Expressing

[Dotty08]

Hey mamas

Gave birth to my DS four weeks ago. He was very poorly when born so has spent the last month in NICU and had to have heart surgery. We got home a few days ago.

Like a lot of nicu babies he was so poorly he couldn’t breast feed so I started expressing and was doing amazingly well with my milk supply - like 200mls each breast at times. Now I’m struggling to get 50mls already!

Has anyone else experienced this? It seems to have happened since I got home which I don’t get as I’m much less stressed now.

Any advice on how to get my milk back!? Ans Will it actually come back?

Thanks xxx

I'm no expert but my first thoughts are...

Are you sticking to the same expressing routine now hes making life very busy? Do you have the time to sit and do it properly.

Are you looking after yourself properly? Eating and drinking enough water? I know how easy it is to stop doing this when you have a baby to look after.

Maybe something to do with your hormones and missing him? Maybe the longing to be with him was making you make more milk? Now you have access to all the cuddles you want (never a bad thing).

Hi OP I pump and exclusively pumped the first 8 weeks with my prem baby. How much we express can vary hugely with our hormones and hydration, time of day etc. If you are also feeding directly then what you express has no bearing on what your baby gets from you as they are more efficient feeders than a pump. Look up this question on Kelly Mom website and also give the free NCT breastfeeding helpline a call for any breastfeeding questions at all. It is possible your supply is regulating to exactly what baby needs at the moment and if baby needs more will start cluster feeding for it. I was told breastfeeding is between our boobs and our babies and our minds just need to leave them to it

I do a mixture of pumping and direct breastfeeding and really get a variety of amounts per session. It doesn't seem to relate to when he's fed or when I've pumped last 🤷🏻‍♀️

I exclusively pumped for months with my 1st baby as he was prem and in NICU.

I ended up switching to a manual pump and got a lot more milk out than with my electric one.

You can also hire the hospital grade pumps which are better I think...