Please critique my breastfeeding routine!

[Peridotty]

Hi ladies! Please can I get some of your wise opinions on my BF routine? Is it ok or are there problems with it that I can’t foresee due to lack of experience? I have a 10 week old baby. I also have a boob with more milk than the other. I am trying to even them out by starting on the slacker boob unless the other one is engorged.

6.30am: breastfeed (on slacker boob) and pump the other boob and put milk in fridge. Go back to bed.
9am - 6pm breastfeed every two hours. Pump if the baby is having a long nap and I store the milk.
9pm-3am breastfeed but if baby gets fussy after one boob and won’t latch on to the second, then I will use the expressed milk from fridge and pump unused boob.

Is this okay? I find I have a ton of excess milk in the morning so I like to pump in the morning around 6am or 8am. She likes to drink more at night and is very fussy too so I use the milk in the morning and I pump instead.

Put the vit drops on your nipple before a feed

I’m just starting bf again for the second time. Mine has difficulty latching onto an engorged breast so I just pump 5 or 10 ml off first then baby can latch. I didn’t continue expressing last time beyond the first couple of weeks and never managed to successfully express again with DS so I am expressing first thing in the morning to get a stash and I’m bottle feeding 10 or 20 ml during the day so a bottle is accepted as ds rejected a bottle. I am not replacing a whole feed nor I am pumping more than once a day for a stash.
If you don’t want express at all supply will regulate to what baby needs very quickly. Breast fed babies can be very very windy both mine have been. I can spend hours winding! They much prefer being carried round and held to being put down in their basket. Sometimes a push out in the pram is very successful at getting them off to sleep for longer. I leave the pram in the secure back garden and ds always slept very well every afternoon outside and I got a rest!

The one that makes more milk has an overactive let down. Sometimes she is fine with it but sometimes she rejects it without even latching on. Can a baby remember without latching which one has the overactive let down or she just doesn’t want any breast. I try many different positions but she rejects them all.

The vitamin D drops that I have is 0.8ml so quite a bit. One time I squirted it in her mouth it got everywhere and was very oily.

In that case, you're absolutely making it worse by expressing the engorged breast, if that's the one she rejects! You're just encouraging more and more milk production making the let down even stronger.

I had a very fast letdown on one side so I would hand express for a few seconds until it stopped squirting out (sorry) and until my boob just didn't feel like it was exploding, and then DS took it no problem. Otherwise it just drowned him and he then refused to feed on that side at all.

Have you tried feeding her from your 'slacker' first?
If you did that and used a Haaka you'd catch loads of milk in that too

I was expressing that one because I read that the boob you don’t end up feeding you have to pump otherwise you will impact on your milk supply. That’s why I was feeding her the slacker boob first and pumping the other.
I do use the Hakka sometimes but i find it more efficient to use a proper pump

A few people have mentioned using the Hakka instead of a pump - just want to point out that the Hakka is still a pump if you suction it on, it doesn't just catch let down, so you have the same issues around stimulating an oversupply.

I was expressing that one because I read that the boob you don’t end up feeding you have to pump otherwise you will impact on your milk supply.

Unless there's some exceptional circumstance, there's never any need to pump.

I fed on one side only for months ( due to an infection ) and it was fine. No impact on milk supply and I didn’t even look lopsided.

I don’t know how this works but it does. Your body and your baby get in sync.

I’m glad you had a good feed today without pumping. It’s so much extra work - no wonder you are stressed.

I used the wellbaby vit D drops- 0.5ml. My DD didn’t mind them but they are oily too. They come with a syringe you can just give straight in the mouth, no need for a bottle.
You really don’t need to pump if baby only takes one side, it won’t impact your milk supply negatively if that’s all she needs. Things will settle down in a few weeks and the leaking will stop. With pumping you’re telling your body you need to produce more milk than baby needs then when she doesn’t take it you become engorged.
My DH also thought everything is due to hunger, but we’ve both learnt as time goes on. When my DD started sucking on her fingers I assumed she was constantly hungry because it used to be one of her hunger signs when she was little, but no, now she’d just discovered her hands and liked doing it. Things change all the time and you learn to adapt. Enjoy your beautiful baby :)

Babies don't like being put down. That's because of nature and evolution- they're then vulnerable to predators

She's possibly squirmy because of wind.

Agree with PP that you need to stop pumping. Don't offer the slack breast first, offer the full one.

If she doesn't want the second breast, she's had enough.

I hardly ever needed to give DS both breasts. Lots of milk, efficient feeder.