Will expressing in the day be enough to keep supply up?

[ag123]

Ds is 6 mo and due to a variety of issues seems to be preferring to take expressed milk from a bottle in the day time. He still feeds directly at night time very happily and still wakes several times, having a full feed each time. I definitely want to be able to continue direct night feeds. I have up to now found expressing fairly easy, getting around 120-150 mls in 5 mins or so but if we continue down this path of expressing only in the daytime (I still always offer a direct feed first btw) then am I risking a dwindling supply or at 6 months will it be established enough to continue this long term?

OK I can only tell you about my experience but this is it: I completely breastfed until 8weeks, when I had to go back to work. Work were very supportive of my decision to continue to breastfeed while working full time. I used to feed first thing in the morning and last thing at night, and express for 10 minutes 1-3times a day depending on how much time I got. My job is not one where I can make time, I have to be available immediately if needed, but was still able to 90% breastfeed for another 6 weeks or so, with no expressing at the weekends. I have struggled to keep up with his growth spurts however, so for this and a couple of other reasons we have gone onto formula for the day feeds. However I still breastfeed morning and night and if we have to do a night feed. And there havent been any problems with this. I have another friend who from around 20weeks just fed her son morning and night, with formula inbetween and carried that on til around 10mths. So the short story is, yes you should be able to at least partially breastfeed :)

You should be OK, esp as you are direct feeding at night. Make sure you really express thoroughly with hand expressing at the end, and as many expressions as he has feeds.

FWIW, I went back to work FT when ds was 4.5 months old - I expressed 5 days a week till he was 14 months old, and kept bfing till 22 months. Never had a supply problem.

I think you will be alright. Part of the problem is that as breast feeding mothers you have no measure of how much your baby is taking in a feed, and so we tend to compare to what volume a formula feed would perhaps be.
My best advice is not to get hung up on the amount that you are expressing.

Again speaking from my own experience, I fed my DS2 until he was about 18 months. I went back to work when he was 9 months old and I fed morning and evening and in the night if he needed it. I went away on a couple of work courses that meant I had to be away for several nights (I would express whilst away) and we were always able to pick it back up when I got home.

Good luck!

Ok, thanks for that, very helpful. I guess we'll just have to see how it goes. I just certainly can't imagine the thought of making up bottles for nighttime feeds when he is still waking so often and also when I did try a little formula in a bottle just for an experiment he spat it all out. So anyway I suppose everyone's bodies are different and you can't tell these things so we'll just carry on making it up as we go along :)