MILK SUPPLY PLUMMETTING - Please Help

Sleep is a huge creator of milk. Also, I found the hospital pump was the only one to really get lots of milk out of me - so renting one of those and keeping it at work is an idea. Also, have a photo of him and look at him when you need to pump, think of how much you love him, etc - when I was stressed, little milk came out - but when I thought all the happy thoughts, my milk let down and pumping went a lot better.

It is frustrating. I remember going back to work and experiencing a decline. Part of it may be that you are more stressed, you aren't near the baby and some people's bodies just don't respond as well to the pump as the baby. There are herbs you can take... but I really think some of it is uncontrollable. Try to pump a bit longer and DRINK TONS AND TONS of water... worst case scenario... is to switch to formula if you need to. Good luck : )

Do you feel like your breasts are full during the day? Because, I have a 4 month old and can't go from 9:30 to 4:30 without "feeling it build" at least 3-4 hours after my last pump.

So, if you're not feeling it build up, then it might be you're not pumping enough, you're not drinking enough water... Or, it's hormonal-? Let me ask this: Did you start on any birth control in the last 6 weeks? I swear, bc pils affected my milk supply with my 1st; for my 2nd, I'm not introducing artificial hormones until I'm closer to weening.

I also started taking lactation support supplements to keep my production up.

If you're having challenges, find a lactation consultant. They can be a HUGE help!

Don't be discourage. This happened to me too. I still ended up pumping for over the first year. I worked full time too, and that was not an option either. I found pumping at work I hardly got anything. I built up my milk supply on the weekends and after work. When I got home from work and my son was hungry, I would pump while I fed him. For some reason that was the only way I could get any milk while pumping. Every blue moon I would get a good pump without him feeding, but I usually got 2 oz or less. I also, only pumped once at work in the morning, then I would go home for lunch, didn't live too far away, then come back to work. I would have a late lunch too, so when I got home, he was ready to eat and I was ready to pump.

Also, one side was better at pumping than the other. Around 6-8 months old, he didn't want as much.

Good Luck, I know it's hard and discouraging at times. My supply went down then back up. I use to get mad when he didn't eat what I pumped and had to throw out the milk. It really does take a lot of effort to pump. I think it was worth it.

Take Fenugreek supplements from GNC (capsules) - 3 capsules 2-3 times a day for a few days, eat a lot of oatmeal, stay hydrated. Also, if you turn your pump off and re-start the simulated let-down feature (I am assuming yours has one), can you get a 2nd a let down? Look at a photo of your baby while pumping for a bit until it gets flowing, or think about him and sweet moments with him. Also, I stopped responding well to my Medela Pump In Style Advance and ended up renting a hospital grade pump from months 5-12 of my son's life because I refused to give him formula (his older sister has numerous food allergies so I was dead set on nursing a year -- we are a fairly allergic family).

Do you nurse in the middle of the night? Going from 9pm-630am without nursing alone can harm your supply at this age of your infant. If he is sleeping through that time, I would suggest getting up and pumping at least 1 time in the middle of the night too. I was on your pumping schedule but I also nursed him in the middle of the night 1-3 times a night till he was 9 mos old. Darling daughter started sleeping through the night at 12 weeks for 11 hours and I dried up with my pump by 4 mos completely (in your boat). I nursed weekends around the clock and did not use the pump unless I had to be separated from my son.

Good luck!

We have an almost 4 months old little girl, and while I do not work I still can not pump more than 2 oz at a time. I would feel like I have plenty inside but nothing would come out after 1 1/2 -2 oz. Somebody told me that babies are way more efficient at getting the milk out than pumps. Our baby mostly breastfed but there are times when she gets a bottle of formula.(she wants to eat nonstop and it's just not possible since I have 2 other kids to take care of). I drink a lot of MOTHER'S MILK tea and take 8 fenugreek pills a day just to keep up with her:)

I could never get the pump to respond well. I am a large (ok, huge) chested woman- 36L when breastfeeding. Even with the largest shield made, I wasn't able to properly get the nipple into the shield to pump out milk efficiently. I swore after that whole debacle, I was going to start my own line of breastfeeding gear for women that have large chests! Anyway, I don't know your size, but maybe going up a shield size would do you some good? It's worth a shot. If not, don't stress it. Your supply won't completely dry up as long has he is nursing each day. And some breastmilk is better than none at all. Take care!

Whenever my milk supply goes down I do the following:
1.Pump every 3-4 hours and continue pumping an extra 5 mins after the milk has stopped.This they say tells our body to produce more. OR I nurse exclusively and often.Since baby is not getting much , he will be hungry more frequently. Both these help in increasing milk supply for M..
2. Drink LOTS of water and get rest.

