Fast milk flow - how best manage supply/feeding?

[Cyee]

Hi everyone,

New DD, new question on MN! Thanks for reading this and thanks especially if you can offer any wisdom on managing fast milk flow. I've found some great stuff in the archive (mobimum etc.) but not anything about how to manage this day to day in order to protect supply and keep my boobs comfortable. To explain just how fast it is, from a standing start I can express 1-2oz with a manual pump in about a minute.

Brief background: I BF fed DD1 for 7mo and it was great though I have really fast gushy milk supply which caused its challenges. Anyway, DD2 is now 8 days old and while I feel much more confident I am struggling to deal with her inability/unwillingness to feed on one side and I'm pretty sure it's because of fast milk flow. Before my milk came in she latched well on both sides. However now she won't latch 'properly' on the left (which I understand may be because the 'optimal' latch means she gets a right gush at the back of her throat) and will sort of lick/shallow latch for a while. I have experimented with expressing a little off the left before putting her on. This has had a variable impact.

So far I have mainly let her feed off the right (she's draining it in about 10-20 mins depending on the time between feeds) but I have required her to spend some time on the left, licking/sipping/shallow latching etc. She's not hurting me at all, but invariably she's getting fussy and so I'm putting her on the other side. I've tried all positions, rugby etc., again with varying degrees of success. I've also latched her on the right, let her suck for a while and then moved her across. No luck there either.

So (apologies for the essay background, but don't want to waste anyone's time!) I want to know:

• Have I got the wrong end of the stick entirely? Could there be another explanation?
• Are there any tips I haven't tried yet?
• Should I express and cup feed her from the left to use the milk?
• Should I express from the left at all?
• Ultimately, how can I protect my supply, while not walking around tipping over on one side with one spaniel's ear and another porno boob

Finally, the right breast is pretty fast as well, so she squeaks like a rusty gate when she's feeding. I can live with this one (looking forward to first public BF'ing since it sounds like she's being smothered!) but again any tips to help her out would be great

Any links, advice, tips would be VERY much appreciated. Thanks so much

Cyee

oh lordy, I'm still lmao at the spaniels ear vs porno boob bit
My milk flow was very fast with dc2 &3. number three used to sound like she was gargling / drowning... Have no idea if it was the best thing to do but I used to express a whole feed worth from the fastest boob earlier in the day when the 'pressure' was at its greatest, and store it for the evening as they all used to boob-binge (which i believe is more politely called cluster feeding) in the early evening, like they'd want to eat for pretty much three hours solid at a time in the eve. so I'd do a couple of normal feeds then they'd get the cup of expressed stuff from daddy, which meant he got to be an absolute expert with a doidy cup and had a nice snuggle with his baby. win-win imho. Is your supply always that fast, or does it vary through the day/night?

Ha! Funny but oh so true. I'm dressing to disguise the boob imbalance not the massive belly underneath.

Flow seems to be fast all the time, however it's hard to tell at the mo because I'd imagine it's partly affected by the fact that she's not feeding off that side regularly. It was the same with DD1. It's nice to feel bountiful and all that, but my poor DD1 often pulled off the breast to get an eyefull of spray since the boob was like the gift that kept on giving.

Thanks for your replies Love the Daddy/Doidy idea. Need to go and get some of those anyway. Thank you

we've got two spare doidy cups atm - as now dd's 4yo we haven't used them for a good while. I do believe we're in the same area email me if you want 'em?

and omg I remember that thing - baby gargles, drowns, pulls off, and milk squirts to the other side of the room and always always squirts the window or the DH I do wonder whether the expressing is the way to go til baby's a bit bigger and able to cope with the fast flow... it's a blessing when they get greedy older, but for a newborn it's a right mare. Whatever way you come up with, make sure it's good for you and babe and just hang in there cos you're doing a great job.

Thanks Gigglewitch - that's really kind but I immediately ordered some after reading your last post so they should hopefully be here tomorrow. I wonder is it the northern air that causes our outbursts?!

Anyone got any other thoughts/ideas? Thank you!

Some good stuff here on Kellymom

There are two things to look at. One is helping your baby to deal with the fast let down, and the other, which takes a bit longer, is to work on reducing the supply more in line with the demand.

HTH

have you tried different positions? My dd (8weeks now) sometimes does not like my right breast, lying in typical feeding positing. I then sit her down next to me on the sofa so she is more upright and she latches on fine. Looks a bit funny and is uncomfortable for me though...

ds2 had huge difficulty with my right breast a the flow was too fast for him.

the only way i could feed from that breast for the first 3/4 months was to lie back, either slighly or completely and let him lie on top of me, so he was effectively sucking upwards which seemed to ease the flow enough for him to cope with.

i'm the same - got 7oz this morning in about 5 minutes with a £14.95 job from boots! (tbh I had no idea it was this fast - I knew he always finished quickly but sheeesh!) DS has learned to gulp but often gets squirted. It makes nightfeeds a dream, as he is done and dusted in under ten minutes and public feeding was a bit of a nightmare at first but we've got te hang of it after persevering. He often chokes too! I've tried lying down but it still squirts all over the show. I like the sound of the cup too! I have been known to block feed (from same side for two or more feedings as its when boobs are really full that it comes out mega quick, like they were this morning. At first he had quite green stringy poos as he was getting a lot of the less fatty milk at the front, but the block feeding seems to have sorted that out, as has his ability to eat more! xx ruby.

I had this with ds, things that helped a bit were:

letting letdown run onto a muslin until flow had slowed & ds could cope.

Feeding sat up with me leaning back a bit so flow was against gravity & ds upright.

Block feeding (ie not swapping breasts each feed) to reduce milk production a bit. For me I ended up only swapping to a new breast after 8 hours on one side. Think you should talk to a bf councillor about it though so as not to impact on your supply.

This is great - thanks everybody.

Mawbroon, this link is great. I think I must have looked under flow yesterday and not let down.

Most of all I'm glad I'm not the only one in the spurty boob camp!

Me again - just by way of an update in case anyone finds this thread in future while in the grip of spurty madness

I mainly fed DD2 from her preferred side for the days following my post and eventually managed to get her on the other side a couple of times a day by expressing a small bit off, yanking nipple so she'd have more purchase (!) and constantly drying my boob and her face, again so she'd have more traction. Trying different positions helped too. In my case she mainly took the faster side in the evening before bed.

So not a major solution, but that side is holding its own for now and hopefully she'll get better at dealing with it as she gets bigger.

Thanks again for the advice