Lack of letdown when expressing - please help!

[Rhian82]

We've been giving DS (seven months) an occasional bottle since he was six weeks old, and I've never had much trouble expressing plenty of milk for this, though I suppose the amount I've got has very gradually gone down over time. However recently, I've just got less and less and now I can't seem to get a letdown when expressing. I get a little bit that's just squeezed out, but not that gush you get from a letdown that fills most of the bottle!

I work three days a week and it's a constant struggle to get enough milk to give to the nursery. If it carries on like this I'll have to let them give him formula, which I really really don't want to do. Does anyone have any hints for improving my expressing, please??

I had a slide show of reaaaally cute pictures of DD on PC/laptop at work that helped....

Is she weaning? Chances are you supply has settled tp her lesser needs?

Usually stress-related - you need to relax which I know is easier said than done. Don't concentrate on it - watch TV or do something else while you're expressing to take your mind off it.

What pump are you using?

I'm using a Tommee Tippee hand pump - it's always been fine before. When DS was born he wouldn't latch so I was expressing every three hours round the clock for a week and it coped fine with that!

I do normally read or watch TV while I do it (except at work) but now I start worrying that not concentrating (or thinking about DS) is making it worse. And looking at pics or picturing him there feeding doesn't seem to help. I think the stress thing may be a big factor though!

He is weaning now, but on nursery days he has milk feeds at 5am, 8am and 7pm, and bottles of 150ml at 11am and 3pm (on non-nursery days I just breastfeed him at these times). I can't imagine giving him less than 300ml to get through the day without me? And we've cut out night feeds now, so I really don't want to get into a reverse cycle thing where he needs to feed more off me in the night.