For you, I guess you would have to pump atleast one more time during lunch break or around that time.The rule generally is to pump around the same time your son feeds - so that you will have enough for his next feeding.Hope this helps!

Nursing and pumping more are your best bet. I'd like to know what kind of pump you are using, and I'd contact a lactation consultant to help you be sure your pump is set up effectively - if you're seeing a decrease in pumping amount, I suspect you may not have something set right! A lactation consultant is a great investment to help you increase your supply.
Here's a question for you, and be sure to consider whether it's possible even if you think not at first or hope not - could you be pregnant? That could cause your supply to tank.

I had good results with Fenugreek and More Milk Plus. You can find them at health food stores like Good Earth. Fenugreek is cheaper, More Milk Plus is more potent. The great thing is that you can experiment with the herbs until you find a dose and schedule that works well for how much milk you want to have at certain times of the day. God Bless!

This has probably been said already, but more frequent pumping/nursing is really what you need at 4 months. Try to fit in more than one nursing session in the AM before you leave, and a few more at night. Wake up once or twice at night to pump/nurse too.
Also, of course- lots of water and maybe Mother's Milk tea or Fenugreek tea.
Hope you find a balance to make it work. Good for you for trying your hardest. That is really all you can do, and your little one will benefit from it all their life :)

Fennugreek is an herb used in cooking that is said to increase a woman's milk supply. It is also used to brew tea.

Try drinking more fluids as you are nursing him or pumping.

Try to relax and be calm when around the baby.

Continue to exclusively breast feed when you are home. Offer the breast every two hours to build up your supply.

Bring a picture of your baby to gaze at fondly when you are pumping at work. It helps.

Lori,

Don't give up!
Don't give up!
Don't give up!

First, you have to ditch the formula. Not only is it not good for him, it is artificially filling him up when you need to be. your supply is only as good as it is used, and if he is not using it, it goes away.

Second, you need to find a la leche league meeting or leader near you. There is a website LLLI.org that should either help you locate one or help you with your question.

Don't give up!

There is more but my babes are calling me,
GOOD LUCK!
M.

PS: you can contact me anytime also, but I'm afraid Rochester is rather far away? : |

I had similar angst and experience when I returned to work. I have a few suggestions that helped me. 1) bring a picture of your son with you to work and look at it and think of him while you pump as it may help your production. 2) massage the milk glands before you begin pumping 3) drink even more water than you do now 4) try fenugreek capsules or mother's milk tea. I found the fenugreek to work better for me. Just as an FYI you know when you're taking enough when you start to smell like maple syrup! I like the Vitamin SHoppe brand. Good luck!

More Milk Plus is supposed to be the best and most potent thing. Other suggestions are Mother's Milk tea, steel cut oatmeal, dark beer and fenugreek.

I would also alter his eating pattern. A BF baby typically eats 3-4 oz at a time, but his tummy has gotten used to 5-7 oz at a time, so it's normal that you can't produce that much at once. On the weekends, I would not top him off with formula; I would nurse him and when he gets fussy for more, soothe him with a pacifier, rocking, etc. An hour later, nurse him again. This will make your body produce enough for him and should help to increase your supply through the week. Supplementing when you're home is a vicious cycle and will result in decreasing milk supply.

I would also suggest your mom and husband only feed 3-4 oz at a time. In fact, I think kellymom.com (the best breastfeeding website around, if you haven't already found it) recommends never giving a BF baby more than 5 oz max at a time. Breastfed babies need 1-1.25 oz per hour since their last meal. However, if they're eating from a bottle, babies will often take more than they would from the breast; it's not clear why, but they don't seem to have the same sensitive mechanism for stopping when they're full as they do when they breastfeed. His stomach is probably getting stretched and used to larger meals from the bottle feeding. Doing the same thing you do when breastfeeding (giving, say 4 oz, soothing if he's fussy for more and then feeding again when he gets hungry, which may be sooner than it would have been), will probably help to keep more consistency between his breast and bottle feeds.

I would also recommend taking a "nursing vacation" on the weekend. Dedicate a couple of days and just rest in bed and nurse the baby constantly. Lots of rest, little stress and frequent nursing will really help your supply. Also, if you can, pump both sides simultaneously (with a double pump) and look at photographs, or even better, videos of your baby while pumping.

Good luck!

Check out kellymom.com.

Things to try: Drinking more water. Eating oatmeal. Drinking Mother's Milk tea/taking fungreek. Trying to de-stress.

