oversupply and expressing - possible lactose overload - how do I avoid it???

[lovely74]

I have been expressing since my son was born, initially as we had difficulty with bf and once rexolved (at 8 weeks) so my husband can give the last feed of the day, and to get a supply for when I need to leave my baby (not often) I express 3 times a day and average 200ml. Sometimes my son will take this much is his night feed, sometimes much less. When I end up with an excess I freeze it.
My HV suggested he may be lactose intolerant as his poos are a little vinegary. I researched on the net and it loooks more likely to be oversupply so more foremilk and not enough hindmilk - he also gets fussy at the breast, is very gassy and feeds very frequently. Problem is, I want to carry on expressing so he can continue doing the last feed (after the initial problems I find bf stressfull and some relief that one feed is not my responsibilty, maybe sounds odd but it works for me) but I also want my baby to be happy and satisfied. Any suggestions? The amount that i express at each session really depends on time of day, hydration, tiredness etc.

lovely - highly, highly unlikely to be LI. This is vanishingly rare as a congenital condition. This is not diagnosed with vinegary poos, either. Some bf babies may have LI temporarily after a gastric upset, but you don't mention this.

Are you sometimes expressing 3 x day and fully bf him as well?

Then you are probably producing more than your baby needs - as you suspect.

Off to bed now, but will be back tomorrow

How old is your baby?

sorry,important information! He's 4 months / 19 weeks. I mentioned this to the childrens centre midwife this morning but she seemed to think I was worrying about my expressed milk being too full of foremilk so wasn't much help!

hi lovely,
i had something similar with my dd when she was 4 months old too. i started by following a routine of expressing one bottle per day so that dh could do the late / dream feed, and altho she was only taking about 4oz in a feed, i was pumping 8 - 9 oz. dont remember much about poo, but she seemed to be hungry a lot with intervals between feeds getting shorter (not enough hind milk), and when i did feed her she sometimes screamed in pain which was probably down to too much foremilk. so my first advice would be stop the expressing and let nature take its course, but if thats not possible, don't express any more than you absolutely have to. i stopped expressing and we were back on track within about a week. to my surprise i actually really enjoyed the late night / dream feed, as it turned out to be the most relaxed and cuddly feed of the day .

Thanks for that. It's really frustrating as I was really pleased at how much I could express as it means I have a good stock in the freezer - rarely used - and no worries if I need to go out for a few hours. But it seems it's not really something to be pleased about!
Yes he is exclusively bf bar that last feed of the day of ebm.
Has anyone any advice on how to express successfuly for occasions ie if I am going out for the evening and need a few feeds put away? I'd much rather he has recently expressed milk than my frozen stuff?

i wonder if it would help if you were to express enough for a bottle just once a day, just as if it were another feed. i.e. instead of little amounts throughout the day, just once. i used to do it at around 9pm, so could still go to bed earlier than if i had to do the late feed at 1.30 / 11pm. i think this would have worked for me if i had only expressed the amount needed. good luck, its great that you want to find a way to make it work (hope that doesnt sound too patronisning!)

notnigella that does make sense but as I'm sure you know the amount you get at each session varies really wildly and if my baby decideds he wants a 200ml feed it's unlikely I would have got that all out in one in one session. equally he could only want 80ml so I accidently express too much. My husband only does feeds up to about midnight and I don't feed with a bottle (to use up any excess) as he associates me with the breast and has had a "bottle strike" recently so I don't want to exacerbate that problem again.

I'm posting again to try and get TikTocks attention!! I've now cur down my expressing sessions to twice daily and am getting pretty much what my baby will take (slthough last night he wanted more). I've decided to carry on exp as I'm fighting to get him to nap during the day - which he needs to do to sleep slightly better at night, so want my husband to do the bedtime routine so if there's a fight then it's a shared responsibility. The other difficulty I'm experiencing at the moment is my baby is not indicating he needs feeding in the daytime as much and doesn't seem to want to eat as much as before. He's still waking up loads at night (last night 2 hrs after having over 200ml ebm). I think he may be teeting so has his appetite reduced? I'm now beginning to worry about my supply reducing too much!