When to reduce expressing

[TinToms]

Hi I really need advice if anyone can help?

My baby was born at 35 weeks and she came home from SCBU a week ago. She’s now what would be 38 weeks. During the time she was in hospital I was religiously expressing every 3 hours to build my supply and to give her exclusive EBM. Now that she is home we are still learning to breastfeed and she occasionally does a great 15 minute feed, other times it’s a few minutes on and off and constantly getting her to re-latch. I don’t know if I should still be expressing much more than I am? I only do it about twice a day at the moment and get about 300ml in total from that. Obviously I’ve no idea what amount she takes from the breast, but my breasts seem to be overflowing whenever I feed her, I absolutely drench her clothes from the other boob by accident. Eventually I want to express so my DP can give 1-2 bottles per day but not doing this till BF is properly established. If anyone has been in this position and can talk about how they tapered off expressing I would really appreciate it. As the baby doesn’t consistently feed for a solid duration should I keep it up so the supply is there for when she does? Or am I oversupplying at the moment if I am drenching her and they are getting full between feeds? Thanks so much!!!

I would suggest a lactation consultant- they can assess what's going on in person and check your latch, help with positioning etc. Mine wasnt early but we ended up with a lengthy stint in NICU so I was expressing for a few weeks, I stopped once she started directly feeding from me. I suspect if you're drenching her you've got a fast let down which is not necessarily a bad thing as it could well explain why she's feeding for a short time - my DD was more drinking rather than sucking a lot as my let down is so fast. Your body will over supply naturally until 16 weeks when it will start to actually respond to need and supply according - breastfeeding is amazing.

The other thing you need to check us tongue tie as that could also explain why she's feeding for short periods and again a lactation consultant can check this for you and either refer you to an NHS unit who can snip it for you or snip it themselves depending on qualifications.

Happy to try to help further if you need x

@Mattieandmummy thank you so much for this!! Really helpful. I took your advice and went to a breastfeeding support session.

Good I'm glad, it's tough when you've not done it before plus intensive care worries and trying to do the absolute best for them you can whilst feeling so frightened as to whether it's all going to be ok. X

I got Medela breast shells for when I'm feeding, they're really soft and collect the let down from the other boob so it's not wasted. Maybe try that was well so you're not getting milk everywhere abs you can add to your stash? It soon mounts up 🙂

Are you exclusively feeding from the breast or are you topping up with formula? If exclusively breastfeeding then I'd stop the expressing, if topping up then I'd be expressing at each formula fed. Very much not an expert though!

If you're soaking her from the other breast every time you feed, get a Haakaa to catch the milk, they're amazing!