Over Abundant Milk Supply Is Ruining Breastfeeding!

You can get an Rx for the reflux. I had to with my youngest. Night and day difference. You may also need to do an elimination diet to see if anything you're eating is contributing to her reflux.

Try to get an Rx for her reflux, I bet it'll make all the difference. No point in so much suffering.

best wishes!

Some causes of the reflux and gas come to mind:

Gulping air due to incorrect latch due to engorgement.
Gulping air during the first part of nursing, before letdown. If letdown takes a while, she might be taking in air and 'chewing', also could be due to teething.
Gulping air during letdown: too much milk at once.

I think that hand expressing before you nurse, might be a quick option. The pumping is actually keeping your milk supply up which might be making it harder for her to nurse. I don't really know-- this is just one idea.

My baby also has terrible reflex and a floppy trachea. The RX acid reflux medication made a world of difference.

Also, I too had a ton of milk and have a very fast letdown. The most helpful trick I found was to chane positions while nursing so my daughter was on top of me. It's called "uphill nursing" -- you can google it or
ask your lactation consultant. I just nurse her while reclining back quite a bit... Usually in my bed as it is hard to do in a chair. Once I switched positions my daughter choked less and took in a lot less air. Bonus to nursing this way in your bed is that you can snuggle
with your toddler, read books, etc... while you nurse.... Much easier than
trying to squeeze into a chair together. This way your nursing doesn't take as much time away from your other child.

Also, I used a Moby wrap with my daughter. I have two other littles... both toddlers... and the Moby gave me my hands free while keeping my daughter completely upright... Which helped with her reflux quite a bit. I've tried several different carriers and slings and
the Moby was the best for this upright position.

Good luck. It's really tough bringing home a
new one with a toddler. I'm sure you are exhausted and you really deserve a pat on the back for working so hard to make
the nursing work. I hope it gets better soon.

Pump about 10 minutes before you feed her... that will get the most forceful let down over with - and saved as part of your frozen stockpile!!

Also, don't loose hope, your supply will regulate by month 5 at the latest, if not sooner... so when you pump make sure you freeze as much as possible and do not give her the expressed milk in a bottle. She will learn to breastfeed once the let down is taken care of with the pumping first.

If one LC isn't working - then look for another. Not all LCs are created equal!! Also, check into your local Le Leche Leache!! They have tons of Moms who've been there and done that and have tons of experience and advice to share, not to mention support!

I agree that if she has reflux, you should check into a prescription. My daughter is on generic Zantac and it's worked wonders for her. If she is more comfortable, she'll be more willing to nurse for an entire meal instead of in small bits.

I also agree completely that the more you pump, the more you are encouraging the cycle of too much milk. Express enough to be comfortable before feeding her...by hand...and then feed her from the breast. If you can try to get it under control by using LESS of your milk, your body should regulate itself.

Please have persistence, though. I had so many problems nursing my youngest...problems until she was 7 months...but now she's almost a year and it's been smooth sailing and I love it. :)

I can say that you can do this, I have this issue had this issue with my third child the worst. ended up with my pumping in the middle of the night because my little one couldn't/didn't get enough out of me for relief, while pumping my hubby did the bottle feed at night, I ended up with about 10 extra ounces a day of milk. Well by 3 mo things settled down a bit. now at 11 months no issue. I can say that laying flat on my back to feed helped a ton as far as a fast letdown, she seemed to handle the feedings better. Not as confortable but could help you get through the beginning part.

I had problems with my first nursing because of his reflux. I didn't have an overabundant supply, but he resisted nursing because it would just come right back up. So I started pumping and mixing the milk with a product called SimplyThick which is made for reflux or people with swallowing problems. It worked wonders! He was also put on medication for the reflux, but honestly the thickener was what made most of the difference. Consider pumping and giving up the BF completely... It might save your sanity and help your LO's issue.
Good luck!

I agree with expressing some prior to feeding, but why not express it into a bottle and freeze it. Each time you need to express, take the bottle out of the freezer, add to it and return to the freezer. At one point I had 5 smaller bottles with frozen milk.

The frozen milk helped out when I needed to be away for extended times and the sitter could feed the baby. We used a bottle with a nipple on it pretty much like mom's nipple.

I had the same problem. I would pump just a bit out before I nursed, to take away the engorgement and make it easier for the baby to latch on. I never had to worry about supply and leaking was always an issue. My line was I leaked enough milk to feed a small starving nation! :)

I had the exact same problem with my now 5 month old - although not as "severely" as it seems your situation is. My son would also fuss at the breast and it was so frustrating! I have an overabundant supply as well, and he has reflux. But, I stuck through it because I was determined to nurse him. I am so glad I did!

What worked for us is what other moms have suggested - pump first for about 5-10 minutes and then feed. I use a Medela freestyle - super pricey but SO worth it. I have enough milk stockpiled to feed my son for at least another 3-4 months.

Make sure you are as relaxed as possible when you feed

It will regulate itself, I promise. It took us about 3 months to really get it down - and this was not my first rodeo! I was shocked at how difficult it was!

PM me if you need other ideas. And don't give up! AND RELAX!!

=)

Express just a bit before you feed (I would even do it into a sink so the initial let down isn't as foreful and then start alternating just one boob a feeding and only express what you need from the other to keep it from getting engorged. I had to do this to get my overabundant milk supply under control. Otherwise, my little one had green yucky poops from just getting the foremilk and not enough hindmilk. The other option is to pump the second one simultaneously while you are feedin gon the first -- I did that to stockpile my freezer for a while. I quit nursing/pumping at 10 mos and had enough in a deep freezer to last till 13 mos. It really helped! I did a lot of research online with my overabundant milk supply and forceful letdown. I am about to give birth to #3 in a few weeks so we will see if the problem is the same again....*sigh* Guess it is better than not having enough to feed your baby.

I had overactive letdown and engorgement. I used a nipple shield to get DD to latch at first (and weaned her off it after a month or so). I also kept a towel handy for when she would unlatch and get squirted in the face. My body did eventually even out but it felt like forever til it did. I remember pumping in those early weeks (prep for back to work) and sometimes the pump barely seemed to have to do any work.

Have you tried feeding her when she's sleepy? Maybe starting with a pacifier and then moving to your nipple? Perhaps with a shield so it's more like a bottle? The shield would also fill up with milk so my DD could take a break if she needed one vs drinking from a firehose.

I also often leaned back so that DD wasn't also dealing with gravity "helping" the situation. If she freaks at even the hold, try a different one.

Hang in there.

I don't have the answer for you but I wanted to point your towards a couple of good resources.

1) kellymom.com

2) if you are on facebook, like the page called "The Leaky Boob." The women on there are wonderful and if you post your issue I'm sure you'll get tons of great advice and experiences.

I had this exact same problem with my first son, only no one could help me, even the lactation consultant said she'd never heard of it (weird?). I ended up doing my own research to realize I had overactive letdown. My son acted exactly like how you are describing your baby.

What I found was that pumping too much before feeding actually exacerbated the problem, it just signals the body to make yet more milk, which you don't need. What I did was when the milk started to flow, I'd pull the baby off and let the heavy flow go into the nursing pad, once it slowed I put the baby back on.

I would also lie flat on my back while nursing him to slow the flow.

In my case, my body never seemed to adjust and I gave up and just completely pumped all his feedings at 3 months, it was a lot of work but he was happier. The Medela Pump n style is a great pump, doesn't take long. Where you have a toddler at home I don't recommend this, you're busy enough.

Sometimes I'd pump a bottle and give it to him and then later if I became engorged I'd express some of the milk out in the shower. Goodluck, I know it's hard!