Pumping: low supply, no let-down

[thelady]

In my first thread I asked for help with low supply and a baby on top-ups who refused to take from the breast.

After lots of heartache, we've decided to move to bottles and express what little there seems to be - she was getting too stressed when put to the breast and I was getting desperate.

Pumping is, however, soul-destroying. The first pump I was loaned appears to be broken, as it gets precisely nothing. The new one I've had for 24h is getting 5 - 15 mL every 4 hours, though sometimes nothing at all.

Is there any point to pumping if I don't get a let-down? Equally, is there anything besides massage/hot flannels that will encourage the milk out?

I so wanted to breastfeed, but as usual this body of mine has let me down.

TheLady - give yourself a break. Like you sayall that matter sis that Frances is thriving. She needs a happy mummy more than anything else. Take care x

silk: thanks for that. I keep thinking that there is something else I could have tried, and am finding it very hard to be rational about the situation.

ah I have recently discovered it is hard to be rational when you're a new mummy especially a sleep deprived one

Thanks for the pump, notquitechristmasyet. It definitely 'sucks' harder than the electric ones, but I'm getting next to nothing out.

the lady,

hi - just a bit concerned about the Ameda lactaline not feeling like suction... I've got one too and boy does it suck (in fact, just like my barracuda boy who sucks for England...)

Just to make sure -since you yourself seem to have wanted to try everything - do you want to describe to me exactly how you have it set up to see if I can think of something that might be making it not work well?

Sorry not trying to imply you're daft an all and it might indeed be that it just doesn't work for you but when you said your nipple only moves half a cm or so, it didn't sound like my pump and I've used this model for years and 3 babies...

Give it a try if you want (describing the set up) and if not, just ignore me and get on with your life !

I feel like I'm picking a scab - hurts and probably doing me harm too!

I tried the lactaline set up for double pumping for the first time tonight (DH was doing a feed) and it sucks far far better that way. I actually got about 5ml from each breast.

I still don't know how I'm going to manage to find the time to pump, though, which takes us right back to the original problem. If dd won't feed more than every 3.5 - 4 h then I can't pump more often than that, realistically, and I've been told that this is simply not enough to get things going.

Hi - well it's great news that you got 5ml - proof that you definitely do have milk and indeed a start to relactate with?

There's a little tiny white plastic plug that you can use to block off one of the holes if you only want to single pump - I don't know if it is working better as a double pump because if that wasn't plugged as a single, the suction wouldn't have been sealed and therefore wouldn't have worked?

But prob not that and I'm just adding 2+2=5 etc

when you say 'if DD won't feed more than 3.5 - 4 hours, then I can't realistically express more often than that...' I guess that is indeed what you need to work out. Do you mean in terms of getting everything done practically or some kind of physical reason? Not being arsy or suggestive, I just genuinely don't understand what is the thing preventing you from expressing more frequently? Did you mean with getting through feed, change, jiggle, sleep, feed, sterilise, express etc...? Or something else?

The fact that she won't go down anywhere.... She only settles when being held (day or night) and that's the end of it.

Signing out to grieve and try and get over this.

I sympathise with what you are going through. I had a period when I needed to exclusively express because of a chronic thrush infection. I found the normal pumps really traumatised my nipples. My saviour was a Whittlestone Breast Expresser - unfortunately you can only buy them from the US and they aren't cheap but it made a huge difference to me. It works in a different way to other breast pumps by stimulating the aureola rather than heavy duty suction. My supply increased whilst using this.

Hang on in there - it does get better - I gave up feeding twice because of the pain, exhaustion and low supply but now my DS is 14 weeks he is down to having only 6oz of formula a day and we are hoping to be fully bf soon.

Best of luck

I am exclusively expressing. My supply to start with was low and this is common. It has built up a lot with pumping 8x a day (now at 10 weeks. The first 12 weeks is where supply is established and pumps can be dropped. It is hard work esp with a 2 year old but a hands free bra has made it possible as has a US supprt group on Ivillage.

HTH