Do I need to express if baby is sleeping through?

[mussie]

My baby is nearly six weeks old. We've had a bit of a long journey with feeding - my nipples were terribly cracked and I got mastitis on day 10, so I started exclusively expressing to allow them to heal. I expressed every 2-3 hours around the clock, and made plenty of milk, more than she needed. It took nearly two weeks for my nipples to heal, then two weeks of trying her at the breast a couple of times a day, and then just in the last couple of days, we've finally been able to feed at the breast almost exclusively with no issues.

My problem is that when expressing, I was setting an alarm in the night to express. She sleeps 23.30-4/5 most nights, and I was expressing at about 2, to maintain my supply and have milk ready for her next feed without having to get up!

Now that she's just feeding at the breast, can I start toning down the expressing I do then? I know I can't stop cold turkey (I do NOT want mastitis again) but I don't whether to keep up expressing until empty (about 2 feeds worth of milk) or whether to slow down, but potentially risk my long term supply as she's still so young and milk supply isn't established yet?

Thanks for the help! Any comments about moving from EPing to direct nursing would be very helpful, I have been googling for days and not found many other people who have done this!

I wouldn't have thought there's any need to express. Just think for people who don't express, they'll go however long baby sleeps without feeding, so it's the same for you now you're back to feeding from the breast. If she needs more at a later date then she'll just feed more to increase your supply, there's no need to maintain a level of supply that you don't need in the mean time. Well done btw :) sounds like you've had a hard journey.

No need to express, just stop slowly. That’s a great stretch of sleep, enjoy it.

Most parents of premature babies who breastfeed have been through the switch from expressing to direct breast feeding so that may be a way to find more advice.

From what I remember they said that if you keep expressing and feeding every feed then you’ll end up producing enough for twins! So I’d stop slowly and be baby-led. Hope the sleep continues!

Thank you @Spam88 and @peajotter. Sorry for delayed response, I forgot the app doesn't do notifications! You're right, it doesn't make any sense to keep maintaining a supply she doesn't need - and I only have so much freezer space for all this excess milk. @peajotter that's a good tip about premie babies - I will have a google for that. I hope the sleep continues too 😅 it'll be just my luck, she'll start waking at 2am again as soon as I've stopped setting my 2am alarm! Thanks again!

@mussie if you end up with too much milk you may be able to donate it to a local milk bank to help sick and premature babies.