How do i know if my baby is getting the hindmilk?

[lollyheart]

Can someone please tell me what colour the hind milk is, is it thick yellow stuff? if it is ds2 never seems to get to it so i am abit worried.

no it is not thick and yellow, it does not look that different, maybe more whole milk than skimmed IYSWIM.

what makes you think he is not getting it? If you are demand feeding and don't randomly take him off your breast he should get it.

Thankyou madmouse

I now know that he is getting it, when i express sometimes i get thick yellow milk but not all the time for some reason i thought that was the hindmilk

Ah see they did serious damage when they made people aware of this hindmilk stuff

hindmilk and foremilk dont suddenly change at any time; I am trying to remember tha analgy used here- its like a hot tap; when you turn it on you get cold and it gradually goes to warm: hindmilk is like that.

If you feed your baby pn both sides until they are satisfied an they are gaining weight then you are doing a good job.

Babies needs and milk vary anyhow- your body makes what they need and that can vary by temperature and stuff so dont expect the same everytime and hhave faith in your body

If it wasnt for mumsnet i would of given up bf a long time ago but 8 weeks down the line things are getting better

Search on here for hindmilk and tiktok. You'll find loads of reassurance about the foremilk / hindmilk thing.

by tiktok may 1oth 2006

There is so much confusion about foremilk and hindmilk and the way it is described in certain baby books only adds to the misunderstanding. The breast does not make two different types of milk. It is all one. The creamier part and the watery part separate a bit - the watery part tends to trickle down the ducts, and the creamier part sticks to the storage cells in the breast. When the baby starts to suck the let-down pushes the creamier parts down the ducts, and yes, this gets mixed with the watery parts in the ducts already. A mother with a responsive let-down and a baby who sucks and swallows efficiently work together well, and the baby just gets what he needs in the time he needs to get it. It is ludicrous to tell mothers they have to have their babies on for a certain number of minutes otherwise the baby won't get 'the hindmilk'. Gina Ford says this and it drives me nuts - as if every mother and baby were the same, and behaved in the same way and had the same physiology. There is no 'the' hindmilk and no 'the' foremilk. It's all just milk; the emptier the breast, the creamier the milk, and the fuller the breast, the more watery the milk...this is why babies left to themselves regulate their own intake and why at least one study has shown that they all get more or less the same amount of calories, even if their feeding length and frequency has been very different. There's a good explanation here \link{http://www.kellymom.com/bf/supply/foremilk-hindmilk.html\at kellymom They use an analogy of a hot water tap - turn it on and the first water you get is not usually hot because it has been at the end of the pipe for a while and has cooled. As the water runs, it gets hotter as the hot water from the tank comes up the pipe. If you turn on the tap again after just a few moments, then the initial water you get out will be warm....leave it an hour and it will be cold. The analogy doesn't really hold for the emptiness/fullness bit, though.

The difference in colour is due to the fat content & people do tend to use the expression foremilk for the more-sugary milk with less fat content which appears thin & almost bluey in comparison to yellower milk which will have more fat in it. Usually if you express you will have a mix of the two & of course it will be all mixed up when you shake the bottle so will probably just look white until settled out.
You can make sure babe gets the hindmilk (or fattier milk) by making sure she stays on one side long enough, usually stated as stay on until the breast is emptied. Towards the end of the feed you can use breast compression to encourage further flow of any remaining milk which is likely to be the fattier hindmilk (altho of course the breast never empties as such). The kellymom website has a link to a video of breast compression to explain it - just search for breast compression.