how do i express more

[ellliebelle]

DD2 is now 17 weeks and ebf. I will be away from her for 8 days when she is 25 weeks old.

My plan is to have enough expressed milk in the freezer for her and to carry on bf when i return.

Have had a look on kellymom and found that on average bf babies take 25oz a day with a high average of 30oz. On these guidelines I have enough for 3 days so far so still have quite a way to go.

I manage to express 2-3 oz a time but at the moment im only finding it possible to fit in one lot of expressing a day.

DD feeds aprox every 2 hours from around 5 in the morning every half hour ish from 5.30pm till 7.30 then sleeps till 5.30 I express just before i go to bed.

any tips on when else i could express or how to express more milk at a time would be greatly appreciated, im feeling quite stressed about this.

I always found I got more if I expressed whilst feeding DD. Also found I got more from a manual pump for some reason.
Hope that helps and good luck x

thanks notsotiny I will give it a go I have a double electric at the minute, have borrowed a manual from a friend but need to get a bottle to go with it.

Does anyone know if i could express at the same time as feeding every time i feed her? is this likely to impact on the amount of milk she is able to get?

im guessing i wouldnt be likely to express much each time if i did this but even 1/2 oz would be worth it

Have you tried any methods to increase supply? I found eating oats (porridge or muesli) or drinking (alcohol free) beer helped my supply.

I think there are other things you can also take (milk thistle? raspberry leaf tea). Kellymom website has a list of things you can try.

I'm afraid the best time is around 2am. When I exclusively expressed for ds he would sleep through and I'd set an alarm for 2 in the morning and express!

You could try expressing after every feed to see if you can get a few more drops out. Hopefully the extra stimulation should encourage your suuply to increase after afew days.

Alternatively, while you are away, is there anyway of getting expressed milk back to your baby then? Presumably you will hve to express while away?

Excuse typos.

Agree with Picante I'm afraid! I used to get loads off if I woke up about midnight through to early hours and expressed. It also helped to up my supply a bit too.

Probably not what you want to hear, but I only ever got a couple - three ounces during the day when DS was feeding quite a bit. A bit of rest seemed to work wonders and I started getting 5-6 oz off in the early hours.

Good luck.