How to improve milk flow/supply

[melonribena]

Hello everyone
I posted a few days ago in Parenting and received some excellent advice. Things have moved on a little since then and I was hoping for a little advice.
Background first... I gave birth 11 days ago to a gorgeous 9lb 8.5oz little boy after a horrendous 37 labour that ended with an emcs, lots of blood loss, nerve damage, a uti and over the past few days, a visit to the gp and hospital for a womb infection and also my wound is now infected. Am on high dose antibiotics and pain relief.
I started breast feeding successfully but gradually realised baby is not getting enough milk, he feeds well first thing in the morning and at lunch but by the afternoon and evening he is permanently attached for about 8 hours to the breast and is never full. He unlatches frequently and is v unsettled.
By about 4am after hours of this we reach the end of tether and give about 4oz of formula. He sleeps well and it fills him up well.
This makes me v sad, I really want to ebf but my milk supply seems low and he clearly needs a lot of food.
I try to express but cos he feeds so much I rarely get a chance.
Any ideas how I can increase milk supply so I can continue breast feeding.
Thanks in advance, am hating giving the formula

first of all congratulations and well done on getting this far.
giving a bottle of formula is not the font of all evil you do what you can to get through.
however to answer your question - have you had your latch checked to make sure baby is feeding at his best? That is usually the staring point for getting to the bottom of any BF problems.

feeding a lot in the evening or cluster feeding can be perfectly normal too.

i would suggest stop trying to express for now. have lots of skin to skin time without a top on (it helps you rest too) and let him feed as much as he wants. Its called biological nurturing or something now.Supply and demand are very interlinked and it can take up to 6 weeks for feeding to establish.

make sure you are drinking plenty of fluids too

congratulations! Try fennel tea or mothers tea (from neals yard or one from mothercare too I think) - I have heard it works wonders. I also agree with all the advice above.
Also, remember that milk supply is stonger in the morning and baby may be cluster feeding at night. It may be that he's full but has a bit of wind etc? When my second son was born, I would spend the first few weeks with him permanently on my boobie for the entire evening.
Good luck X

Thank u! I've got the midwife visiting tomoro so will get her to check the latch and observe him feeding. Am determined to get to the point that I exclusively breastfeed and I know I will get the support on here. Thanks again

OP, have you ever heard of cluster feeding as LouYK said? The type of feeding behaviour that your DS is showing sounds completely normal. They feed almost non-stop during the evening because they are trying to get your supply up, it's got nothing to do with you not having enough milk. Basically what happens is that every time that you put them to the breast, this puts in an order for your boobs to make more milk. It's also important to know that there is no such thing as running out of milk as your boobs constantly make more.

This kind of feeding doesn't last forever though and settle down after the first few weeks.

Also ALL babies regardless of size seem to be everlasting hungry at this stage. My DD was at that age and she was 6lbs 9oz.