Help low milk supply!! Also on Breastfeeding Board
Sarah7736
member
Maybe you ladies can help me out. I am desperately trying to increase my milk supply. My LO is 13 weeks old and after I returned to work my milk supply has dropped. LO seems satisfied when she nursing on me at home. She drinks three 5oz bottles at daycare and on a good day I usually bring home 8oz after pumping three times at work. I started taking Fenugreek 610mg 3 pills 4 times a day for a week and had no results not to mention it gave LO horrible gas so I stopped. I just recently started drinking mother?s milk tea. I am drinking 5 bags a day and today is my third day. Yesterday I was able to pump 10oz which is better but, I need to bring home at least 15oz. I am blowing through my freezer stash I maybe have 5 bags left. Can someone recommend anything else? I am also drink close to a gallon of water a day on top of 5 cups of tea. Would it be safe to drink more of the tea? It recommends 3-5 cups a day
Re: Help low milk supply!! Also on Breastfeeding Board
I've struggled with this as well. Fenugreek didn't work for me but oatmeal helped somewhat.
One tip I have is to pump first thing in the morning, while you're getting ready for work. That's when your milk production is at its peak. I just put my hands-free pump bra on after I get out of the shower and pump while I'm putting on my makeup and blow drying my hair. I'm able to get almost twice the output I would from any other session. I also keep an extra pair of horns at home and just throw them in a ziploc in the fridge when I'm done so I don't have to spend any extra time cleaning them (just clean them at night with my other horns) while I'm trying to leave for work.
I also know people that sleep in their hands-free bras and do it in the middle of the night while napping propped up on pillows. That's a little over the top for me but whatever works!
The first thing that comes to mind is how did you decide that 5oz is what your LO needs? My DS#2 only takes 3.5 oz in each bottle but he is small (a little over 13lbs at 5 months). The max my DS#1 ever took in each bottle was 5oz but again he was never a big baby that required a lot of milk.
I'm barely making due myself and my lactation consultant just recommended More Milk Plus. It is a supplement in either drops or pills. I have to buy some this weekend. GL
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A few questions:
1. What kind of pump do you have?
2. How often (every x # of hours) are you pumping at work?
3. Are you eating oatmeal everyday?
4. How did you decide on 5 oz? Breastfed babies typically eat 4 oz or less per feeding....
5. When you nurse baby, do you feed from one side per feeding or both sides?
We drop baby off at DC with 3 x 3.5 (sometimes 4 oz) bottles plus an extra oz for rice cereal mixing. I am away for 11.5 hours total. I now pump 2x in the time I am away from her, and make ~12 oz. At 13 wks, baby was drinking 3x 3.5 oz bottles (no rice cereal) and I was pumping 3x per day, roughly every 3.5 hours.I eat oatmeal cookies everyday, switched to a Medela Freestyle pump (soooo much better than the PISA i had) and baby is sleeping through the night, so there's one big feeding when I wake up to empty me out.
Good luck!
+ 9/3/11, due May 2012. overdue baby born healthy!
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I have struggled with the EXACT same situation since returning to work almost two months ago. LO settled in at 14-16oz. everyday while I am gone. I have tried Oatmeal (definitely helps), fenugreek (might help a little), adding a third pumping session at work (didn't do a thing for me), different size shields (might get an extra 1/2 oz) etc.
I was SO stressed about not pumping enough during the day. For me the best thing I did was start pumping in the middle of the night. Milk supply is highest then and LO STTN very consistently. So, I pump 7-9oz. while I'm at work and 4-5oz sometime between 1-3am depending on when LO and I go to bed. I do this EVERYDAY, even the weekeends that way I start the week with at least an extra 10-12oz in the fridge that can be used throughout the week if I fall short a couple oz. everyday. I've also been lucky enough to work form home a few days over the last two months and that has allowed us to get through a few tough weeks without having to dip into a very small freezer stash or add formula. Infact, and I've even been able to replace a few bottles of my freezer stash with the nightitme pumping and days I worked at home.
So it is hard work and a defintie sacrifice of sleep for me, but I've made it work. When I first went back, my Mom, who watches her was slightly over feeding her, but we addressed that and she still takes 14-16oz. DD is a tiny little thing (at 4 months she was only 11lbs.) so although overfeeding can be an issue trust your gut, I know my DD and overall she is predictable for a total amount, but how she chooses to do it can vary from day to day...Some days she eats two 7oz feedings while I am gone, sometimes three 5oz feedings and sometimes, four 4oz feedings
I will be honest and say I don't know how much longer I can keep up on this schedule. I hope that as we add solids towards the end of the year she will reduce her need by a few oz a day and I can stop having to pump at night...If this doesn't happen I may start to supplement with a few oz of formula when she is around 8-9months so that I can start getting some better sleep.
Best of luck to you!!
Have you tried lactation cookies? A yummy way to boost supply. A few cookies a day and by the next morning I was back in business! I bought from her and helped a good cause. The cookies are delicious...good luck, mama.
https://nuckollsandwich.blogspot.com/2012/10/lactation-cookies.html
Hello, My mom is a midwife and a mother of 9 children so she has some input.
She says you should boil 8 cups of water for 2 cups of old fashion oatmeal and let it slow cook for about 15 minutes then drain out the oatmeal (keeping all the liquid) you can add honey if you would like. You need to drink the oatmeal liquid! Also, surprisingly, beer will increase your milk because of the yeast in it. Drinking more of the mother's milk tea will be fine. She found that drinking the oatmeal liquid to help best for her.
