@BarrettJ89 I'm so sorry that you are going through this . it sounds like you are making the right decision, its the only way to figure out what might be causing it. It's great that you are pumping and freezing , you are doing All you can do. Don't beat yourself up !
Does anyone have experience on drying up your milk supply ? I'm weaning down my pump sessions and I'm only pumping. I really don't want to get an infection. My questions are. 1. Are lumps in the breast normal during this and do they go away or need to be pumped out ? 2. I'm decreasing the number of sessions but do I also decrease the time on the pump ? I usually pump 25 to 30 minutes. Yesterday I pumped 15 and one less session. Today I woke up with some discomfort but not bad , but very full. Do I pump longer to get the milk out or just long enough for relief? My worry is leaving the milk in the breast and getting mastisitis but I'm sure you do just have to leave it in there to dry up eventually ? Any help would be appreciated. I've already googled but it doesn't give specifics.
Funny side note : last night I was super tired and pumped and I forgot to attach the bottle portion to the pump .... Made it 12 min and realized all the milk had gone on my robe and lap .... Wowww
Lurking here, but a common way to dry up your supply is to put cabbage leaves in your bra and take Sudafed (along with ibuprofen to deal with the pain of engorgement if you're dealing with that). Massage the lumps in your breast out.
DS1 - 9/21/11
DS2 - 7/4/14
DS3 - 2/21/16 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Our family of 5 is complete!! Love our boys!
@Kimberlyain hmm interesting , sad to think this whole breastfeeding thing may have played out differently if I knew sooner I was basically able to dry up my milk supply in a few days .... Don't you think it should be one of the first things that a LC looks for when you complain of pain with BF ? I talked to two and I feel they dropped the ball ! SMH
@Rach8672 same with us, our first LC never mentioned it and we went 4 weeks with a poor painful latch. Then when it was fixed another week with her relearning to latch. If they had mentioned it at the first visit we could have saved us pain and frustration.
@Rach8672 I just looked and my babys lip looks like that too. Noone ever mentioned it and I've seen the LC a couple of times. I always felt like she had a shallow latch.
@Ec2016 I have no clue why this isn't looked at during the hospital stay especially when people are complaining of pain with feeding , it takes 2 seconds!!! I'm seriously pissed ! I weaned down my milk supply to nothing because I couldn't stand exclusively pumping and then find out BF could have been an option if this were caught earlier ! I'm going to the pediatrician on Thursday , I will ask if it is indeed a lip tie and if it should still be treated if I won't be able to BF (now I have no milk ) SMH !
@EC2016 they didn't say it would cause speech problems but it will more than likely cause a gap in the teeth which cannot be corrected with braces until the lip tie is fixed.
@Rach8672@Kimberlyain So frustrating!! I just saw my 3rd (really, 4th if I'm being honest) LC today and she was the first one to catch that my little girl has a subtle tongue tie. 2+ weeks of super painful breastfeeding, but glad I finally know a big part of the reason why. I wish these things were caught earlier for all of us!
Just wanted to say hubby got me a Baby Brezza ( keruig type formula dispenser)! I'm so happy because I've been wanting to stop BF for a few weeks now and DH wasn't too supportive. Now we've agreed to start slowly transitioning to formula for our little girl!
@EC2016 they didn't say it would cause speech problems but it will more than likely cause a gap in the teeth which cannot be corrected with braces until the lip tie is fixed.
I had one and it was corrected when I was 11 because as you said, braces couldn't bring my gap together with it. My mom was able to nurse me with it but she said back then no one corrected it.
I'm still planning on EBF at a certain point, but we have had to supplement with formula for the time being because LO was having issues with dehydration. We almost didn't get released from the hospital because she didn't have a single wet diaper in over 24 hours and then once we went home, she didn't have one until 26 hours after that. The hospital made me feel like a complete failure because she wasn't producing a wet diaper, and had us, after a nearly 30 hour labor, stay up with our baby literally 24 hours, forcing her awake and trying to breast feed her literally nonstop. It was madness. Finally, after she had gone past 24 hours without a wet diaper and I had been awake from Sunday through midday Wednesday, I asked for a small bit of formula. They gave it to us, reluctantly. After the formula, LO finally had a wet diaper and we were able to leave.
The entire experience had me livid. I have an autoimmune disease which can impact milk supply and it was clear that LO was NOT getting what she needed from my colostrum at that point and she was so listless and tired, she was having serious trouble latching. (She would latch correctly but then fall asleep, with the boob falling out of her mouth.) It was clearly not working in the moment but I was made to persist, even though if I had been not sleep deprived and in my right mind, I would have spoken up and stopped it earlier. I mean, the health and safety of my baby should matter way more than the advantages of breast milk over formula, but because the hospital where I delivered was a "breast feeding friendly" hospital, they handled it very poorly in my opinion, forcing an exhausted mom and an exhausted baby to stay awake constantly and get further exhausted and dehydrated with no progress.
Thank god that formula perked her up enough so we could get out of there, and thank god for our pediatrician, who we went to see right after leaving the hospital (he doesn't service that hospital, so we had a different pediatrician see her until we left.)
