How long for milk supply to catch up?

[Peaceloveandbiscuits]

Hurray! I've started taking steps towards re-establishing full-time breastfeeding my 12 week old DS. He's had mostly expressed breast milk and a little formula, and very occasional breastfeeds since I stopped exclusively breastfeeding at around 4 weeks old. For the past few weeks I've cut down expressing to two to four times a day (120ml per breast each time). Now that I've started feeding him directly, he obviously needs feeding more often than I would have been expressing, and doesn't always seem satisfied, even after a good feed on both breasts, so he has around 60ml formula afterwards as well. My question is: will my supply increase enough to satisfy him, or will I need to keep topping him up? If it will, how long should I expect it to take?
Thank you :)

I think it'll be hard if you keep topping him up. You need to get your supply to adjust to what he needs. The only way to do that is to have him suckling as much as he needs to send signals to your body about how much he needs. If you don't do that because you're topping up your body is never going to know the true amount he needs and you'll be stuck in a vicious cycle I think

Well done you for persevering. Have you contacted LLL or similar?

Thank you Mrs :) I went for advice at my children's centre where they run a breastfeeding advice cafe. The lactation consultant helped with my positioning which has been the biggest help (extra big boobies wah).

I wondered about whether topping up was going to affect my supply - luckily we're staying at home today so he can stay on as long as he likes - is this the best thing to do? Its a bit like having a newborn again, isn't it!

I stopped BFing because it was affecting my mental health, but I feel more confident knowing I have the bottle as back up now (before I felt BFIng was the ONLY way, and made myself quite ill by not recognising when I needed help from the bottle).

It's only day three anyway!
Thank you for your advice - I'll try not topping him up today and feeding him only myself.

Lots of skin-to-skin will help with your milk supply too.