would you be prepared to try some manual stimulation ?- thye say it is very effective. it incresded my supply.
they do say that nothing stimulates supply, like a baby themselves. thats why they advocate putting baby onto the breast as much as poss. and they do say that pumping alone will not keep supply going.
but this method, is highly regarded, to actually stimulate supply 'MORE'/ further.
this method is a REAL kerfuffle. BUT, you only need to do it twice. Say once, when you are relaxed, have a bit of time( yeah, like when does that happen), say evening, 8pm. Then again the next day, say mid morning, or mid afternoon.
It may take a day or so, to see results, but generally the results are VERY significant, thus worth it.
It is basically manually expressing. Have you manually expressed before ? If not I will try and explain it in simplistic terms.
You will need a tiny cup, or small bottle, to catch any drops of milk. You will get some. Becasue basically it is a method of manually expressing, so you are supposed to get some milk.
It is based on treating the nipple like segments of an orange, and each segment gets stimulated.
Or think of the nipple like a clock. and you go around stimulating each, 5 mintes.
So, use your thumb and forefinger. put thumb on top of areola, where the brown part meets the pink of your breast. put it there at the number 12 on a clock. Now place your forefinger on the bottom half of your areola, where the outer part of your brown nipple, meets the pink part of your breast. Put the forefinger there, on the number 6. Now squeeze gently. and hold for the count of 2. release and do it agian. do it for as many times as you can be bothered, ideally 20.
Then you move round the clock, Thumb on number 11, finger on number 5.
so you do 6 o'clock, 5 to 5, 10 to 4, quarter to 3, you may like to change hands here and use the other hand, or swap thumb and forfinger.And you work your way round, all of the clock, as it were.
On some of the squeezes you will get drops of milk. on others you get nothing.do not fret.
It does take a bit of time. and it is a total pain. but it is very very effective.
Claire kedves who is the breast feeding expert at Kings College hospital, and nationally recognised figure, gave me this advice, amongst other helpful hints.said to manuaaly stimulate and then to use an lectric pump, for a few minutes.
she says that if you do it twice, you will notice a signiciant difference within 24 hrs.
I think your exepctation of it taking a couple of weeks is more tha n reasonable.
HTH