you have a tool to help him sleep if he needs it. If you're not happy with it, by all means go ahead and night wean but this is absolutely not something you have to do unless you choose to. What you're doing is biologically normal and has loads of benefits - assuming you're coping with the sleep. If you're happy, why change it? If you're not, go ahead and do so :)

Agree there's no need to try dropping night feeds unless you want to. My dd was clearly ready for it, she didn't cry or protest and I wouldn't have persevered if she had. She just didn't seem to think water was worth waking up for, much as she loved the cuddles.

Thank you alto and organic carrot my sense is that bearing in mind he has always been a very lovely baby, and only cries when something is wrong (sometimes i take a while to work out what it is, but he is right not me on every occassion) that i feel if he wakes and won't re settle with just a cuddle then i feed him, his wakings are becoming less frequent, in the last week we have had one to three wakings, so some very good sleep for me and him.

Thank you for suggesting seeing what happens re supply as my instinct is that it will be fine, and as you say, can always do a little expressing or day time feeding if needed to bump up supply.