You might also want to look into less supplementing and nurse more when you are home, because demand = supply. There is info (I believe) on that website about how to wean off formula. Remind them that babies will suck on anything to get comfort, and will take more food if offered, even if they just want a pacifier. Most babies will not need more than 5 oz breastmilk at a feeding, ever. My DD never took more than 14 oz per day at her height (6 mo. growth spurt). Make sure they are not overfeeding him, because that will make you think you have a problem when you don't.

Try things like feeding one side and pumping the other or pumping after he's gone to bed. I know it can be awkward, but I've done it. I've also pumped in the car (hands-free, of course).

Also, what pump do you have? If it's not a workhorse, it will fail you - see if your ins. will help you buy a good one, and make sure there's nothing wrong with the tubing, the valves or anything else (I had a pump in style advanced and if those white valves weren't flush, you got nothing).

Drink lots of fluids, but stay away from caffeine if you can. At home, pump after each nursing to get any last drops out.

Do nurse on demand at home. I found my son wanted to nurse a lot through the evenings, and usually 1 or 2 times at night. Nurse both sides if at all possible. If he's not nursing both sides at a feeding, pump on one side while he's nursing on the opposite side. Let him nurse as much and as often as possible.

For me, the biggest thing was sleep---I slept pretty much any chance I got, every chance I got, and DH was great with trying to help me. Our house was an absolute wreck until about DS was about 7 months, when he started nursing a bit less and so I could do afford a little less sleep. But I'm one of those that needs 8 hours of sleep, and with work and nursing, it just drained me.... So I napped during every nap time that the baby took.

When you pump, having a picture of the baby in front of you, or his clothes from yesterday (with his smell on them), or having a recording of your baby laughing or babbling can really help trigger you to relax. I also had a sort of mantra that I repeated (in a monotone) "I make plenty of milk for my baby" while I was pumping. I also read a book while pumping, so I was immersed in something that I found interesting and didn't think about it (for some women, thinking about it can kind of block you from relaxing.... for me, because I've been around animals of various kinds my whole life and have seen other animal momma's nurse, I made it a sort of joke, and called myself "the cow;" I was just doing what ).

On the weekend, starting on Friday night, try not giving any formula at all the whole weekend--he'll nurse like crazy but it will stimulate you to make more milk (its not fun, I know! but it's natures way of cueing our bodies to make more). And my milk supply was definitely lower, pumping, at the end of the week than at the beginning.

You might want to fit in 2 pumpings in the morning, instead of 1. Studies have shown that nursing women make most of the volume of their milk in the morning before noon, so if you can push one of the sessions back to 11:45 or something that might help.

I've heard that you can supplement w/ fenugreek, but I didn't try that.

There were definitely periods where I felt that there was nothing there in body.... (I can remember crying about it because I was so tired and thought I was "failing" my baby). But we just kept at it.

And if you try all this and it still isn't working (I'd give it a couple of weeks), don't beat yourself up about it. Any breastmilk is good for them, and if you need to switch to formula, that's okay, too. As long as momma is happy and healthy, that is what is best for baby.

Being physically away from your baby could decrease supply... your hormones get triggered by his very presence!

that said, try herbs. While nursing I drank batches of nourishing teas like nettle mixed w/ red raspberry leaf and red clover. See Susan Weed's book, Herbs for the Childbearing Year. (google it)

I recommend buying dried herbs and making into tea, more than tinctures. This worked far better than tinctures for me. Put a heaping tsp of each herb per cup of boiling water and let steep overnight in pot or big mason jar. I make my batches extra strong then keep tea in fridge. When I want a cup I fill cup half full and add fresh boiling water. These herbs are full of nourishing herbs and vitamins and seemed to get my breasts to replenish quickly.

But every woman's body is different, so there are other herbs to try like Fenugreek, etc. Susan Weed lists a bunch so ck it out! Her writing style is a little out there but the info is solid!

Most Moms cannot pump anymore after 3-4 months... that is normal. That does NOT mean your supply is dwindling - it simply means the machine can no longer express your milk.

Don't 'top him off' with formula when you are at home... that will sabotage your milk supply and truly cause an issue. You may have to supplement with formula while you are at work - which is ok if has to be that way... at least you can nurse him when you are together. You need to breastfeed MORE when you are together. Going almost 3 hours each time is a bit much - just offer the nipple often, allow him to use you your breast as a pacifier too... it will make a huge difference.

Babies will eat more formula, not always due to hunger but because the nipple is such a fast flow, without effort... many will over eat this way. Only give formula and bottles if you are not home and there isn't any expressed milk.

I wish you would have posted 3 months ago... I could have advised you to stockpile your milk in the freezer ASAP, because the pump doesn't usually work after 3-4 months.

Good luck! you are doing fine.