Help, my milk has dried up

[MrsExton]

Hi, just looking for some advice. My DS is 10 weeks old and after a bumpy start with problems latching and colic I have been exclusively BF'ing with my husband giving one EBM feed at 10pm. It has been fine since about week 4 onwards
I have been feeling pretty bad with anxiety/PND symptoms and my husband has been giving more feeds to the little one over the last week, he has had formula about 1-2 times a day so I could get some sleep. My head is in a much better place now but when I was expressing last night it took me 40 mins to get 120 mls, it used to take only about 15mins.
I feel like a total idiot as I hadn't thought about the effect it would have on my supply and did not express the appropriate number of times to match DS's feeds. I can't believe I was so stupid.
Last night I expressed at 10pm, 2.30am and 5.30am then fed him at 7am to 8, then on and off all morning and lunchtime until nips exhausted! His latch is good and I feel his positioning etc is ok, I think the main problem is the decrease in the feeds I had been doing myself.
We have had lots of skin to skin today and I know I will just have to bite the bullet and get on with the extra feeds, can anyone tell me if there is anything else I should be doing?
So depressed and full of regret, what a complete fool

MrsExton - sounds very possible you are experiencing a drop in supply, rather than drying up and for the reasons you outline...good news is that this can be rescued Your expressing 'yeild' may have dropped partly because it is always hard to keep up a generous production for the pump with established bf (there is a thread on this very thing today).

If he is happy just chillin' skin to skin with you, then of course keep that up. If he is feeding effectively and frequently, then this, together with whatever frequency you can express with, should be fine to bring your supply back very quickly, in a matter of a few days or so.

Hope this helps. YOu can also get support from any of the bf helplines.

I don't think you sound like a fool at all - you sound like you're really dedicated and doing really well with all the expressing. It may reassure you that apparently babies are able to suck about 30ml more from each breast than you can get from expressing as their sucking is more effective so just because it's taking you longer to express doesn't necessarily mean that he isn't getting enough. Also, I think that feeding him (even if he is just sucking and there isn't much there and you have to top him up with a bottle) is more likely to increase your supply than expressing. As I understand it it only takes max 48hrs for your body to re-adjust supply if there is increased demand so I'm sure that it will sort itself out v soon for you.

I found early on that if I fed my ds on demand (which for him was almost constantly!) then my breasts never seemed to build up enough of a supply to satisfy him by the time he was hungry again and then I'd worry he wasn't getting enough. Now I try to make sure there is at least 2hrs between feeds and try to feed from 1 breast only at each feed so that the other one has longer to build up a good supply. I've been doing this since my ds was about 8wks and he's now 16wks and doing really well and there always seems to be plenty of milk.

I really hope that you get this sorted soon, don't give up trying, sounds like you're doing really well!

Tiktok, Lara27, thanks for your replies!
I just can't believe I forgot about the whole supply/demand thing, I guess I just need to knuckle down to some serious feeding.
Is it total suckling time or frequency of feeds that increases supply most?

Sorry Lara, I'm going to disagree a bit with your second paragraph. Just because your breasts don't feel full doesn't mean they aren't able to meet his supply. My breasts haven't full for a long time and DS2 is now nearly 20 weeks old and a chubby little cherub As our bodies adjust to the baby's demands they don't make the excess milk that they did at the start which is why we start to feel less full as the weeks go on but if the baby starts feeding more then they will make the extra that he needs. If you feed on demand, your body will adjust to what your baby needs. I personally wouldn't recommend trying to lengthen time between feeds - who wants a grumpy baby on their hands?! of course if your lo is happy with the arrangement then there's no need to change but I think Mrs Exton's best bet is to feed as often as her DS wants and her supply will soon adjust back to what it was.

Sorry - a bit rambley - NAK!