Foremilk/hindmilk question - how would I know if there was an inbalance?

[Babyisaac]

The reason I ask this is for the past 5 days my DS (13 weeks) has been having bright green mucusy (not frothy) nappies. He used to have one very yellow nappy about every 4 days and now he fills his nappy with bright green sticky stuff after every feed.

He doesn't have a bug and I haven't changed my diet so the only thing I can come up with is the whole "too much foremilk" thing. However, he last 3 hours between feeds - my question is, if he had too much foremilk wouldn't this mean he wasn't properly full of the filling stuff and would need to feed more frequently?

Not sure if it helps but I was told by a b/f counsellor that their suckling changes when the hind milk kicks in. My DD used to knead my breast and it looks like they're generally working harder. Have you noticed anything like this?!

I used to have exactly the same with my DD and was told that the reason her nappies were so bad was because she was getting too much foremilk. I then tried expressing off the foremilk before feeding her so that she filled herself up with the hindmilk and this made a massive difference. Have you tried this yet?

SM, no I haven't tried expressing this off. How do you know when you've got all the foremilk off?

Also I wanted to say that I feed for as long as he'll let me on one side. When he comes off, I keep trying him back on that side until he finally refuses, at which point I put him on the other side. I know you shouldn't time things, but I never let him stay on for less than 10 minutes.

The foremilk was far more watery than the hind milk. I used to try and express until I felt I wasn't engorged and DD could latch on. I wouldn't express off all fore milk as this quenches their thirst. I'm not explaining the very well, sorry. Sleep deprived from DD and her chickenpox. Hope things improve for you.

Hi Babyisaac, I've a baby Isaac too who's now 6.5 months but when he was younger I also had an oversupply of foremilk. I tried one-sided feeding, where you just feed your DC from one side for a set period of time, I did 6 hours at a time. It meant that he was getting foremilk, but then if he wanted to feed again in that 6 hour time period, I would put him back on the same side, so that he would get more of the hindmilk.

Sorry if I haven't explained that very well, if you search you can probably find some more threads that describe it better.

Thanks Weeglenny - hi to your baby Isaac

This does make sense - I'll give it a go. However, and this typically happens after I start a thread here lol, he has started to be more obliging today and has stayed longer on the first side and seems to be getting more hindmilk. Also, his nappies are back to yellow poo so it was either just one of those things or there was indeed a foremilk problem.

THere is no such thing as separate fore and hind milk. You cannot express off fore milk to get to the hind milk. Just feed as you are.

It's like a tap going from cold getting hotter. Lots of myths about the whole thing.

explains it here better than I can