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Breastfeeding
yella726
member
Forceful Let-Down?
yella726
member
Hi ladies,
Bear with me on this long one, but this sleep-deprived, emotional mama needs your advice/help.
So my little man will be 3 weeks tomorrow and what started out as "feeding like a champ" is now turning into frustration on both of our parts. I think I may have a problem with oversupply and forceful let-down, but not quite sure. He starts by latching on fine and then within a minute or so is gulping pretty intensely and eventually throwing his head back and off of my nipple to choke on milk (I guess). I'm still trying to figure out what a let-down feels like and when exactly it happens so I can take him off and let some milk drain. My milk doesn't spray as I've read other people talk about, but just drips pretty fast (even when I try to hand express). I don't want to pump because I don't want my body to think I'm demanding more milk. The frustrating part is that I think that the forceful let-down is not allowing LO to get as much hindmilk, primarily just foremilk, and it's creating a lot of gas. He's up for a lot of the night just screaming in pain if he's not being fed. He wants to feed pretty regularly and I'm starting to get hesitant to just continue feeding him on top of his gassy belly. His poopy diapers are also loud, watery and explosive (you can hear them and feel them when you're holding them and they hit the back of the diaper).
Things I'm doing so far to help slow my milk:
(1) Feeding him lying down so that his mouth/throat is above the level of my breast (gravity to help slow flow?)
(2) Burping him more often in the middle of feeding
(3) Stay on one breast for multiple feedings instead of switching back and forth
(4) Take LO off breast and hand express milk for a little bit when I hear him gulp the milk
Anything else? And if you've dealt with this before, how long did it take for your supply to readjust after these methods. I feel like I'm losing my mind from his intense gassiness in the middle of the night. His cries are just raw and I feel like there's nothing else I can do to make him comfortable.
Bear with me on this long one, but this sleep-deprived, emotional mama needs your advice/help.
So my little man will be 3 weeks tomorrow and what started out as "feeding like a champ" is now turning into frustration on both of our parts. I think I may have a problem with oversupply and forceful let-down, but not quite sure. He starts by latching on fine and then within a minute or so is gulping pretty intensely and eventually throwing his head back and off of my nipple to choke on milk (I guess). I'm still trying to figure out what a let-down feels like and when exactly it happens so I can take him off and let some milk drain. My milk doesn't spray as I've read other people talk about, but just drips pretty fast (even when I try to hand express). I don't want to pump because I don't want my body to think I'm demanding more milk. The frustrating part is that I think that the forceful let-down is not allowing LO to get as much hindmilk, primarily just foremilk, and it's creating a lot of gas. He's up for a lot of the night just screaming in pain if he's not being fed. He wants to feed pretty regularly and I'm starting to get hesitant to just continue feeding him on top of his gassy belly. His poopy diapers are also loud, watery and explosive (you can hear them and feel them when you're holding them and they hit the back of the diaper).
Things I'm doing so far to help slow my milk:
(1) Feeding him lying down so that his mouth/throat is above the level of my breast (gravity to help slow flow?)
(2) Burping him more often in the middle of feeding
(3) Stay on one breast for multiple feedings instead of switching back and forth
(4) Take LO off breast and hand express milk for a little bit when I hear him gulp the milk
Anything else? And if you've dealt with this before, how long did it take for your supply to readjust after these methods. I feel like I'm losing my mind from his intense gassiness in the middle of the night. His cries are just raw and I feel like there's nothing else I can do to make him comfortable.
This discussion has been closed.
Re: Forceful Let-Down?
Eventually my oversupply was so bad I used a nipple shield and then just pumped exclusively for a couple of months. The nipple shield really helped and he wened himself off of it when I went back to breastfeeding at 4 months.
1. Block feeding - I was lucky that I only needed to do one boob each feed. You can also go longer and do one boob for two feeds.
2. Hand express to comfort only.
3. Ice packs when engorgement got bad.
4. Feeding DS in the football hold so he was nearly sitting up.
5. Taking him off during letdown and letting it spray/drip into an extra burp cloth. Letdown feels like a warm tingly feeling to me. You don't need to hand express at this point; it will spray on its own.
6. Staying completely away from the pump.
@MrsDeo I never feel my letdown, either. Just before, I was nursing on the left when all of a sudden I started to feel warm and wet on my right only to realize that there was a puddle on my belly underneath my right nipple. And it doesn't spray, it just comes out at a fast drip pace.