Sleeping through the night - does it decrease milk supply??

[GermanGal]

Hi all - I'm new on this thread. My 9 week old DS has been sleeping through for the last 1 1/2 weeks, which of course I'm very happy about BUT I was wondering what it does to my milk supply?? As far as I understood, the only way to increase milk supply is to feed them regularly. I do feed him every 3-4 hours during the day, but he sleeps 7.5-8.5 hours at night (I usually have to wake him by then because of throbbing breasts!!) - does that mean I will have less milk throughout the day? Shall I feed him more often to increase it again - but that would probably mean that my breasts will be even fuller at night?? Very confused.... sorry about that, but I'm a first time mum and somehow I always worry about not having enough milk (having small breasts doesn't help....) THANKS!!

I used to wonder that as I also had a baby that slept 8 hrs pretty much from birth. My baby was a slow gainer too so I was doubly paranoid. I used to get up in the middle of the night to express in order to stimulate prolactin production but am not sure that helped that much.

Don't worry about the small boobs, it makes absolutely no difference - my friend was as flat chested as they come yet she had the fattest baby.

Haha good to know I keep wondering about expressing as well, but I'm scared that he will NOT sleep through the minute I start - and then I'm left with empty breasts!! Also, expressing didn't work very well so far - another concern of mine (do I have enough milk)???? Arrrgghhh....

I never managed to express much either, I was lucky if I managed 90ml. I think my record was 120ml but it took about an hour to get that out and I had a stiff hand for days! Babies are much more efficient though, and don't worry about having empty boobs, the second your baby latches on you're stimulated to make more milk, so it's not quite like drinking out of a carton.