Breastfeeding
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growth spurt and engorgement

DD is going through her lovely little 3 week growth spurt (hopefully about finished!) and the great news is that she's sleeping more, sometimes 4-5 hours a night which is a big relief for me.  

Trouble is she's still feeding ravenously during the day, sometimes every hour especially close to bed time, and my boobs are doing their work and keeping up supply.  Unfortunately this means that while I'm getting great sleep, they're becoming engorged and uncomfortable.  

She's still able to latch and eat just fine when she does wake up, but I'm uncomfortable and from what I understand being engorged too often can signal the breast to stop producing so much milk.  

My question: should I be pumping after her night feedings to help relieve some of the engorgement? Or will that just keep telling my body that it should make that much milk and I"ll always be engorged?

This morning I fed her till she passed out and then pumped another 4 oz off the same side (and probably could have gotten more...)

Any help is appreciated!

Also, if you've made it this far, I'm having trouble deciding when she is actually hungry and when she just wants to suck.  I want to feed her whenever she wants, but if she fusses and roots less than an hour after I've fed her well I tend to give her a pacifier.  If it's around an hour or any more we try to eat first.  This has been working except that I think sometimes I'm overfeeding her because she has spit up a few times, especially after going back to the breast after what I thought was a full feeding for more.

THANK YOU! 

Re: growth spurt and engorgement

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    i wouldn't pump unless you're working on building a stash. it will only encourage your body to produce more milk. try hand expressing a little just to relieve the pressure.

    as for figuring out if LO is still hungry, i'm in the same boat. mine is going through his 6 week growth spurt and eating all the time. he doesn't spit up often so i assume he really is that hungry. perhaps your LO has gas, which is causing some of the spit up?

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