6 week old is drinking me dry - how can I increase my milk?

[mabel1973]

My 6 week old DS is literally drinking me dry at every feed. In the last week he has gone from sleeping from 9.30pm til 4am, to now needing to have 2 night feeds - last night it was 2.30am and 4.30am, and he still didn't seem satisfied after emptying both sides.
He is a big baby, he was 10lb at birth and is now around 13lb I expect, and is in 3-6 months clothes. I didn't have this problem with DS1, I always seemed to have loads of milk.
I have tried expressing, but that means that if I express between feeds, there's not enough milk for him at the next feed. I would prefer to not top him up with formula, but if I am not able to make enough milk, I don't know what else to do.
Also I realise that he may be going through a growth spurt, but this has lasted over a week on and off - how long do growth spurts last before your milk 'catches up' with their demands?

you can gve him the stuff you express aswell. expressing and feeding more often are the only things you can do to up your milk production, It takes a coupkle of days fro your boobs to accustomise to the increased demand so just keep going

drink lots of water and keep feeding - your supply will catch up (some of us managed to feed twins - so trust your body to be able to do it ).

Maybe he just likes sucking - and isn't actually hungry. Maybe try a dummy sometimes - just to give you a break.

almost certainly a growth spurt, mabel...hang in there!

Don't express at the moment (till he settles down again)as pumping doesn't stimulate milk production as well as suckling.Let him feed when and for as long as he wants. You can make plenty of milk, but you have to give yourself a chance!

Drink plenty, relax plenty, and get plenty of skin to skin with him. If possible you and he could take to your bed for a day or two, and do nothing but relax and feed, and things will soon catch up.

Thanks for the advice.
Tissy - unfortunately I don't have the option to take to my bed with him, much as I'd love to! I have a 23month old running round the place!
He has been a fantastic feeder since the word go, latched on straight away and I've had no problems feeding him at all, and he is not a 'sucky' baby, I have tried a dummy, but he's not really interested.
I will try expressing just a small amount I think, so that there's still milk left for him..and see what happens in the next couple of days.

Mabel - I don't agree with the expressing idea.

It doesn't really make sense.

Why express? Why not just put the baby back on the breast? That way he gets the milk directly and more efficiently, it also means you are not faced with the hassle of expressing, and you automatically increase the stimulation of the breastmilk production 'system'.

If your baby is not satisfied with 2 breasts, then put him back to the first, and then the second again if you want This is normal, lots of mothers do it 'cos lots of babies need it, and you will find you have milk - even if you think he emptied it before (he won't have done).

The advice here to drink more and relax is fine - but none of it will help you milk supply. The only way to increase milk supply is to increase the stimulation of production - and that means removing milk, which automatically makes more. Yes, you can express in order to remove milk, but why bother?!

Hi tiktok
when I'm feeding him, it starts to feel like he's sucking away at nothing, and when I;ve squeezed the nipple either nothing comes out or a slight dribble, so then I've been swapping him to the other side. Once he's fed off the other side I'd assumed that meant both breasts were emptied and that it would take a while for more milk to be produced - I take it this is not the case then? That's why I thought the best thing to do was express, as I've been waiting til after he's fed and asleep, an hour or so after feeding, to express.
I will try swappinh him back again to the 1st breast at the next feed.

mabel, milk is made very quickly - the shorter the gaps between feeds, the more quickly the milk is made.

Milk production slows when the baby is actually in the process of removing it, but when he stops, it's all systems go If your breasts are relatively empty when your baby ceases to suck, then your milk production is relatively fast.

Both these factors - frequency of milk removal, and effectiveness of milk removal - drive the supply.

If you remove milk infrequently, and/or not effectively, then production slows.

