STILL struggling with overactive letdown

[BigBoPeep]

:( been doing 12hr blocks for almost a fortnight now. At first it worked really well, but it seems my supply has just adjusted, and let down is still far too strong so we're back to square one - I milk off LOADS before putting her on a fresh boob, yet still we get gulping, choking, swallowing air and spraying milk all over her face, even hours after starting a new boob (I do 8 til 8 and I'm still spraying now) - let down is also v. painful! Every nappy is dirty, with explosive wet poo, yesterday she was posseting after every feed which is unusual for her, and we had 4hrs of solid screaing in the evening, with her writhing around in pain. Flatulence round the clock too!

The only advice left to me now seems to be to put her on, then take her off and 'catch the worst' (thought i'd hand expressed 'the worst out tbh'). This is hard because she is a little pig and actually squeals if I take her off! It's also extremely difficult to hold a squirming indignant child in one hand and try to catch milk in the other. I can just about manage at home, but not out-and-about. Luckily none of this has put her off because she's such a guzzler, but it's making everything stressful because first she cries because she's hungry, then she cries because she's uncomfortable, then as soon as she's right again she's back crying for more (currently squirming&crying on my shoulder sucking my face!)

She's 5wks old - is this ever going to settle out? Any other tips? I'm going to the doctors soon but frightened to take what some crazy doctor will say as gospel - trust the LLL way more.....

On re-reading your posts, I agree with scrumdiddlydoo, the expressing is making you over-produce the milk that you need.

read this it seems to mention a lot of the issues you are having.

(looks like the Kellymom site has had a makeover - it is not easy to navigate the site, but you won't find better advice anywhere else, so take some time to read through it)

and foremilk/hindmilk explained

I haven't had time to read other posts but wanted to respond to you op, so apologies if covered already. Are you sure your baby does not have reflux? I had exactly the same issues as you, and was convinced that I had hyper-lactation. My ds reacted to feeds as yours does, screamed the house down, and had the most explosive poos (shooting one across the room one day into my poor niece's face . Enlightened GP referred us as urgent case to paediatrician at 9 wks and ds was prescribed losec mups, which started working quickly. After a couple of weeks ds was feeding comfortably, poos were normal and screaming subsided. It had never occurred to me that it was silent reflux as ds was pitting on weight. Just a thought.

I would get her investigated for reflux. But in the meantime stop expressing before feeds and treat her as if you have hyperlactation And as if she has reflux. Because both things are good for unsettled babies and she may not be a true reluxer as lots of newborns are refluxy and squirmy.

So

1. Keep feeds quiet. Some unsettled babies faced with mad boobs need all the external stimuli reduced to feed. So low light, tv low. Making a shushing sound as you lower them down to feed can help as well.
2. They will need gentle but thorough winding. I did not wind dc1 enough at all.
3. They may need quite some time to settle. They will need to upright for 20-30 mins after each feed. Even at night. They may need gentle patting or rocking. They may want a dummy to comfort suck without milk. My 2 unsettled ones both became thumb suckers.

4.you dont need to get too GF about sleep. But respect their need to sleep. In the day they may need at least 30 mins to an hour every two hours at this young age. Do what it takes to wind them down; so push in pram, time in sling, rock in a bouncy chair or carseat.

1. Feeding them as they wake from a sleep and are still dozy is good
2. Some unsettled, easily overstimulated babies just need to go in a darkened room at night to sleep. Start a bedtime routine even now and let them have time each night to sleep without tv blaring and artificial lights on. Stay with them if you want but do encourage this.
3. Your boobs will most likely settle, it is unusual for this to persist past twelve weeks and most unsettled babies will get much better from 20 weeks unless there is some underlying issue.

I have 3. My first and third were unsettled and need careful managing in the face of over supply. Middle one very placid but tolerated the mad boobs much better and was fairly massive as a result! And their baby personalities have not determined their later personalities.

Hope something there helps. The first year of my first child's life was hard.

I've no doubt she is colicky/refluxy, but I notice a definate increase in that kind of behaviour when she gets too much foremilk so i think its the oversupply and forceful letdown causing it, i can hear her gulping air when the letdown happens, and drooling milk everywhere. It built to a crescendo a fortnight ago, and improved immediately when I switched to 12hr blocks (which I did because I was already naturally doing 3/4hr blocks). gradually its got worse and i notice her getting worse when we go to a fresh boob, even after taking loads of foremilk off the superboob...

i switched off the naughty boob early today so she's spent her colicky evening on the sane boob - shes been good as gold! maybe big block on the good one and small block on the naughty one will work...

Oh yeah, I definitely used used the good boob to help me out and not my mad spurty left boob.

If you can do evening off the good boob and manage her a bit on the max one in the day, go for it! In most cases things will start to settle over the next month.

And five weeks in was the nadir point for me with dc1. Looking back ( she is nearly nine!) I am sure she was having a growth/developmental stage at that point. At the time there were tears, visits to bf clinic. You sound like you are coping remarkably well in comparison.

thanks for that - my mantra is to stay calm! I'm also a farmer with a good knowledge of lactating mammals and I genuinely think it's really helped!

Yesterday was much saner (and today so far), I did no expressing (although it tends to just leak anyway) - I now put a big muslin square over my arm under her head to feed when out and about, so it's a simple matter of getting the nipple out of her mouth and spray onto that, then insert again without having to hold any kind of receptacle - sometimes need to spray 2/3times a feed before she can drink without gulping or swallowing air! But, having done that once 'the worst' was off after a few hours, she was feeding happily and we didn't get any drama, and a good night's sleep! Poo back to yellow too...