How much should you be able to hand express on day 3?

[Aiionwatha]

I'm having breastfeeding issues with my 3 day old. While I try and fix this, I'm doing a combination of fornula, syringe feeding of my milk and latching her evn though she's bot sucking. I'm trying to hand express to keep my supply up so eventually, if breastfeeding still isn't established, I can pump my own milk to give her and ditch the formula. In hospital they said you can pump once you're getting 10ml of milk per breast per expressing session. I'm only getting about 0.25 ml per breast per session at the moment! The colostrum has now phased into much thinner, clearer stuff, but I'm still only getting tiny amounts. Is this normal?

Your milk most likely won't have come in yet - overnight on day 3 is when mine has come in both times so hopefully you are nearly there! Just keep going, use breast compressions while expressing and make sure your technique is good - ask for a midwife to help if you are struggling. You need to be putting pressure on the area around the nipple, not the nipple itself. If you have your finger and thumb in a C shape and then push kind of backwards into your breast and then squeeze and massage out.

I had no luck with expressing ever despite successfully bf 2 children. Just doesn't work for some women and getting stressed about it makes it worse.

72 hours (3 days) after birth is 'normal' for milk coming in, after that it's classed as delayed, although you're doing the right thing by making sure your baby is being fed. Most women it'll come in by day 5 if not too badly delayed.

Is there a reason for it being delayed other than baby not being able to latch effectively? Mine was delayed by a difficult birth a slight haemorrhage (didn't come in until 8 weeks) and a CS meant a friend's milk didn't come in until six weeks.

This is totally normal at this stage! Please give the NCT Feeding Line a call - 0300 330 0700 - it’s staffed 8am-midnight every day and the wonderful breastfeeding counsellors will be able to listen and advise. Or get yourself to some proper breastfeeding support - either an IBCLC or BFC. Unfortunately midwives aren’t always the most helpful/knowledgeable. The best thing you can be doing at the moment is putting her to the breast as much as humanly possible - is there a reason she’s not latching/sucking?

Also my DD wouldn't latch for six weeks. No reason was ever found except her mouth was very small. It was super stressful in those early days trying to get her to latch and no one understanding that she wasn't able, so midwives were trying to jam my breast in her mouth and DD was getting hysterical. It wasn't until I paid for a lactation consultant who said she just couldn't do it and had to grow and to just keep trying, which was correct as she latched on at six weeks and I then fed her for a year. Until she could latch I pumped for her and she had EBM in a bottle.

So if you're struggling, don't stress. Keep trying to latch her but stop when you or her are getting stressed or upset. I wish I'd been kinder to myself in those early days. It's so frustrating when you have a non-latching baby. No one else in our antenatal group had the same issue, and it felt like we were alone! In contrast, DD2 latched on before we were even out of theatre!

I wouldn't have been able to hand express anything much on day 3. I would have been able to get a little bit with a pump but hand expressing never worked well for me.

Have you tried lying down with baby next to you to try and get her latched on? I found that most comfortable when baby was tiny.

As others had suggested phone a breastfeeding support group. They may be able to arrange to visit you yo help.

If you're not expressing much and baby isn't latching on yet, then I'd go ahead and pump to stimulate the supply.

Congratulations on the arrival of baby. It does get easier.

My milk came in day 3/4 - and yes, it starts by the thick yellow colostrum turning more watery and white. So that's a good sign! You might very well wake up tomorrow to a Dolly Parton situation.

The issue is more that you say your baby isn't latching. Can you get help from a midwife, HV, or lactation consultant?

You can pump whenever you want. But if you don't get much you won't be able to collect any since it'll all be in the pump. On the other hand some women are much better at pumping than hand expressing or vice versa. If you want to try it's fine, just don't get disheartened/stressed if it doesn't work yet.

I have ebf for almost 10 months and never ever managed to hand express any colostrum, so that sounds fine to me

This gatekeeping of the pump sounds supremely unhelpful TBH.

What is your goal from expressing? Is it to get milk to feed your baby or is it to stimulate supply? Obviously ideally it would do both but if you have to prioritise one, which would it be?

The reason is if you're producing small amounts then it's pointless using a pump to collect it as it will all get stuck in the pump mechanism and dry up before you can hoover it with a syringe. Hand expressing is more effective in terms of collecting and not wasting any.

OTOH most women find it tricky to get much stimulation from hand expressing and find that the mechanical nature of the pump is much more stimulating. Therefore pumping may be better for stimulating milk, it's just hard to collect anything you produce and tends to feel a bit pointless (it's not, as it's all adding up, telling your body the demand is there).

WRT amounts it's not really a "should" type of thing, some women are really responsive to a pump or hand expression and produce loads that way, others are barely able to get a drop (me) yet manage to breastfeed perfectly fine, pumping is really not an indicator of supply, or at least, a lack of pumping output does not mean that you have no supply.

I found it helpful to paced feed formula so that baby wasn't having mountains and mountains of it just because it was there and I felt I'd never keep up.

Congratulations on your baby.
Just wanted to say I've never been able to hand express but I was able to successfully pump (small anounts) when she was a newborn as she wasn't gaining weight. I had issues with the latch, helped a bit by nipple shields but she just had to learn to do it.
I guess my point is don't let that midwife make you think you can't breastfeed just because you can't hand express. I was absolutely fed up of them showing me a knitted boob and saying 'just squeeze like this' and giving me a head tilt and no help when I said nothing was coming out.