Oversupply?

[thegirlwhouk]

My LO is almost 2 weeks old now and he is EBF. He only lost a tiny bit of weight after birth and at his day 10 weigh in he was just back over his birth weight. I am feeding him on demand and generally in the day he wants feeding every 2.5 hours and at night he will sometimes go 3.5/4 hours without a feed.

However, at night especially he seems to struggle a bit. He often ends up with milk all over his face and it drips down me! He seems to be gasping when he's latched on, and can't always rectify his latch to make feeding more comfortable. Generally this settles within about 5 minutes, but not always.

When I feed him from one breast, the other goes NUTS! I can feel it tingle and by the end of the feed my breast pad will be sodden. I'm having to change them 2/3 times a day. The constant leakage is so frustrating and I'm not sure how I'll ever feed in public! If he comes off the nipple it literally spurts everywhere!!

When I was pregnant was leaking colostorum from about 20 weeks and that too meant I needed to wear pads daily.

Is this normal? I know it's early days I my supply isn't fully established yet and needs to settle down. Or do I have an issue with over supply? Baby is getting enough which is good, but the actual process from my point of view is far from easy. It's messy, soggy and not how I imagined it would be!!

All sounds pretty familiar. You certainly seem to have a strong let down. Are your breasts engorged? That would definitely suggest oversupply.

The stickiness and sogginess sucks and I agree it doesn't match up with the idealised image we get fed by the media (actimil ad, I'm looking at you). I found that by 6 weeks my supply had settled a little and now at four months it's much more manageable. I'm not even wearing pads any more and i never thought I'd see that day.

Block nursing can help (google or look it up on Kellymom) but be careful as you're dicing with mastitis. We were advised to feed with DS in a sitting position, which makes sense in theory, but we could never make it work for us. And baby needs good head control for it, making it difficult before 8 weeks.

I ended up expressing a bit before most feeds to help DS cope with the strong let down and that helped a bit too.

It's tough right now, but eventually your body will adapt!

Very very similar here and if it helps at all it does eventually settle down and get less messy.
Sorry I can't help more!

I could have written your post except DS didn't lose any weight post birth, he's stayed on 50th centile and now 6 wks. I'm still a bit leaky but it gets better; there was a point where DS would start crying on the boob when I got really full but he hasn't done that for about a week now so I think he's getting used to it. I've been block feeding since day 1 but not intentionally. He's a fast feeder and has always taken what he needs in 6/7 mins and never wanted the other side so I alternate between sides. I express once or twice a day so DH can give a bottle so I do both sides then. At night I can feel a bit uncomfortable at times but no issues with engorgement to date, I'm hoping they'll get better now we're past the 6 wk mark.

You may want to think about Avent milk collection shells. People use them on one side whilst they feed from the other. www.philips.co.uk/c-p/SCF157_02/breast-care-6-pcs

I personally haven't had this problem but bought them to help my nipples heal after my daughters tongue tie.

I was the same - over supply and forceful let down. Oversupply seems to be settling, but still have forceful let down.
At 2 weeks I'd soak through a breast pad, bra and t shirt in 30 minutes! It does get better. Try block feeding as pp's said. Can always pump and freeze to help deal with engorgement, but can get in a vicious cycle as pumping sends the message to keep producing.

DD2 is 7 weeks and we have the same issue. I was hoping you were further ahead than us!

I got LLL advice:

www.llli.org/faq/oversupply.html

I feel trapped at home as she will feed lying down. Not exactly practical in a cafe though. I thought it might settle by now. I need to get to 17 weeks but, if it hasn't settled by then, I am switching to ff. It's so much easier than this.