Is it possible to get your milk back when only pumping a few drops

[carly190117]

Hi, my 3 week old son has tongue tie so I have been unable to breast feed. We are waiting for an appointment at the hospital to get this seen to, in the meantime he has been on formula and the breast milk I have been able to express but it has slowly reduced and I haven't been able to pump very often between feeding him every 2-3 hours by the time I get round to expressing he wakes for his next feed and I've had to choose between sleep and expressing.
I haven't been able to express anything the last few days and felt that I had to give up on the possibility of breastfeeding but thins morning I was able to get a few drops out by hand. Is it worth me carrying on with expressing again to try build the milk supply up again or am I too late?

It is a specialist subject. I would suggest you contact the LLL

www.laleche.org.uk

As PP says do get proper advice but if it helps some friends of mine had issues with supply and I had trouble expressing with a pump but we all found the supply increased in time and my DS got better at feeding, although he didn't have tongue tie - my friend's son did and they got around the problems.

If you want to keep going then I hope you get some helpful tips, if you don't then don't stress about going to formula either.

Thank you for you advice I will look into this

Hi Carly - it's possible but hard work, you have to express either by hand or pump every 2-3 hours including at night.

Look at Jack Newman's site, there is a way of relactating by feeding baby at the breast using a lactation aid to give formula rather than a bottle.

Your baby is only 3 weeks old and if the tongue tie is corrected it may be possible to get back to exclusive breast feeding.

I did this with my baby and by 16 weeks ditched the bottle but honestly it damn near killed me.

Wish you best of luck x

Please don't assume your pumping has any relation to milk supply. I also had a tongue tie baby and I pumped...with a hospital grade pump and got barely anything. But when I fed him myself he was fine. I just kept bf and eventually stopped pumping.

If you want to bf can you keep putting him to the breast ? Is it very painful or can he not latch on at all?

I paid a lactation consultant to help me use different positions and keep the baby latched on. I also stopped feeding on one side . One side seemed easier than the other for my baby to latch on to.

Have uou been to bf support groups ? Don't give up just because of the pumping as thst is no reflection on your supply.