Expressers of the world unit.........moral support thread.

[LadyTophamHatt]

So, How many ounces do you get per day??

I've produced enough for one 5oz feed. Pretty poor really.....

Still no luck with latching DS4 on, kind of given up with that now TBH.

I now seem to spend half my day plugged in to the milking machine, counting the drips as the trickle down the tube.
There really aren't enough hours in the day for me ATM!!

Shonaspurtle, I wish you all the best of luck in returning to BF. I really wish it had worked out for us too.

Sterny - LOL at the idea of pumping in Starbucks! I do take my machine and pump at friends' houses though, if we are visiting. With my BF friends I just whip them out in the same room, otherwise I go into a bedroom or whatever. I also have the same problem you had of finding it hard to get back to sleep after getting up in the night to express - but I don't see an alternative, because if I don't express in the night I wake up rock hard and sore. Plus I have heard that the hormones for milk making are best in the night - is this still true at 5 months, I wonder? Poor you on the mastitis..I have been lucky to avoid it so far. I did have thrush though, which was very painful.

Macneil, my boobs don't squirt milk or leak at all. They never did when I was pregnant either. And I feel somehow cheated as well! (I expect the leakers amongst us will probably think we're mad).

Nine

Nine - my supply definitely dropped when I gave up the middle of the night expressing session but I was just SO tired after months of expressing around the clock and not being able to get back to sleep, plus my DS started sleeping through and as I wasn't getting woken up to feed him and couldn't physically drag myself out of bed. One downside of giving up the night session (besides drop in output) is that I frequently wake up in a damp patch feeling like I am about to explode but I feel it's a small price for a bit extra sleep!

I have comedy squirting breasts when I am breastfeeding and my ds unlatches himself to have a little gawp around the room (he is so nosy!). The other day I managed to squirt milk all over the dog, who was wandering past at the wrong moment!

How long have you all been expressing for and how long do you intend to carry on for? I have been going for a grand total of five months and one week and want to make it to six months but beyond then...I don't know. I'm going back to work in four months time and there is nowhere for me to express at work so I guess I'll have to do it twice a day or not at all. Feel bit sad about giving up though.

I think expressing at night is for true heroines, I just couldn't hack it. First of all, there was no way of explaining to my husband that he should get up and do the feed while I express, to save time, because I was already awake. So I'd do the feed, then pump, and it took well over an hour to do both, and I couldn't settle dd all the time, so if she woke up when I was pumping and I couldn't really get to her, and she was in there with him (because the pump would wake him up) I couldn't get to her and she'd wake him up. This sounds like I was pussyfooting around him, but he does have to leave for work at 8am, and to his face I just gave him grief about how it was harder for me (but secretly felt mean).

The times I expressed at night, I didn't get very much, and haven't noticed a change in my supply since I stopped (but that's almost certainly because I never gave night pumping a really consistent go, and I know that while I'm talking about really wanting a solution that the solution is probably right there - pump at night). The thing that made the most difference was simultaneous pumping with both breasts: before then I was getting about 20mls with every pump. This is my 8th week.

How is LTH getting on I wonder...?

I had a solution to the night feeds. I bought a bra which enabled me to pump hands free, I rigged myself up then got ds balanced on a special donut shaped cushion and fed him at the same time with a bottle. It took some perfecting to get it right but I managed to express and bottlefeed at the same time. The sound of the breastpump used to lull ds to sleep after he had fed I think!

True Heroine

I wish! Pumping at night is crap and awful but I am in a sort of routine and it's just what I do now. I do feed my DS first, but he never wakes up for it really and it only takes 5 minutes, then I stick him on my DH's chest (we co-sleep) for 20 minutes while I go downstairs and watch BBC News 24 or something bizarre signed for deaf people. Sterny, I like your idea with the bra..I should really have bought one of those bras by now anyway.

When DS was tiny I would express with a mini-electric pump, with him in one arm and the pump in the other. And the sound lulled him to sleep as well!

