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Infant feeding

Get advice and support with infant feeding from other users here.

Original poster

quick expressing question

4 replies

spiritofstlouis · 04/06/2007 09:59

Hi- I wonder if anyone can help with a qustion I have...

when expresssing I get the first 80 mils or so very quickly then it slows right down and takes ages so I will go onto the 2nd breast for a bit to get enough for a feed.
Does this mean there will be a lack of hind milk? My ds gets hungry very quickly after a bottle of EBM but I can't decide if it's because however hard I try I can't get more than 110 mils and that's not enough or if there's too much foremilk

Cheers

OP posts:
mears · 04/06/2007 10:02

No need to worry about lack of hind milk - it all merges in together. Express from one breast till the flow slows then switch to the other. When that flow slows, switch back again and so forth till you have had enough expressing basically.

Perhaps he wants more than 110ml and that is why he is hungry. You don't need to express a feed in one go. How old is he?

Original poster
spiritofstlouis · 04/06/2007 10:26

Hi- thanks for the reply. He's 7 weeks... he's just gobbled down another 110 mils
(trying to get him used to the bottle so I can go to a hen night!)
will see how long this lasts him but might have to accept it will take a few goes to get a feed. At least I know I don't have to sit sqeezing out droplets from one boob for hours!

OP posts:
suis · 05/06/2007 01:20

For the first couple of weeks I had to express milk for DS as he wouldn't feed from me, so I got lots of practice at this. For some reason swapping between sides seems to worked well for me in the early days. I would express one side till it was down to infrequent drops, then swap to the other side to the same point and then back to the first one, which seemed to fill up a bit while I was away.

Other tips for increasing production are expressing first thing in the morning, after a warm shower or bath, using a hot compress (I used one of these warm in the microwave been bag things) and massaging the breast. These days I tend to express first thing in the morning while feeding DS from the other side, it seems to help the let down.

Also please bear in mind that like everything elce with bfing, it does get easier with time.. It was weeks before I could express more than 50mls from both sides no matter how hard I tried. Now at 3 months i can get 150mls+ from one side.

Hope some of that helps

Original poster
spiritofstlouis · 05/06/2007 19:54

Thanks Suis will keep going and hopefully will build up the qty with time

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