So putting your baby back to the first breast straight away is just fine - there is no point in waiting an hour if you are keen to boost supply

It always took a week or so for my milk to catch up with extra demand, but drinking lots of water really helped (ds was 6 weeks old in the middle of that 35 degree heatwave this summer so I mean LOTS of water!) I constantly had a pint glass and refilled as soon as I finished it. Trouble is lots of trips to the loo too!

mabel - 6 week old babies classically go thro' a growth spurt. You are lucky it is just 2 night feeds, my DS (not a big child ever - he was just over 3 kilos at birth) would wake EVERY blinking HOUR when he was having a growth spurt for days on end. I always did produce enough milk for him though, because I demand fed. I also let him suckle for comfort.

Demand feed and you will produce enough. Also most baby's love to suckle for comfort not just for milk. It is ok to put a baby to the breast even when he is NOT hungry. Very difficult sometimes I know, been there, got the t-shirt, etc....but just hang in there it will get easier

mabel - you've had some excellent advice on this thread, I'm bf for the first time (DS is 3 mths old) and have found MN invaluable in giving me confidence, particularly as RL support is often a bit patchy. Just having the confidence to know that there will be enough milk for the baby has been great for me - breasts are never really 'empty', when DS went through his 12 wk growth spurt last week he would often have 3 or 4 breasts at one feed i.e. LH then RH, then back to LH then RH again. The more I fed the creamier it got.

Although it must be tough with a toddler to entertain as well, must say haven't got that to contend with

thanks everyone for your advice and support!
i will keep at it and hopefully my milk with catch up.
BF DS2 is completelty different to DS1 where I had problems with mastitis and terrible colic he was also a very sucky baby.
If I put DS2 on when he's not hungry he just lies there staring at me with his mouth open!
Also I am think I am guilty of not drinking enough. I have a splitting headache today which I am sure is dehydration.

mabel - of course drink to keep yourself from being dehydrated. But don't think it has anything to do with your milk, 'cos it doesn't

I don't think you need to put your baby to the breast any more than he appears to want or expect him to feed when he doesn't want to - just allow him to have an extra breast (or two...) instead of assuming there is no milk left.

last night I tried to keep feeding him, but he seemed to be getting really frustrated and didn't seem to be getting anything, I tried swapping sides, but he just kept on sucking and sucking, then pulling himself off (it was starting to make my nipples quite sore!). I wondered if he was just being sucky or if he was actually hungry, so I offered him 4oz milk that I'd expressed, which he guzzled. So clearly he was really hungry.
Tiktok - I know you said that my body would be making the milk, but he was just getting more and more hungry and frustrated - help!

I dunno, mabel....giving him the expressed breastmilk and having him swallow it does not show anything. Whether he was being 'sucky' or 'hungry', he would do the same thing - that is, accept the bottle and suck on it, and when you do that with a bottle of milk, you also swallow

On the other hand, maybe he was hungry and wanted a faster flow than your breasts could manage because maybe there was not a huge amount of milk in there....hard to tell. When babies go through a period of wanting more milk than previously, you may need to give your body a few days to respond. Tonight, things may be better.

My ds (now 18m) also large (10,5) and very good at feeding. He's my 1st, but I had an interesting conversation with a friend who was on her 2nd. Whilst she always offered dd1 both sides, she opted for the 1side only for dd2. This was because dd1 would regularly wake up for night feeds and would feed v.regularly during the day - and she decided that the problem was that she was basically only getting the 'fore' milk and not the 'hind' milk. The fm comes much more freely and is a thirst quencher, but the hm is much more satisfying - and it takes a lot more sucking to get it. This won't work for everyone, but it might be worth considering. Again, you would have to work up to this gradually if you and ds not used to it to let supply catch up with demand.

BTW, my ds started getting colic at 3 days and this had him sucking and then pulling off and general distress. This got much worse later, with worst nights screaming from 7pm to 4 / 5am (took turns with dh) - colief helped, but real hassle with bf, and final cure was visit to cranial osteopath.

However, back to your problem, large babies are likely to need more milk than smaller ones, and this might mean more feeds overall - stick with it, and I hope that this evening is better!

just to let you know last night was better. i think my milk is catching up - i actually feel quite engorged this morning for the 1st time in a couple of weeks. thanks everyone for your help and advice.