Why my mum says her milk 'dried up' after few weeks?

[MiaMamma]

Hi, I just have one question - why women who had their babies in 70's and 80's say their milk supply dried up after few weeks?

My mum and her sister both say that they weren't able to bf after two weeks, they just 'didn't have any milk'? What did they do wrong then? They're both convinced they didn't do anything wrong, 'it just happened' but I'm sure it's not the case. I would like to explain them but I don't really know the reason myself.

My mum says this. I think it's quite obvious - from birth babies in those days were put on a strict feeding schedule, not fed on demand, so the milk supply could never get going properly. Also, I think top-up bottles were frequently given, messing things up further.

i think its coz they fed every four hours. Like the "experts" told them to

my mum says the same thing too, milk dried up had to give you cows milk at 6 weeks - we didn't know any better ect ect ect

she also claims to have fed on demand though

Yeah, scheduled feeds, babies rooming out, and supplemental bottles were all standard then. Babies would get nipple confusion, and they weren't feeding regularly enough to keep their supply up.

I don't think there's any point to explaining this to them, unless they're trying to convince new mothers that it might happen to them?

My MIL says hers dried up after she was frightened by a dog

But she is a bloody loon anyway.

I think emkana has it - and when the baby cried before 4 hours / failed to sleep through, they bunged it a bottle, so the supply dwindled quite quickly

BTW several intelligent, middle class, NCT educated friends of mine stopped breastfeeding after a few weeks because they "didn't have enough milk". I think it can sometimes (not always, obviously) be a cover all for not getting on with bfing and wanting to stop.

Milk really and truly doesn't 'dry up'.

These are the things that could have happened:

• not frequent enough feeding - babies kept separated from mothers (maybe in hospital nurseries when in hosp) and/or fed to a schedule of every x hours, or limiting the times the baby fed
• timed feeding - babies taken off breast after arbitrary amount of time
• topping up with formula
• formula given instead of a breastfeed

Alternatively, they interpreted the baby crying and not settling as a sign they had dried up.

Ask them more details - where did the baby sleep in hospital, were you encouraged to feed often and untimed, did you ever give formula?

My Mum was told to feed us on a 4 hourly schedule. When I was establishing bfing with my 3 I was feeding every 1.5/2 hours for the first week until my supply came in properly. I was home within a day, bfing on demand through the night (and co-sleeping with the last two) which also helps with supply. Mum was in hospital for 10 days (no reason, just routine) and the m/ws bottlefed the babies in the nursery overnight to give the Mums a rest. She didn't stand a chance really - her body wasn't given the chance to produce enough milk, so of course it all went wrong after a few weeks.

My MIL says her milk dried up after a few weeks, but I reckon it's because she has always been a big drinker and loves partying... it's hard to fit breastfeeding on demand around that sort of lifestyle!

In contrast, my mum had three kids in the mid to late 70s and breastfed all of us until around 6-8 months old with no problems apparently. She was in hospital for 10 days, and the babies taken to the nursery overnight. Mind you, my mum comes from a family where breastfeeding is the norm so I think she probably just got on with it and ignored any advice about 4-hourly feeding schedules, etc. If we cried she would feed us, which obviously helped keep her milk supply up.

Thanks everybody - it all makes sense. They were in the hospital for 5 days and babies were brought to them every 4 hours and not at nights. By the way - at home they were told to not feed their babies at nights at all . Luckily my mum didn't listen to mw and fed me anyway.

My MIL had a glass of champagne after bringing home SIL. Apparently "the bubbles got into the milk" (!!!!), and upset SIL. (Not, then, because she was in a strange new place, and not because her two grans were taking care of her?)

Most alarmingly, MIL was a doctor. How on earth are bubbles meant to go from the mum's digestive tract to the milk ducts?

MiaMamma, very few mothers would have built up a milk supply on that.

No wonder they 'dried up'.

My mum told me that she was told to feed 10 mins on each side every 4 hours. She came to help out when ds was born and said that she could see how feeding on demand was best for baby, and for the milk supply, but she said it looked like bloody hard work for the mother! Did they just leave the baby to cry until it was time for the next feed? Must have been hell on earth.

I was 3 nights in hospital and ds never left my sight. It would have broken my heart (and my milk supply ) if he had been taken away to another room.

I wonder what our kids will be saying about our birth/breastfeeding experiences in 20-30 years time

My mum was not only made to feed at four-hourly intervals, they made her weigh the baby before and after each feed to determine whether it had taken 'enough'. If not, a bottle was provided to top up.

Unsurprisingly, she stopped bfeeding after 6 weeks because she didn't have enough milk.

My grandmother had my dad on her own (her DH was away at war) - she was induced - legs in stirrups, waters broken, then shouted at till she'd had him.

He was taken away from her for about six hours.

Then he was weighed, she was given him to bfeed, then he was weighed again. He'd gained a quarter of an ounce. She was told she'd never have enough milk for him and that she'd have to bottlefeed him.