I've been expressing since DS was 3 days old and he's 5 months this week. Originally I hoped that we would be BF direct, which is what kept me going. Then when that started to look less likely, I aimed for 6 months. Now I think I will carry on for a year, if I can. That will hopefully make me feel less guilty about not being able to BF. I'm not going back to work so I can't see why I wouldn't be able to do it, apart from the getting up in the night

Nine - my ds was five months yesterday so we must have started expressing at the same time.

Are you still trying to bf even occassionally? I only ask this because I only started breastfeeding when my ds was 4 months. Before this he would not latch on at all, but he suddenly just clicked one day. This has made life much easier for us because I just express morning and evening and bf during the day. Sorry for being nosy, I just wanted to say don't give up if you still wanted to bf!

I have pretty much given up trying to breastfeed. Good to know it
i could
still happen, I will go back to shoving the breast at her more often. If she picks it up before I have to give back my pump to come back to England, she can bf as long as she likes, even if we look like Little Britain, I'll just be so relieved.

Sadly I made the decision last week to stop trying to BF my DS. We only managed it about 10 times in total and it was getting worse, not better. It was really hard but I have had to accept that it just isn't going to happen. I have had so much help you would not believe, but it was making me very stressed, the living on hope.

I am just so ANGRY about the way we were treated in hospital. If we had had a better srart there is no reason why we would nto have been BF now.

Nine and Macneil I just wanted to say that I understand totally. Please be kind to yourselves though. I think hardly anybody expresses when bf doesn't work out, so you should be proud of yourselves.

Ironically, I think bfeeding only worked out for me once I had decided that I was going to give up completely on the idea and switch ds to formula full time. ds was 4 months and i had just had another battle with mastitis and was feeling so low about the whole thing. At this stage I had given up beating myself up about not being able to bf. Anyway, that night ds started rooting while his bottle was warming up and I just decided to try and feed him and it worked. I'm sure the reason it worked was because I was relaxed and putting no pressure on myself.

I had all sorts of help too Nine when ds was tiny (he was premature so the hospital were extremely concerned that he didn't lose too much weight). I had advice from hvs, midwives, nurses, lactation consultant, friends, LLL, peer support...the list goes on and on and actually sometimes I think they just confused things as everyone seemed to have a different opinion on why things weren't working. I remember a comedy moment when ds was jaundiced and tiny and screaming with hunger and the neonatal midwife came round to try and help me with feeding and we sat on my bed and she kept grabbing ds's head with one hand and my breast with the other and forcing them together and all the time I could hear my in-laws downstairs talking loudly about the weather!

I wish I could give you both a big hug and make you feel better about yourselves. Your babies are lucky to have such lovely caring mums.

I also had terrible treatment in hospital. If you want to read about what happened see the 'breastfeeding a premature baby thread'.

oh, you poor thing, some nurses (and my mum is one, so I certainly don't waant to generalise) seem very hard and brisk. It's great that you came through it so well!

You sound as if you are all doing well.
I don't know if this is of any help, but I pumped for my DS for 12 weeks! He did actually bf after 6 days, but only sometimes, so I had to pump the rest of the time.
He eventually did bf exclusively, so I was able to drop the pumping, until I went back to work muuuch later.
He is still bfing at 26 months.
I found breast massage was really helpful before expressing and expressing by hand a little bit as well to get things moving, then I would use the pump. I kind of alternated between an Avent Isis manual pump and a Medela dual pump.
I was pumping every two to three hours to begin with day and night, and then got slightly longer sleeps of around five hours.
I did drink quite a bit of water, not too much, but it's easy to forget to drink the right amount. I would get my DP to fill a litre water bottle and keep it beside me and then I would know how much I had drunk and whether I needed to drink more.
I also did use domperidome/motilium when I first changed to breastfeeding full time, because I had gradually produced less and had topped-up with formula because the hospital started us off doing that, although we wanted to drop it.
After a while I stopped domperidome and took advice from a herbalist, who recommended a tincture of goat's rue and alfalfa every day in orange juice, which worked really well.
So there you are, bit long, but hopefully something of use in there somewhere.
It was a really hard slog for us and I cried quite a bit during this time, but my DP was fabulous and always supported me and reminded me of how well I was doing, so it did work out well.
It does help to have lots of people getting stuff for you, so rope in everyone possible.

