How long to rebuild your supply?
It's a long story, so bear with me...
I battle with PPD, anxiety, and OCD. After my son was born, we doubled my Celexa and added Xanax so I could BF - then went to a psychiatrist to evaulate my meds because it wasn't enough. I had 2 weeks to decide whether to stop BFing and switch up meds, or keep BFing and try to increase slowly. I really didn't want to add more meds while BFing, so I decided to wean.
I had completely weaned the day feedings, and was starting to drop the night feeding when I went back - but it turns out I just needed to give my meds longer, and we didn't need to change or add. Of course at this point, my supply was tanking.
I've been working on building it back up, but I still don't have enough during the day. I started out with an oversupply, and I still leak like crazy and get engorged in the morning and evenings, so I don't need to increase straight across the board, just undo the damage I did! I nurse frequently during the day, but he will completely empty both and still be hungry. We are also entering a growth spurt, so we have to supplement at times during the day after he empties both sides and still screams for food! It's been almost 3 weeks now, when can I expect my day supply to ramp back up? Any tips beyond just constant feeding?
Re: How long to rebuild your supply?
Do you pump as well? That is the 2nd way to get your supply up after feeding. Whenever you supplement, pump and that will cue your need for more milk. Growth spurts are hard anyways, so keeping him on the breast really is the best way to do it, but there are other ways.
If you do pump while he's being fed a bottle, try going about 15 minutes on a side. Im not sure how long it will take for that to get your supply up because I'm impatient when it comes to pumping. Also, eat some oatmeal because that helps a ton with supply building or salvaging! Usually I see results with the oats within 2 days.
Good luck and hang in there :-}