Does let down pain stop after a while?

[kitkatsfordinner]

Hello, I' m pregnant with my 3rd child and because this will almost certainly be my last, and I live in Switzerland where formula milk is eye wateringly expensive - I would love to give breast feeding a proper go. I managed a month with each of my two daughters through a combination of feeding directly and expressing, but I hated every minute of it. I produce tons of milk, leaked every where and ended up getting mastitis and engorged all the time. I could hardly leave the house because I leaked so much ?? However, I reckon I could find strategies for coping with this, if it wasn't for the pain when the milk is released. Even now nearly 2 years on, the idea of it brings tears to my eyes, like being stabbed with hot pokers through my nipples and breasts every time baby latched on. What I was wondering was, did anyone who had this painful let down have any success getting past this stage or is it just that for some people breast feeding is like that? Thank you

I had this, it was excruciating for about 10-15 seconds at the start of every feed when DD was little. Proper, toe curlingly painful. It stopped completely, I couldn't tell you when but it did. I don't remember having let down pain by the time she was a few months old but it might have stopped sooner than that.

I do feel some pain, but nothing as bad. However, with my DS1 it stopped around 3 months, when my breasts also stopped feeling full and milk production became completely on demand.

Oh gosh 3 months... That seems long ??

yes it does lessen a lot. i think i always had an element of it though - the one thing i didn't enjoy. the worst was bf through mastitis. that really was red hot poker time, but it went after a day or two. like torture.

I found it goes away. The one thing that worked for me was to not express at all. Every time I expressed it made my engorgement worse. With ds I only ever bf directly and I didn't have half as many issues as with dd who I tried to give the occasional bottle of expressed milk.

I can remember a reassuring sensation that he was latched on correctly and getting a good mouthful of milk but I wouldn't call it painful. I wonder if you could get some advice from any breast feeding groups locally and see if you could improve the latch or whether for you the letdown is just painful and perhaps you have to accept a few seconds of pain each time to do what you want to do - breast feed.

Yes -it was like being sting by a thousand tiny bees for me. It got bearable after six weeks and had gone by three months. I then fed for 3.5 years so it was fine!

I got through it by gritting my teeth and toe curling at the start of every feed and being too lazy to want the faff of sterilising things!

Thank you ladies, yes oversupply was a problem both times. I tried to avoid expressing entirely last time but sometimes had to as boobs were too hard to feed with but could fill a 6 oz bottle in minutes... Breast pads didn't touch the leaking, I ended up sticking bamboo nappy liners in my bra! However, it was the toe curling pain that really got to me, I tried feeding on demand so for the first few weeks it was sort of every half hour or so. With my second definitely latch was fine, and she put on loads of weight, but worried that if it's the same this time, I won't see it through again. Guess I'll just have to see!

My second son, it was excruciating pain with letdown but eased about 6 weeks.

Third son latched on, no let down pain, he coped with the oversupply and it was easy.

I hope you have that outcome.

Milk production seems to settle down between 6 and 12 months. I've just stopped feeling the let down strongly now and dd is 12 weeks (it's come as a bit of a shock actually)but it hasn't hurt since the first 3-4 weeks. Were you checked for thrush op? I had it with ds and it felt like a burning sensation at the start of the feed and like my boobs were filling up with boiling water after the feed- horrible but treatable.

Let down was agony with DS. Toe-curling. It improved for me about 6 weeks too - after that I still got a tingle but I wouldn't call it pain as such. Sad to hear people saying it's as bad with number 2 - due in 4 weeks and had hoped the let down might be less painful for some reason!!

I'm ebf my 4 month old, i got bad let down pain but it's been gone a good while. I remember really finding it painful and the other mums in my ante natal class saying theirs had stopped so I think it was about 8 weeks it went. It did used to only last to the count of 10 though. No pain what so ever now.

Seven months in and I still get 5-10 seconds of pain each feed when the milk lets down - it's a little annoying but I find a bit of chocolate is a helpful distraction!

I got this pain with both of mine, and together with it a kind of sad, empty sort of emotion. Both times it got better and better until I didn't really notice when it stopped completely. Strangely I found drinking water helped a lot. I later read about something called dmer d-mer.org/ which seemed to cover some of what I felt.

It really does get better the longer you stick it out, until after a while it's lovely. Even when they get teeth or start sticking their fingers up your nose and grinning while they drink....Good luck

Thanks everyone. Sounds like I'm just going to have to see how it goes, hopefully it'll be totally different!