Sterny I read your other thread and it sounds like you did fantastically well to overcome the ignorance of those nurses. You must be so proud!

Can you believe, yesterday afternoon I offered DS and he BF direct...just when I think it's all over...

Maisimog I agree with all your tips, especially the breast massage. I'm sure that's what made the difference to my supply in the early days.

God I'm so glad to find this thread! My son will be four weeks old tomorrow. He was born at 31+4 weeks and is in special care, made it to the nursery now. I'm trying to get the hang of breastfeeding atm, doing it twice a day for now, and am expressing not enough milk for him to be fed. The last two times I had him on me for ages and he was sucking but it seems he didn't get anything out because as he's tube fed they have to suck up from his stomach to make sure the tubes in the right place, and there was no milk there. How depressing. I'm desperate to get the hang of latching, although I know he's still young (35+3) - we have done it successfully a few times and I do not want to leave the unit either with him on full formula or me having to express every time I want him to have proper milk. Please give me some hope it's possible...! However if I do have to express when he eventually comes home, can you recommend electric pumps? I\ve got one from the hospital atm but that will obviously go back when he leaves.

sterny, I'm just off to find your thread. Am starting to get a bit pissed off with some of the nurses' attitudes to my bfing attempts. I don't want to be treated like a naughty schoolgirl when I'm trying my damnedest to do the best thing for DS. will be interested to see what your experience was.

Yay Nine! Well done. The trick now is to not put pressure on yourself. Just aim for one feed every couple of days and build up very slowly if that is what you want to do.

I also took a course of domperidone, which worked wonders. You can buy it over the counter, but it is pretty expensive (about £5 for ten tablets)

I have decided to drop my morning expressing session and bf instead. I must say it's pretty scary giving up the security of knowing how much milk ds is getting. Everytime he cries I keep thinking 'he's hungry, I'm not producing enough milk' etc etc. It's going to take some strong willpower to stay away from the pump!

Just read it - oh my god, it sounds terrible. I have to say the staff at my SCBU have been mostly fantastic, it's just I've been unlucky enough to have two not very sympathetic nurses in a row, but mostly they are great (although the ones in the nursery seem a bit more "professional" in attitude, ie less understanding, than the ones I met in intensive care and high dependency). My LO had formula in the beginning and is now gettinga mixture of my milk and formula but I've refused to let them use a bottle yet, and I intend to keep it up until I have exhausted every single possiblity, ie, trying bfing for several weeks, taking domperidone to incerease milk supply etc. Can I ask - those bfing and expressing, do you find you can still get a good supply of milk out just after feeding? A nurse said the boob should be more or less empty if he's taken a good amount, but other people I've spoken to say they can always express after feeding.

This may be controversial, but in the DVD I have by Clare Byam Cook, she says she believes nipple confusion is a myth, and goes on to latch on a woman with flat nipples like mine whose underweight, tired baby had already had bottles of formula. I know that isn't the predominant attitude on this forum, really, but she is an absolute marvel (with an amusingly posh voice) and I wish I'd been able to call her out when I was starting. However, I still can't get the hang of her squeeze tit and shove on baby technique, my baby just refuses to suck. But I mention this because maybe it's easy to get hung up on the perils of a bottle, and so many people do go between bottle and nipple with few problems.

Hi Callie,

When I was trying to bf my ds in hospital I was told to express after feeding him for a few days to make sure that my breasts were totally empty. I usually could express a little bit, even after he had just fed. I have been lucky though that I have always had a plentiful supply, it may be different for other people.

Macneil - about nipple confusion. My ds went back to bfeeding after being fed exclusively by bottle for three months, so he obviously hasn't been affected. I have been using tommee tippee 'closer to nature' bottles which are supposedly more breastlike, not that they look much like my breasts... All the nurses in the hospital went on an on about nipple confusion and sounded dire warnings about giving even one bottle, but it has turned out ok!

