Milk Drying Up?

[Northernexile]

Have been mix feeding 5 month old DD since birth when we failed to get BF established. This has equated to three bottles a day of Aptamil, and 2 x 6/7 oz bottles of EBM. I have always found expressing fairly easy using my electric pump. However this week we are away on holiday and I am struggling to get an oz! This started on Monday. Yesterday my boobs were sore, and after an hour of pumping but only 1.5 oz expressed they felt ok, not engorged or sore at all. Today they feel completely ok, but again I've only got an oz or so. If I had only pumped an oz last week I would have been in agony!

So, my question is, is this my milk drying up (an HV told me a while back this would happen as I was 'only' expressing!), and is it going to now just dwindle away to nothing over the next few days? In a way I will been pleased to be freed from the pump, but also sad I can't give DD at least a little BM anymore!

TIA

northern, long-term expressing is a medal-worthy activity :)

One huge drawback of it is that it depends on frequency - to maintain a full supply over time you have to be expressing about 8 x in 24 hours and after a few months, supply is very contingent on this - it goes down quite quickly if you start expressing less frequently (actually, it is the same with direct bf, but this may not be noticed, because the baby just picks up his demands and supply gets boosted once more).

You have noticed.

The answer is pretty simple, happily.

You need to up your expressing frequency, using each breast at least once at every session, inc at night.

HTH

Thanks tiktok. I'm torn really between wanting to stop, because both me and DD get bored with the pumping (and I have said on and off to DH that I'm going to stop, but never do!), and wanting to carry on for DD's sake. I think I was subconsciously wanting the decision to be taken out of my hands here!

It's still your decision, northern....:)

Northernexile, have you tried fenugreek or oatmeal? I heard they can increase milk supply, or domperidone has a side effect of increasing milk supply (even though it's used to treat bloatiness/nausea), you could always speak to a lactation consultant or health visitor. Well done for expressing milk this far! That is commitment and I think there should be more support for pumping mums. There's lots of great advice here, which I found useful when I was experiencing a drop in my milk supply (I was almost exclusively pumping for a while):

kellymom.com/bf/pumpingmoms/pumping/pumping_decrease/

Well done on pumping for so long, I struggled so much and would of been ecstatic with just 1oz.
Like tiktok said you would have to pump more, we tell mums to pump during the night as that helps and like with bfing it is supply and demand, the more you pump the more you should produce.

Thanks so much for all the advice. I will try pumping more often. I used to be able to get a good 6oz a time from two sessions, but maybe little and often will be the way forward now!