How do your breasts feel when milk supply settles?

[Jolay100]

So this might be a silly question. I'm feeding my first baby who is now 12 weeks old. I have had problems with over supply and recurrent mastitis. Generally we just feed from one side at each feed which is about every 3 hours and once overnight between 11-7, ie 7 feeds/day. My breasts are still uncomfortably full ( hard lumpy) in the morning and improved through the day, but if I miss a feed (eg to go out for the evening while DH gives a bottle of expressed milk), it throws everything out of kilter and my breast feel over full for 24 hours again. I hate this as I am super paranoid about getting more mastitis. I keep expecting milk supply to "settle" which in my head means I no longer feel uncomfortably full, and can miss the odd feed without regretting it. Is this reasonable to expect or do your breasts always have a tendency to be hard and lumpy if you miss a feed? Thanks in anticipation.

Hi - sorry to hear about the mastitis. I definitely felt more comfy once milk supply settled, I'm not sure when that was, probably between 12-16 weeks. My baby is 5 months now and I look and feel like they are back to normal. Only issue now is that if my baby sleeps longer at night and misses her night feed then I usually wake up with a wet top where I've leaked! Hang on in there, it will improve!

Yeah, somewhere around 3 months for me both times as well - stopped feeling engorged, breasts didn't feel hard between feeds, leaking pretty much stopped. I had oversupply first time round and it was horrible.

DS2 is 21 months now and I could easily go all day without feeding him and not feel uncomfortable or lumpy.

Hi there. I was similar to you by the sounds of it. I had blocked ducts, mastitis, lumpy knotty boobs for ages and I very nearly gave up bf- I would have done but I knew that stopping would hurt even more in the short term! People kept telling me they'd settle down although mine took longer than average I think as it was about 4 months til they started to feel less sore and more manageable if I missed a feed.

Now dd is 10 months and I'm only feeding morning and bedtime ad I'm back to work full time soon. I still get sore occasionally but generally my boobs feel a lot better. They can be a bit tender and I still certainly wouldn't want to bounce them around too much or have them prodded! But otherwise they are not too bad. And I've not had mastitis bad enough for antibiotics since january.

I still think though I'd be in agony if I missed one of my feeds (therefore I've not yet left dd overnight with anyone else). I feel I'd like to stop feeding now but no idea how I'd get through the dropped feed so will continue til I'm brave enough to give it a go!

Hope things settle for you soon.

My milk settled at around 8 weeks I think - we're at 12 weeks now. Having said that, I did have to sort out an oversupply issue to get to this point, I did block feeding for a week or so. It definitely helped sort my supply out!

Most of the time they have that squidgy, empty feeling now, even though they're not empty. And they don't leak anywhere near as much - I don't even need to wear breast pads all the time. If he misses a feed (e.g. sleeps longer than usual) they will become all hard and uncomfortable again but most of the time they feel all squishy these days. It's weird!

My milk didn't settle till 4-5 months. Now nearly 8 months and they feel normal, it's amazing! Never thought not being able to feel my boobs would make me so happy!