Producing loads of milk - do I need to mix fore and hind milks?

[Initio]

Hi everyone - hope you can help

I'm able to express a lot of milk from my ginormo left breast in the morning - about 500mls.

My son is 6 weeks and I give him bottles of about 150ml at a time as there is no way he can handle all that milk at once.

I use the Advent Via cups, so the expressed breast milk is split into three cups, the first cup is clearly foremilk, very watery. The second a mix and the third very creamy.

Should I be mixing all the produced milk together so it's consistent, or should I give him the order it comes?

Thanks!

No, don't worry too much about it - just give it in the order it comes. If you have expressed more than one time and mix them together then it effectively shortens the life of it as you can only keep it as long as the oldest batch would have kept (if that makes sense)

Is he totally bottlefed with expressed milk or do you do any feeds at the breast as well?

Thanks BertieBotts! Yep I know what you mean. This milk is all expressed in one session over about 20 mins, so there wouldn't be much in it in terms of time.

He's totally bottlefed with expressed milk, breastfeeding didnt happen for us unfortunately.

Blimey, I can only dream of expressing 500ml! Sorry to hear about your breastfeeding difficulties. I expressed all feeds for my dd for 3 months and know how hard it is.

Just a random point, are you building up a massive stash of breastmilk, or is it just that you're only pumping a couple of times a day?

As I undestand it, for long term supply (if that's what you want) you are better off pumping frequently, so you might want to think about pumping slightly lower quantities more often (i.e. stop when you have enough for a feed, or when you're comfortable if that's more). If you're getting this much every few hours you may have an over-supply issue (I did in the early days) and might be stimulating it to keep up that level by pumping off 500mls each time.

Just a thought. Happy to be corrected by others if I'm wrong.

ChunkyChick - Thanks! It's good to know I'm not the only person who's find this tiring - it's a proper mission isn't it! I've told myself I'll go for a year (!) but I'm taking it day by day.

Confused - I express about 8 times (so 4 on each breast) every 24 hours, but do leave it to build between say 10pm and 8am. I just can't face doing it at night. I dont get 500mls every time no, 250ml from that breast at other times, 150 from the other.

Just wondering - are you only pumping, and not breastfeeding? If so, why?

Hi,

I am just wanting to say I am so impressed and wish I could get 500mls! I did the same for DS (now 3) and never regretted it. I can bf DD (15 wks) now but mostly for comfort as she loses weight on just directly bfing, so ended up expressing for her mostly as was having to spend 45 mins bfing and still expressed after. I can get 300ml total on a morning if I am very lucky and slept in!

Good luck with the expressing .

You need to look at the nappy contents. The watery looking milk is the foremilk and that is thristquenching. The creamy looking stuff is the hindmilk and that contains more nutrition and a good supply of this provides the so called "seedy" nappies. Too much foremilk can give frothy and greenish nappies.

Pumping at night would increase your supply due to the cyclical nature of the lactation hormones.