I have Byam Cook's book. I'm intrigued to know what her voice is like now. Her tone in the book is very no nonsense. I think I could have done with someone like her to fight my corner in hospital!

Hmm, nipple confusion... I've got to confess that I gave up on the alternative delivery methods v quickly (middle of the night crack-up when ds dribbled 75% of my hard-gotten expressed milk down his front when I was trying to use a little cup).

At the time there were tears as I was sure I was sabotaging the whole bf thing but we've had no problems and ds has happily gone between breast and bottle. I'm reluctant to recommend it to other people though as we might just have been lucky.

I've not had to express since Friday morning!!! After 11 weeks we may have finally cracked it (I've been here before though so I'm a little bit ). I had in my mind that 12 weeks was as far as I'd go if things didn't get any better so hopefully the perserverence has paid off...

I was visiting a friend today who is also expressing/formula top ups as her 3 week old ds won't latch on. He was 4 weeks prem though so hopefully things will improve when he's a bit older. She's getting a lot of pressure to give up from her mum and mil as neither of them breastfed and don't see why she should - I feel so . Why can't they just support her decision? Her dh is great though and thinks she's doing a great job (which she is).

Callie - have you asked about borrowing/hiring a pump from the hospital? I got to borrow one for almost 2 months from the breast feeding clinic and another friend who was expressing/topping up initially for her 5 week prem dd was able to borrow a hospital pump as well. Always worth asking!

My friend with the prem ds bought a Ameda Lactaline double pump for about £80 and reckons it's just as good as the Ameda Elite which is the one we both used in hospital (and I borrowed) - considerably cheaper and much smaller.

oh boy is this the thread for me! I used to be prolific, I used to have enough to feed many babies, now I can't even do enough for one friggin feed. And my mother tipped a just expressed 80 mls down the sink yesterday, the most i've got out in one go in ages. I could have killed her. I totally agree with those who want their child to take every last drop of ebm, I practically force it down ds and get very very upset if he refuses it.

Bewilderbeast

OMG! I feel your pain - I don't think I would be responsible for my actions if someone poured my expressed milk down the sink!

Argh, 80mls! Twice I've given her EBM and not put the lid on properly and realised it had soaked her suit, and once I just knocked the bottle over. I seemed to be more upset about it than when I dropped a bottle of Stella pure perfume on the kitchen floor and watched it drip through the floorboards.

"(middle of the night crack-up when ds dribbled 75% of my hard-gotten expressed milk down his front when I was trying to use a little cup)"

This is exactly why I stopped. Also, when they get greedy, the syringe and pinky finger is never going to work.

Callie, I was recommended a dual pump, you can hire one from NCT, to save you a bit of time and stimulate both breasts. I did use the Isis as well and sometimes, it worked better than the electric pump, but the electric pump was a bit easier sometimes.
I used to try to latch on ds, and then if he didn't feed I would pump and dp would feed ds the expressed milk from last time.
My Ds was just under three weeks early and weighed 5.5lbs, not excessively teeny, but he had a tiny little mouth, which he didn't open very wide. I ended up opening his mouth more before he latched on by pressing down on his chin - helped to stop it hurting as well.
I had loads of people check his latch, midwives, lactation specialists, Health visitors and they all thought it looked fine, but he still fed for about 40 minutes at a time and I had a very numb bum.
It helps to have someone look at your latch, but I think those tiny babies do feed for ages. I think if you have had a up and down time, the baby might be trying to stimulate your milk production, trying to up the supply. They do that when they have a growth spurt as well.
I still have some domperidome left if you want it. I don't need it and it's just sitting in the medicine cabinet.
If it helps, my ds was on the 2nd centile for weight and I think he went up to the 9th by about four months. The last time I had him weighed at 2, he was on the 50th centile for weight - he has never had much chub, he is just a solid, very healthy little boy who is full of energy and fun. He goes for a day sometimes eating loads and another day eating one fairy cake. But I don't feel so tense about him not eating now.