I hope this helps (:
How long are you pumping? I had severe supply problems. What helped me is to pump for 20 mins each session to make sure I got two let-downs and to use breast compressions (you can google how to do it).
More Milk Plus was better for me than fenugreek alone. Fenugreek also gave my daughter gas.
I'd also would pump after nursing or squeeze in another pump session.
I think this site is defunct but it still has lots of great tips that I used.
https://www.mobimotherhood.org/MM/portal-lowmilksupply.aspx
Hey Surprise6,
I would really recommend the book Making More Milk. It has stories about diagnosing and strategies to overcome cause of low supply. I got some great ideas from it with my first.
Back when I was breastfeeding, I went to a nursing support group. The lactation consultant actually said that drinking too much water can interfere with the milk production. When I went back to work, my supply dropped a bunch when I was pumping, too. I only had a couple times a day when I could pump (I'm a teacher), and it just wasn't enough. I had to do bottles with half breast milk/half formula. The fenugreek and mother's milk tea worked well for me, and I took them by the handful until I smelled like maple syrup.
Good luck, it's hard to go back to work and have it interfere with everything you worked so hard for when you first started nursing!
It's been awhile since your post.. I had the same the problem... this might sound odd... drink a beer. The yeast in the beer will help your supply. You can also take brewers yeast in pill form.. doesn't work in pill as good as a beer. Good luck... hope it works out for you.
Drink lots and lots and lots of water.
Eat, you need the calories; oatmeal is a great breakfast also asparagus, quinoa, fennel, flax, alfalfa and red raspberry leaf. Avoid sage, peppermint, wintergreen and comfrey tea, sassafras tea, ginsing tea and licorice tea. you can try lactation cookies and Fenugreek, it did nothing but give both of us gas I am getting ready to try golacta.
Also, drink a dark beer before bed and lots of skin to skin [I know that's a tough one
Look here for some good tips. https://www.simplyrealmoms.com/posts/increasingyourbreastmilksupply/
Hey, Sarah:)
I had the same situation as you. So, I tried the Mother's Milk teabags, and I barely saw a difference. BUT HERE'S THE SECRET! YOU HAVE TO STEEP and cover the tea for at least 10-15 minutes! I actaully do it longer than that. I try to drink a minumum of three cups a day if not more. And more liquids will continue to help you. So keep it up! Don't get discouraged! You're doing great!!!
The tea did not work without me steeping it!
Hi beautiful!
I can tell you from my experience. My Son is now 3 1/2 year old. I'm expecting my second one and I'm planning on fully breastfeed like the first one. I did it for a whole year, no formula, all his food was prepare with breast milk. I also returned to work after 4 weeks of labor and had to pump at work. I was doing it every 2 hours in my job and use to carry as many as 6-8 bags of breast milk! What I did was consume lots of milk, old grandma recipe which consist of a codfish soup (you know that salty codfish?), my mom used to prepare that for me at least three times a week and drink plenty of water. I used to walk to release stress and take my Son to the park everyday and the beach all summer long. I consume plenty of seafood, which I think it helps, but try the codfish soup. That's what really kept me for a whole year and the best of all is to stimulate the breast, I mean by breast feeding directly. It's kind of relaxing and your breast gets more soft. I remember one time I left the pump at home and had to do it manually! I thought I was not going to make it but I did! Thanks to those classes that I took, helped me so much. My husband support was great too! Hope you can get better with this but just try to find the best foods for this and do it as natural as possible. Baby needs the best of you!
God Bless You.
A couple spoonfulls of cocnut oil throughout the day is great naturalway to help with milk production, it also boosts immunity and energy. Good luck!
First of all, 5 oz is probably way too much per feeding. Here are the KellyMom recommendations: https://kellymom.com/bf/pumpingmoms/pumping/milkcalc/. I think 3-3.5 oz is average, that's how much I put in per bottle. KellyMom recommends never filling more than 4 oz per bottle. Babies tummies can't handle any more than that.
How long are you away from baby? It should be between 1-1.25 oz per hour, so I'm guessing you will need about 10-12 oz total. If you start reducing the amount per bottle, you will probably have just the right amount of milk.
Some tips for increasing though, Mother's Milk Tea worked for me. It made me engorged, lol. PP was right, you have to steep it covered for 10 min, and drink 3-4 cups a day, in fact it says so right on the instructions. I've seen a lot of people make the mistake. Also dark beer does not work. Read it on Infant Risk. Even if the yeast increases your supply, alcohol inhibits letdown. So you have the milk but can't letdown...counterintuitive. As far as oatmeal, I've heard different things. KellyMom says any type will work, other sources say instant does not. I try to eat steel cut oats whenever possible because they're better for you, but you can't beat the convenience of instant.
Here are the KellyMom tips for pumping: https://kellymom.com/bf/pumpingmoms/pumping/pumping_decrease/
Old Indian wives tale but works like a charm for me - I boil a handful of fennel seeds ( called "saunf" in Hindi) in 3 cups of water. Cool it down and drink the water without the seeds.....works every single time for me.
Try this someone just told me about it and heard wonderful things..
https://birthunplugged.blogspot.mx/2011/01/review-of-nonichai-nursing-mothers-part.html
The only true way to increase your supply is to increase demand. Either let your LO nurse more or try to add another pump session (or more) throughout the day.
My little guy is 19 weeks today and drinks 3 - 6oz. bottles at daycare. I typically pump between 13-15 ounces during the workday, but need 18, so I often pump a half hour after putting him down at night, and if needed, in the morning (after nursing him and before leaving the house) to make up those extra 3-5 oz.
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