Boosting milk supply - expressing

[hayesgirl]

Posted this in parenting and multiples as didn't know this bit existed... Advised to post here too!

I have 3week old twins. In hospital I tried breastfeeding but for a number if reasons decided instead to give them bottles of expressed breast milk. Everything was going well until the weekend when they hit a growth spurt and became impossible to fill! Over the course of 12 hours they used up all the milk stores I had in the freezer and we're then drinking what I was expressing that evening. Since this growth spurt their daily intake has literally doubled and I am nearly keeping up with them. They have had the occasional formula too up feed.

Whilst I am completely fine with giving them formula and have no problem with stopping the breast milk or combination feeding, and most certainly am not going to stress about it, I would prefer to be able to give them breast milk for at least the next 3 weeks so they get the full benefit of it.

I am expressing every 3 hours day and night but if anything my supply is dwindling rather than getting stronger. Does anyone have any tips for increasing milk supply by expressing?

To add: currently express every 3-4 hours (day and night). Getting on average currently 6-7oz per time except for around 2-3am when I average about 10-12oz. This is down considerably from a week ago when I would easily get 10oz a time. Babies are currently on 4oz every 3 hours.

Thanks

Wow, hats off to you for managing all that pumping! I'm a crap at it, if I get a couple of ounces over a whole 24 hours it's been a success in my eyes!

Things that might help:
Drinking a pint of water immediately before pumping (this really helps me, not sure if it's just psychological though!)
Power pumping - there's different ways of doing this but you basically massively up the frequency. I try and do 10mins every hour (as well as feeding) for every hour I'm awake. You can also do 10 mins on, 10mins off for a couple of hours.
Using a hospital grade pump (Which you are probably already doing

There's a few American forums where there's a lot of info about pumping, it's more common there to exclusively pump than it is here.

Good luck!