My non-existent breastmilk

[Quinkong]

I gave birth 6 weeks ago. I was a whole milk factory for the first week or so, with the bed being soaked in the middle of the night, first time mum, so had no experience.

Anyway, about 3wks ago, I noticed my milk production levels had drastically gone down. Baby boy was more interested in bottle than my boobies, so I mostly expressed and would get a good 50ml from each breast on a good pump hour but I realised I was then getting less than 20ml until I barely got anything anymore.

Honestly, it's made me feel shitty cos I never thought I would formula feed and wanted to just breastfeed but life has thrown itself in my face.

I'm wondering if anyone has any advice on how to get back to being a milk factory again.

Put baby to the breast as much as you can, especially at night. Express if you can as well.

Also any bottle feeds should be paced feeding with a teat that isn't free flow, that needs a breastfeeding type action to get milk.

Your supply regulates itself at around six weeks. That’s why you’ll stop leaking. It tunes in to what your baby needs. Pumping isn’t an indication of how much milk you’re producing. Babies are much more effective at getting milk out than a pump. It doesn’t sound like there’s any issue with supply. It’s normal for babies to show a bottle preference especially when it’s offered regularly because bottles have a faster flow, it’s just easier for them. I would agree with previous poster. Keep putting baby to breast, indication of supply is wet and dirty nappies and steady weight gain not what you can pump. I’d reduce bottle feeds if your baby is showing a preference and you want to continue breastfeeding because pumping is a faff and most people don’t get as much out. I could never get anything at all with a pump after my supply regulated but breastfed for a year with excellent weight gain. If you want to continue adding a bottle pace feeding can help slow the flow down which might help with baby preferring bottle.

Fed baby is happy baby.

At 6 weeks it's a common time for your supply to regulate, so in effect the time baby spends at the breast will determine the amount of milk you're stimulating your breasts to make.
If you want your supply to rise, as a PP said, the best thing to do is maximise the time baby is at the breast, and reduce bottle use if you can.
This is said without prejudice for bottle or formula feeding ❤️

it sounds like a number of factors.

expressing doesn't stimulate your supply in the same way bf does. So every time you give a bottle instead of bf you reduce your supply.

babies often find bottles more immediate and easier. So they don’t spend time comfort sucking and stimulating supply.

if you aren’t bf at night you won’t be triggering the milk production hormones.

at 6 weeks your supply regulates. It is normal to stop being able to pump easily. You have to train your body to produce more than it needs to.

the only way to get back to bf is to bf. As much as you can.

Very common for women to think their supply is drying up around 6 weeks, coupled with peak newborn fussiness so a lot of women panic around now. All completely normal and your supply is just regulating to babies needs. Before this body basically goes into overdrive producing loads of milk simply because it doesn't know much is needed.

I'm sorry to all the responders that I wasn't clear enough. So, I stopped getting any breast milk when i express about 3wks ago, not now. And I do try to bf baby but he cries 98% of the time as if I'm trying to poison him, he just screams and shakes his head. I have tried being a dictator by forcing the bf but when he's crying that much, I just give him the darn bottle instead. So, been formula feeding for 3wks now. I do use a teet that slowly releases milk. When I squeeze my nipple, I do see milk peak it's head out but nothing to write home about.

If you're combi feeding baby doesn't need as much of your milk so your supply will drop. Lots of skin to skin and try to avoid the bottle if you can. If not then keep expressing to try and maintain the supply. Echo what other posters have said about baby being more effective at maintaining supply but pumping is better than nothing.

great advice above. Also the amount you get when pumping is not a indicative of the amount of breast milk there - baby is much better at getting milk than a pump!

have you a Families and Babies / FAB or an NCT breast feeding team near you? Really reccomend. Or online resources such as Kelly Mom or on insta mama.milk (maybe mamas.milk).

if you don’t want to keep breast feeding then don’t worry, fed baby is happy baby. Happy baby is happy mum. If you do then lots of skin to skin, lots of night feeding (sorry I know it’s shit but that’s when you produce the most), lots of good food and water for you - they say oats help so eat flap jacks etc but I think that’s an old wives tale, I like flapjacks though so used it as an excuse haha).

baby might suckle at the breast just for comfort too.

Don’t be too hard on yourself and don’t see it as a personal failure that your baby prefers the bottle. As stated above, babies tend to prefer drinking from the bottle when given the chance & also as previously stated, a fed baby is a happy baby.

How often were you pumping daily? if you are determined to breastfeed, maybe seek the services of a lactation consultant.

100%

I think if baby is hungry enough the will hopefully take the boob. I mean if there was no bottle available for whatever reason, little one would have no choice but bf. Then again you know your baby best. Good luck mama!

it’s not clear if you were always combi feeding or not. Anyway, my midwife / HV was very clear about not expressing until the supply had regulated (ie after at least 6-8 weeks). They said that around 6-8 weeks your supply switches from being regulated by hormones to responding to the demand. It is normal to notice a reduction in leakage etc. At this time. If you switched to expressing at around the same time, that probably caused a drop in your production because expressing is much more inefficient at extracting milk than breastfeeding. So you signalled to your body a drop in the demand for breast milk, and your body responded by reducing supply. If you then increased the amount of formula feeding, you signalled a further drop in demand, so a further reduction in supply.

you can build your supply back, as other posters have explained.