How do I increase my milk production?

[dixia]

My baby was in the neonatal unit when he was born for 8 days and I was expressing for him. I had loads of milk and was producing more than he was taking. Now he is home I have been giving him a bottle of expressed breast milk every night (to try and give me a good few hours of sleep at the start of the night). It is working. The bottle seems to go in quicker and fill him up properly.

The problem is that now I'm not producing nearly as much milk as I was at first. He feeds for long periods during the day and night and I am not filling up enough to express. I am keen to keep giving him the bottle of breast milk, but worried I may run out of supplies.

Anyone know any tricks to increase my milk production?

agree with the previous poster,. especially at night the hormones are signalling your body to make more milk...!
Is there a chance you can take a nap in the day, when your lil one is asleep, too...that way broken nights are not as difficult to live with (still not great, lol, but hohum)...also, not sure about your sleeping arangements, but co-sleeping can be a bliss when bf, takes all the hassle away of getting up, etc....!

Well, he feeds pretty constantly from 3am to 7am at the moment - which he does direct from the breast in bed with me. Because I am a bit of an insommniac myself, I am often unable to get to sleep after he starts feeding at around 3am. So I need the first part of the night to be as uninteruppted as possible. With my first ds I found that a bottle was the best way to get him to sleep for 3-4 hours on the trot. This one seems to respond in the same way. I find it very difficult to sleep in the day - I just lie awake for ages (getting increasingly anxious about not being able to sleep).

Just wondered if there were any tips. I am feeding him loads as it is!

Do you express before you go to sleep? And do you get a good amount?
If you don't express at that time, might be a good idea to do that before you go to bed...but remember this stage doesn't last forever!

Message withdrawn

3andnomore - Can't express when I go to bed - there's not enough milk to express - only get about a teaspoon.

Podmog - thanks for the tips - I will try the feeding from one side for 3 hours thing. Not sure if I can get fennel tea here (spain), but will try! Glad your ds has started to put on weight .

I'd suggest expressing little and often inbetween feeds too (such hard work, I know and am sorry!). If I remember rightly (I may be corrected on this so check it out first) you can freeze as you go, so express what you can, pop it in a bottle and freeze it, then top it up with the next bit you express. Hopefully this will increase your milk and give you a bottle spare for later.
Probably not a popular suggestion - you are probably exhausted and the last thing you'll want to do is milk yourself!!
Good luck!

sorry, our posts crossed, so my suggestion might not work if you're only getting tiny amounts out.
stick at it, I know how tough it is, but it'll come good.

do you let your lil one drink first from the breast and then give a bottle?
Tbh, if I was you, I would bite this bullet and just breastfeed for teh next few weeks on demand and then start the expressing again after the 6 weeks mark!
YOu can still, probably, collect milk to give in a bottle aswell, or to freeze, by using breastshells...I know my opposite breast of the one I was feeding off would always leak plentysome, lol!

Also, how much you actually getting isn't really the big issue, it's more the stimulation, so any expressing could and would probably help, however, a Baby feeding directly off the breast will, if they are latched on correctly and feed well, be the best stimulant for milksupply

Yes, breastshells - because the other one always leaks when feeding - and you can save that and use it. Good suggestion 3andnomore. Avent do them. Also you wear them continually so collect as you go instead of sopping leakage up in pads. Just don't bend over if you are wearing the ones with air holes.
The glamour!

hi there ..just trying to find my way round this posting thing!
"in the bad old days" I remember reading somewhere that wet nurses had a beer allowance to increase their milk production..not very PC now but ? small glass of beer! I did this ..she admits......and it helped..was never sure if it was the relaxation effect form my low alcohol tolerance or what??!!

oh .. and the mini pill for some women increases milk production...

I thought the mini pill was more lilkely to decrease milkproduction???

Also, do you like Oats...if yes, have a bowl of porridge in teh morning, porridge is apparenlty milkbuilding.
And Fenugreek is meant to help wiht supply, too!

I always found that anything I expressed was guzzled down in about 2 minutes, and DD was still hungry, but somehow when I just fed her she seemed to be OK. (Maybe I was expressing alot of foremilk?)

This is not to say that expressing is good, bad or whatever, just that you can't really judge your milk production by quantity of expressed milk.

Also, the best advice I have seen for increasing supply is a babymoon. Admittedly this is difficult with another child, but if you can set yourself up with clean sheets on the bed, loads of trashy magazines, maybe some dvd's, nice fruit, chocolate, whatever makes you feel good, and just feed...

Babymooning is brilliant. Do you have a nice ring sling? That way you can do lots and lots of skin to skin with baby.

can you expand on babymooning please?

The way I see it is that rather than thinking 'oh no, this baby is always glued to my chest', you turn it into a positive, proactive experience where you are indulging yourself as much as the baby. There are times in your life when you can lie around without feeling guilty, there are times in your life where you have to run around after manic toddlers. OK for many of us the toddler and the baby experience occur simultaneously, but a babymoon is a fab excuse to timetable some one to one time with the baby if you can get somebody else to look after children.

You could also TRY babymooning with a toddler, which would I suppose involve going to the library and getting a load of books/ a DVD for them to watch and maybe having a carpet picnic and loads of blankets/duvets on the floor while you feed the baby.

babymooning is a bit like a honeymoon. When you go on honeymoon you and your partner are pretty much inseparable. It's the same principle with babymooning. You and the baby spend a lot of time doing skin to skin and breastfeeding completely on demand.

The only way to boost milk supply is to keep supplying milk.