Need some help dealing with forceful let-down
vlcoley
member
Hi everyone -
My daughter is 11 days old and we are experiencing a couple problems when it comes to breastfeeding. I have forceful let-down and my poor baby girl constantly struggles to keep up with the flow:(. I am relieved that I have more than enough milk to go around BUT hate that my baby is struggling at every feeding. She chokes/coughs in the first few minutes after latching because the milk is just spraying out and often times swallows huge air bubbles (obviously causing uncomfortable gas)! And then in between feedings she is fussy because she is dealing with all the gas making a good portion of our day somewhat unplesant:(.
When she does pull away to choke/cough I try to take that opportunity to sit her up and burp her while the excess milk leaks into a towel....sometimes that helps but other times she just gets irritated because she is hungry and I am not letting her feed like she wants to. Then when I put her back on the breast she is upset and it makes the rest of the feed somewhat unenjoyable for both of us. I have also tried reclining while feeding hoping that gravity will help the flow slow down a little but that hasn't helped. Anyone have any other methods that have worked? I am desperate and want to exhaust every resource before turning to a bottle. I've thought about pumping/expressing some milk before a feeding but worry that will then train my breats to produce MORE milk which of course I do not want.
PLEASE HELP!
Re: Need some help dealing with forceful let-down
I recommend hand expressing (vs pumping) before each feeding - that doesn't "trick" your body as much as an actual pump. I know exactly how you feel - we are still going through this now - just now at 8 weeks it's getting better. It's also a lot of the time related to oversupply, so you can try nursing on just one side per feeding - that helps us a lot. For me, one side is bad and the other is fine, so for about a week I started each feeding on the "good" (not overactive letdown) side to try to decrease the supply of the other one. It kind of helped. I also pump once each day and that also helps me to not be as full.
I haven't tried this, but a nurse recommended using a nipple shield to "block" the flow (she did this apparently with her child) and nursing side lying.
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I did this with my older son, but instead of a towel I kept a mug close by and collected the milk to add to my most recent pumping session collection. No use letting it go to waste! I switched to using a pump before nursing after a few days because my son got really upset when I broke his latch. It was just easier to pump a little and then let him eat for as long as he wanted.