4 months of breastfeeding - supply suddenly dropped. 6 days later, still not working...help please.

[Jackaroo]

My third period in 6 weeks arrived on Monday, and explained to some extent why my milk supply seemed to be dropping over the weekend.

The first 2 were insignificant whereas this was a "proper" one.

By monday I was feeding DS every 1.5 hours, and trying everything I could think of:

• fennel tea
• fenugreek
• domperidone (although it's prescription here and GP only wants me to take 1-2 tabs a day, and I've only 25 of them...I had to press to get those)
• upped protein
• calcium and mg (apparently impacts on af hormones/impt)
• a little extra rest (also have 4yr old)
• lots of extra liquids (did that anyway)

can't think what else.

Anyway, here we are on Thursday morning my time, and it's a struggle. He's still hungry all the time, I've had two points where he got a good feed and then didn't seem to want anything for hours, but I fed him after 3 anyway....

What do you think?

in case it's not clear from the above I do NOT want to supplement/ff. Only advice from GP and m/w now is to do so.

Cheers

J

PS no one else is worrying because he's so big - doubled birth weight in 2.5 months, and is now 8kilos (17-18lbs ish?) but he had already started to "even out" and put on at a slower rate, which was fine, but anyway.. I'll shut up now!

First of all well done for getting to four months. You are doing really great and will continue to do so.

At four months your boobs get used to producing milk and may seem flatter emptier but they are still producing enough milk. However your son is probably going through his four month growth spurt and this means he wants to up your supply by frankly, being a hungry, latchy little milk monster.

Don't worry. Feed him as much as you can.

He may also be teething and finding it sore to suckle. Try some teething gel before feeds.

This will pass.

It may be a growth spurt? Keep doing what you're doing. The fact that he's had good feeds is very encouraging. Periods always affected my supply slightly but only for a day or two. It's still early days.

So you think this is a coincidence? Mm, good. Having said that m/w, who I trust on other things btw, has said in the past that if a growth spurt type feeding pattern goes on for more than a couple of days it's that htey've got used to the extra nipple time - and to start stretchign them out. not that I would, if he seems hungry he's fed, but that doesn't fit with you saying "early days yet"? How long can a growth spurt take do you think?

Also, when boobs get to the flattened stage :-) does it happen that dramatically, over night? I don't remember it ever happening with DS1 (fed for 13 months)

Oh I so empathise, mine hit 4 weeks on Monday and it's killing me. I'm already on max dose of domperidone as I have low supply to start off with, so not much I can do other than keep feeding. I also supplement with breast milk, but am having to dig into freezer stash now...

Anyway, the perhaps not-very-helpful point I was going to make is that 1-2 tabs of dom are going to do you precisely no good at all. You need to take probably 80mg to see any difference. If you think you might need them, prob need to get some now from inhousepharmacy.co.uk (or .com I think) so that you can take more. Or send your mum/dh/friend each into the chemist to get their own OTC pack and start taking more that way.

HOpe this passes quickly for you.

Thalia, that's actually very useful, I hadn't looked up/remembered teh required dose.Unfortunately I'm in Oz, and if they send drugs through the mail, they'll just get stopped! I should think...I'll check. This is the first time I've been online this week, but will look up the protocol and try and persuade GP to prescribe some more...

Cheers,

J

Can't fully reply but I had this and simply didn't for whatever reason have enough milk so went to doc's and got the domperidone too.

I was on 4 X 3 a day and dropped after a few weeks to a level which keeps my supply up so TELL him in no uncertain terms that you want this drug. It's very benign and easy and saved my bf career! If he won't prescribe for whatever reason, get another doc.

Funny how some docs are much more helpful than others. 1 - 2 is going to do fuck all, to be frank. You don't take as many as the people who take it for their gut problems do - you have to up it.

Good luck!

The flatness thing - yes I didn't get it with DD either, only with DS (weird!)

I found the four month growth spurt lasted three sodding weeks and nearly killed me. Hopefully you are already in week two or you wouldn't be worrying so much. In which case wait a week and I bet things change.

I think growth spurts used to mess up our feeding routine for at least a week or two! It always settles back down though in the end, IME.

thanks so much, really supportive and helpful. Shall persevere and also go and see other gp, web print outs in hand!

J