Anyway, nearly in tears and panicked about how much weight the baby had lost and her lack of wet diapers, I told our pediatrician I wanted to breastfeed overall, but I thought we needed formula for right now. He totally agreed and told me very calmly that the health and safety of the baby was #1 and that we were going to take care of that first, but in a way that would allow me to breastfeed, if that's what I wanted. He put us on a schedule where I would breastfeed every 2 hours for 30 minutes (15 each side) and that I was to stop after that half hour, even if she didn't successfully feed for the whole time, even if she only successfully fed for 5 minutes. Then I was to stop, my husband was to offer her .5 oz of formula (or more if she desired) and I was to rest and eat and hydrate. We did this for 24 hours and she was like a new baby and I was like a new mom.
We've been on this schedule now for days and every day the baby and I are getting better at breastfeeding, every day my supply comes in more, and every day, most importantly, she is stronger, more alert and happier, thanks to the formula supplementation. She also finally started having regular wet diapers regularly and gaining weight instead of losing it in a freefall.
I think it's so ironic that the breast feeding nazi approach at the hospital endangered my baby's safety and could have potentially put me off of the idea of breastfeeding entirely, but my pediatrician's common sense and safe approach which included formula as a necessary temporary tool, has actually enabled me to build up a great breastfeeding practice with my LO, to the point that I'm confident that we'll be EBF in a week or two.
Anyway, sorry for the novel, but I had to just rant and get that off my chest. I love breastfeeding and I think it's awesome, but formula use shouldn't be treated as some sort of failure. It's not poison. It's not like you're feeding your child from a McDonald's dumpster. It's nutritionally sound and it can be literally life saving and the difference between a thriving and failure to thrive baby if something goes wrong with supply or if there are other complicating factors. The only thing that should ever matter is that the baby is getting nutrition enough to thrive.
It's been over 2 weeks since I stopped breastfeeding, and well over a week since I stopped pumping and I'm still getting the sore feeling of let down! Not all the time, and not necessarily when baby is hungry. Completely at random. Not cool... I'm not leaking, which is great, but if anything puts pressure on my boob, voila! Looks like colostrum again. Weird...
How long did it take before you stopped leaking? Or stopped feeling engorged ? Any tips or tricks on how to make it less painful or dry up milk faster ?
Re: Support for mommas deciding to stop pumping /BF
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Our family of 5 is complete!! Love our boys!
The entire experience had me livid. I have an autoimmune disease which can impact milk supply and it was clear that LO was NOT getting what she needed from my colostrum at that point and she was so listless and tired, she was having serious trouble latching. (She would latch correctly but then fall asleep, with the boob falling out of her mouth.) It was clearly not working in the moment but I was made to persist, even though if I had been not sleep deprived and in my right mind, I would have spoken up and stopped it earlier. I mean, the health and safety of my baby should matter way more than the advantages of breast milk over formula, but because the hospital where I delivered was a "breast feeding friendly" hospital, they handled it very poorly in my opinion, forcing an exhausted mom and an exhausted baby to stay awake constantly and get further exhausted and dehydrated with no progress.
Thank god that formula perked her up enough so we could get out of there, and thank god for our pediatrician, who we went to see right after leaving the hospital (he doesn't service that hospital, so we had a different pediatrician see her until we left.)
Anyway, nearly in tears and panicked about how much weight the baby had lost and her lack of wet diapers, I told our pediatrician I wanted to breastfeed overall, but I thought we needed formula for right now. He totally agreed and told me very calmly that the health and safety of the baby was #1 and that we were going to take care of that first, but in a way that would allow me to breastfeed, if that's what I wanted. He put us on a schedule where I would breastfeed every 2 hours for 30 minutes (15 each side) and that I was to stop after that half hour, even if she didn't successfully feed for the whole time, even if she only successfully fed for 5 minutes. Then I was to stop, my husband was to offer her .5 oz of formula (or more if she desired) and I was to rest and eat and hydrate. We did this for 24 hours and she was like a new baby and I was like a new mom.
We've been on this schedule now for days and every day the baby and I are getting better at breastfeeding, every day my supply comes in more, and every day, most importantly, she is stronger, more alert and happier, thanks to the formula supplementation. She also finally started having regular wet diapers regularly and gaining weight instead of losing it in a freefall.
I think it's so ironic that the breast feeding nazi approach at the hospital endangered my baby's safety and could have potentially put me off of the idea of breastfeeding entirely, but my pediatrician's common sense and safe approach which included formula as a necessary temporary tool, has actually enabled me to build up a great breastfeeding practice with my LO, to the point that I'm confident that we'll be EBF in a week or two.
Anyway, sorry for the novel, but I had to just rant and get that off my chest. I love breastfeeding and I think it's awesome, but formula use shouldn't be treated as some sort of failure. It's not poison. It's not like you're feeding your child from a McDonald's dumpster. It's nutritionally sound and it can be literally life saving and the difference between a thriving and failure to thrive baby if something goes wrong with supply or if there are other complicating factors. The only thing that should ever matter is that the baby is getting nutrition enough to thrive.