I am endlessly, deeply sad for her.

My bro and i were bf till we were about 3-4 month old in early and mid 70s. But mum tells the tale of how, while in hosp with me, all mothers were expected to feed babe at same set times, and bottles were the norm, she was unusual in breast feeding. with both of us she stopped just before going on holiday. seems odd to me. we were then put on to diluted carnation (tinned) evaporated milk!

Dhs grannny said she was told( while feeding twins in the late 40s) not to talk while feeding or the milk would get bubbles and the babies be windy! i think that one may have been good advice hiding in a tall story. It would make you consentrate on feeding, not try and multitask.

god hunker that's fkn tragic
not feeding at night is a big problem for not establishing bf iirc. something to do withhormone production being higher at night maybe tiktok can confirm...
my mother was told she had to feed me every for hours and because I was crying her milk wasn't good enough.
she told them where they could stick their formula

Tread carefully. Think of all the angst on here about bottle feeding, caesarians etc.

If your mum and aunt think they did nothing wrong, why convince them that they DID in fact do something wrong. I'm assuming they won't be having any more?

That babywhisperer book says something abut being quiet when the baby feeds. Thats when I made all my phone calls in peace! The miriam stoppard book still says feed for 10 mins each side. My mums friend breastfeed in the 60s and they were told to feed four hourly. She said one of her daughters cried for 11 months and she had bad pnd. She was probaly starving. I think she was also advised to give condensed (or evaporated?) milk to one of her kids about about 3 months. He still has a bad stomach.

I think a lot of it is ignorance.
My MIL says she didn't have enough milk to feed DH and that was the problem I had with DS1 - I knew that wasn't the case but didn't have any argument against it. It wasn't until had DS2 and fed him so well for a year that I realsied that DS1 never really latched on properly - particularly on one side.
It took me nearly 2 years to work that out though whith help from MN and a very good BF counsellor. In those days of doctor/midwife/any health professional knows best, I'm not surprised so many women gave up.

Good point beckybrastraps. But I think with older women, the main issue is that quite often they are still regurgitating bf myths to younger women and so explaining why the myths are wrong, is a service to the women who are still going through it, iyswim, to stop women of that generation continuing to promote misinformation.

But agree it would have to be explained very sensitively.

When my brother was born in the 60s, mum stayed in hospital with him for 10 days (standard practice) and didn't change a nappy or bath him by herself until they came home. He was fed on a strict 4-hourly schedule, as all the babies were. I don't recall whether she said that he was put in a nursery o/night, but he certainly wasn't next to her all the time as dad remembers 'viewing' him through a window with other babies and dads in the same situation.

Both my parents remember how, when mum and db came home, mum and dad would sit holding hands and crying while db screamed with hunger until the clock allowed them to pick him up and feed him. Eventually my dad said that the drs could go take a running jump, his son was hungry and would be fed when he needed and not later.

Despite this, my mum had so much milk that she was expressing for the premature babies as well as feeding her own ds. She also fed each of us for at least 18m. Definitely unusual in the 60s and 70s, and they were far from being hippies or new agers.

My mum didn't bf my older brother because 'he was too hungry' and bf me for 2 weeks

She also had the 4 hourly thing (and separated at night). She swears I had colic because I'd scream continuously from 10pm to 2am. I asked if she tried to feed me, and she said she 'wasn't allowed to'.

I was also moved onto diluted carnation milk - and my mum was a fully qualified nurse, used to dealing with babies!

She doesn't see anything wrong with what happened, and I don't see ay point in making her feel bad about it. She's been good enough not to comment on my choice to bf my dd (who is now 3 and still bf in evening). So it's reasonable for me to respect what she did.

My dh's mum thinks it's wonderful that I've bf and said how miserable she was made to feel about bfing not on schedule, and had to give up as too hard after 3-4 months. It is v. v. sad.

Well, I just smiled and kept on bf on demand.

My mum also believes her milk "dried up". She was however completely supportive of the way I fed my children. MIL was a pain regarding 4 hourly feeds, but she was the one who DID successfully breast feed. Go figure!

I would NEVER tell my mum she was wrong about this. Sensitively or not. I might tell her that on demand feeding ensures a good supply, but with absolutely no reference to her own experience.

Yes, agreed, any explanation has to offered sensitively. But if you have laboured for 40 years or more with the notion that somehow it was your hopeless body/mothering/milk that caused problems, it can be liberating to hear that it was not you but the doctors, midwives and hospital that got it wrong.

My mother (babies born in 50s and 60s) was really ill with raging mastitis, caused solely by the ridiculous rules about how often she could feed and not being allowed (allowed!?!) to feed at night. It was only when I bf my own babies and started to train as a bfc that she understood why she 'couldn't' bf.

A cousin of dh's was poorly at birth and her mother was not allowed near her for three weeks, because of the risk of infection - she was told she would bring in germs from the maternity ward or (later) from outside. Cruel, and unnecessary, and fortunately, outdated.