PLEASE help re: oversupply, block feeding and foamy poo

[Mmmango]

I'm a bit hesitant about posting this because I know so many people worry about having enough milk, but I'm having the opposite problem. Dd2 is 9 weeks, gaining weight well, I have loads and loads of milk. Her poo is often foamy and occasionally a bit green/ stringy, so following Kellymom I've been block feeding, gradually lengthening the amount of time she spends on each breast before changing sides. At this point I'm changing every 6 to 8 hours.

This isn't great, it's making my let-down ridiculously forceful when I do change sides, to the point where i'm worried about choking her, she gets distressed and I'm uncomfortable bf in public (or changing sides in public, at least). I also hate changing sides in the night, so leave it longer, so the letdown in the morning is even worse...

More to the point, i've been doing this for about 6 weeks and it's not working - her poo is still foamy often. What else can I do?

What is block feeding? And how often do you feed during the day?

Anyway I had similar problems with two from three of mine - I used to start feed, get to tingly let down stage and then remove baby for inital gush. My two girl both fed for ages at a time I would generally keep them on the same breast for all of a feed and if they came back for more within an hour or 1.5 hours roughly I would put them back to the same breast.

DS was a much quicker but more frequent and the problem wasn't so bad with him but again if he was looking again within a hour or so I would latch him back on the same breast.

It did settle down by around 3 months I think so hopefully you will find your supply calming down soon. Actually do you express at all? I found that in the morning I could feed from one boob and express the other for the freezer (easy getting 9 oz) which meant I at least started the 'even' if that makes sense.

Can you express for a couple of minutes first?

It will settle down. Try to get as much in the freezer as possible as you'll be glad of it later on.

Block feeding is just feeding from the same side over (and over and over) again. I'm not sure how often she feeds in a day - I feed on demand and am a bit dozy .She often has a few short feeds quite close together and then a long-ish stretch with nothing. But at the moment I'm feeding from one side all night, changing in the morning, then again mid afternoon - so even after a nap, say, I'll go back to the same side.

I'm expressing a bit but haven't made it regular because I don't want to increase my supply. Maybe it wouldn't anyway? Do you think expressing will help with the foamy poo, or just the mad let-down?

Hi i posted about this a couple of weeks ago as it was causing me to have sore nipples. The advice given to me seemed to work. I express a bit before a feed so my let down doesnt choke her. not too much but just until it calms down.

Also was told to press heal of had down and push nipple into breast of the breast i am not feeding off at the time (other poster described this much better)this has seemed to calm my let down down.

I have also invested in some breast shells which are doing a great job of collecting all the excess milk (i have a freezer drawer full )

Foamy poo is not an issue - it passes (ha!)

Look this will resolve itself. For the first two months at least I had super spurty boobs and was constantly mopping up excess milk. DD popped up to the 99th percentile and did prolific poos (foamy and liquid and frankly appalling) about six times a day during this period.

Buy some fleece material (nappy liner type) it's v cheap and make decent soft breastpads as absorbers. Let her feed as much as she likes but get a rubber band and swap wrists as you feed so you remember which side is next (I ended up with one megaboob and one normal sized one (normal - well 30J but you know what I mean).

Cheer up chuck, these are very small problems in the great scheme of thing. You are doing great.

Hi there - I posted about 5 weeks ago saying how depressed I was about my oversupply. My DD was 12 weeks old and I had all the problems you've described and my leaky boobs would regularly go through at least 4 nightshirts a night - breast pads just didn't do anything! I was convinced that by 12 weeks it would've sorted itself out, so figured I was stuck with this.
Then weirdly at around 14 weeks, it suddenly did sort itself out - I think that it helped that I became a lot stricter about feed times, so she didn't suck a bit, therefore stimulating production - but not take a full feed.
Anyway - I know what you're going through and hope it sorts itself out for you too!

You know, if foamy poo doesn't actually matter, then I'm more confused than ever. Had the same problem (non-problem?) with dd1 and the dr talked about lactose/ lactulose/ something intolerance and offered us special formula. I did the block feeding thing and that sorted it out, but not this time.

Anyway. Will change sides more often as that will definitely help with the "fountain of milk" issue.

Thanks all.

mmmango - I had to block feed with DD and found that if my 'block' was more than 4 hours it tended to just increase my supply. I also managed to express until let down happened then stoppped and let the pressure flow until it stopped then latched DD on. She was still getting a good feed but wasn't getting the full force of the letdown IYSWIM.