problems with expressing help!

[egc]

have been expressing successfully for past three weeks using medela electric pump whilst my very sore nipples healed! Have successfully managed to put edie back on (She is 6wks now) and persevere with breastfeeding however have tried to express so dad can also feed her late at night and have been unable to express any ideas why??

No advice egc but bumping this up for you.

If i remember babies feed a lot a six weeks they have a growth spurt with my babies this was a time when they seemed to be constantly feeding they feed more to step up milk supply and the milk supply needs to ajust so perhaps at the moment your baby is taking all the milk and theres not alot left to express perhaps get through this stage and start expressing in a couple of weeks

I would leave the expresing just now until you are sure Edie has mastered the art of feeding properly. Sore nipples is a sign she was not on properly and sucking a teat can confuse the issue.

If she is feeding painfree now, and you want to express, then aim to express a bit at a time. It is unlikely you will be able to get a whole feed in one go. Keep the milk in the fridge then freeze it as a batch when you get 4 oz.
When are you expressing? If it is after a feed then try inbetween feeds. I could never get anything out after a feed. Do you leak milk when feeding from the other side? You could catch that milk in a sterilised breast shell.

Expressing is a whole new learning curve!! I had to really play around to find the best time to express and found it worked best whilst feeding ie. baby on one side, expressing from other. Took some coordination, especially when trying to express left-handed with manual pump but you get let-down via baby and other side just goes anyway! Took AGES to build up to anything close to enough for a full feed but was worth it, kept adding drips at a time throughout the day!! Could leave whole pump in fridge but V cold when started pumping!!

Good luck

A similar sort of thing happened to me around this time. I was expressing milk after each feed to build up freezer supplies and so dad could feed ds. But....around this time it started to become difficult to express...I noticed that it was to do with my let-down reflex. No milk was coming out until I experienced it, probably due to ds getting bigger and taking more and more milk.

Instead of simply expressing milk (using hand-held pump)and taking it out, I was having to wait unil I experienced the let-down....which wasn't always when you want it to come. I know people say having your baby near you helps or photo's, but in my case it was all to do with stimulation of the nipple. Maybe you could try taking the pump off and playing with your nipple a little to see if it helps with the let-down reflex.

ds is now 4 months and I still express if I'm not going to be around to feed him, but each time I have to wait for the let-down. This sometimes takes up to half hour of nipple playing. It's not the easiest thing to do and it will take maybe a whole days worth of expressing after feeds to get 5oz or so. But I think the effort is worth it.

Good luck to you.

thanks for all the replies and advice successfully managed to express last night and again this morning after she fed from one side only hope to continue with this !