Is my milk drying up?

[estobi1]

I have breast fed my dd for the past 3 months and given her top ups if required or if I am in a rush (I have another dd aged 3 so sitting down for an hour to feed is not always possible).

My baby is a happy lovely little girl and this has worked well so far for both of us she is not hungry and I can manage my life. I have tried to give her as little formula as possible because I know that my body will only produce what is needed and I know that they often have a growth spurt at 3 months.

However, when my dd tries to latch on at the moment she can only feed for a couple of minutes before fussing like she has terrible wind. When I squeeze my breast to hand express there seems to be milk there but she continues to cry, drawing her knees up. I have tried giving her infacol before her feed and gripe water but it does not help much. After all winding attempts have failed I have then given her a bottle of formula as she is crying with hunger and she manages to drink 3 or 4 oz without throwing it up all over me. This has happened quite a lot over the past 3 days.

This leads me to think that my milk is drying up - is this right? Could it be that I am eating something that is making her windy? If I persist by offering a breast feed at every feed and drink lots of water is this likely to remedy itself? Any advice would be appreciated as I don't really want to stop feeding her yet but don't want my dd to be hungry (she is below 9th centile on growth charts).

One of the experts will be along, soon. I'm just throwing in my tuppence from what I've read, to get started.
From what I understand most women have bountiful milk until about 3-4 months along. This is hormone driven, a post-partum effect.
After about 3-4 months the milk supply becomes much more demand driven. So women cease to leak ridiculously, and may suspect the milk is drying up (like you do). The baby really has to tell your body to keep making the milk from this point on.
I don't know about the windy-ness, all of mine were farty all along (so would be normal here).
If you want to keep feeding I think you need to ditch the formula as much as possible, limit it to only specific amounts at specific times, and otherwise let her at your breast as much as she wants so that she can tell your body to start making more milk.

Good luck, however it goes.

estobi - hard to say what's happening from your post. Do give one of the bf helpines a call.

Top ups do have an effect on breastmilk supply and the effect is cumulative - it may be your breastmilk is reducing in response to that. On the other hand, your baby may just want more breastmilk because she needs to grow more. Either way , best response is to make more time and opportunity to breasteed more (without fightiing with her). Bfc on the helplines should be able to talk more about this.