Expressing and need to start breastfeeding soon any advice please?

[Secondbaby23]

My baby boy was born at 29+1 and is currently in neonatal. I am expressing milk for him as he's been feb through a tube. My concern in I am not producing enough milk. I have tried every 2-3 hours and only get 20/30ml from both sides in total. Tried expressing every 4hours and I am getting between 70 and 80ml in total from both sides, this amount has stayed the same for the past couple of weeks. My baby will be 4weeks old this week and in a couple of weeks they want me to try and breastfeed him before he can come home. I'm worried I won't produce enough milk to breastfeed him as the amount is just staying the same. Spoke to people at the hospital and they just said to do it every 2/3 hours but when I do that I am getting less :( any advice please

sorry to hear he came so early, hope he’s doing well.

The stress of the whole thing probably won’t be helping either. I exclusively pump (give a bit of formula before bed too) but had no idea about it all before starting this. Pumping is much more popular in America it seems so most videos and articles are from there. I looked into power pumping at one point. It’s meant to really help. You do your normal 15-20 minutes then take the pump off for a short break then put it back on again for another 10 minutes or something and do it twice. The actual timings are on lots of the articles about it but you can do that once per day and after a couple of days it’s meant to boost your supply. It replicates cluster feeding so your body will think the baby needs more

Hes doing great thankyou. Yes the stress does not help I just want to try my best to be able to continue breastfeeding when he comes home

You poor thing, what a challenge!

Hand expressing sometimes gets more than a pump, so you can warm up your breasts (shower or a warm flannel) then hand express (google can explain it better than me!)

eat and drink LOADS - my midwife told me that’s a good way to get supply up

but your baby will be more efficient than a pump, so relax and look forward to spending lots of time cuddling and watching films with him feeding to get your supply up

One suggestion when I was in a similar position was to look at pictures of your baby whilst you're expressing, supposed to help with the oxytocin and let down. Also even if you don't get much out, the action of expressing is part of the feedback cycle to signal to your body to produce more milk next time.

I had to supplement with formula for a while whilst baby got the hang of latching and built up stamina for directly breastfeeding. Not using a free flow nipple on any bottles helped for us, so using a nipple where suction was needed to get milk (we used the Medela Calma ones, don't know if they're still around but there are probably similar available).

I did try hand expressing while I was still in the hospital but I was getting so stressed and upset because I wasn't getting a thing so thought I would try a pump. Will definitely try the pictures as I usually express after having a cuddle with him at hospital as was told that will help

Babies are extremely efficient at extracting milk. It can take a few days for them to get the hang of it though. I really struggled to express with my first, I got more with my second but still not enough really.
I found the Hakka type pumps good which collects let down on the side you are not feeding and a warm bath helps as well.

Expressing is not as efficient as breastfeeding. So don't worry about the quantities. Once you start breastfeeding your baby will get far more milk out of you.

My baby wasn't as prem as yours. But. At 34 weeks snd we started bf at 36 weeks. It only took a couple of days to switch completely to breast feeding.

Please don't stress you are doing great.

Sit back, don't be hunched and anxious. Have a picture of him and something that smells of him. Deep breaths, think nice thoughts of flowing and happy times. Sounds naff but it might help!

I didnt breastfeed with my first baby so all this is new to me. Appreciate the advice just hope something works for us

Keep doing what you’re doing, you’re doing an amazing job!! You will already be doing lots of these but I’m going to brain dump.

have a look at lactogenic foods and adapt your diet, drink LOTS.

pump 8-12 times a day, doesn’t matter if some expressing times you get less, keep pumping frequently.

once at night between 12-1am ish then get a good chunk of sleep.

LOTS of skin to skin, making memories, handprints footprints, pictures, videos you can look back on when you’re expressing at home.

seek advice from your GP about them px some domperidone for a few weeks to give your supply a boost. Or if they say no/contraindicated have a look if fenugreek is suitable for you.

it’s hard not to focus on quantity but this dip in supply is temporary and you will be able to feed him.

what’s his corrected gestation? Is he far off attempting to latch xx