Breastfeeding

Lactation appt today, need advice getting some help

I had a very rough start to motherhood. My son spiked a fever and was hospitalized at 3 days old and he was admitted to pediatrics for 3 nights for observation (suspected sepsis is deadly). But I wasn't accommodated and had to sleep on a pull out chair with my husband. Turns out, my son was dehydrated from not getting anything from me and his fever went away as soon as he was given fluids. I developed mastitis in my right breast as my milk was coming in and had to get antibiotics from ob/gyn. But DS stopped latching and I was pretty desperate for a lactation consultant to stop by, but it was many days before one finally showed up. She was helpful in getting the right sized flanges for the breast pump and the mastitis and we even got my son to latch, but not suck. We've been home a little over a week now and he will BF (sort of) for 10 min. and then he gets frustrated. My rt. breast produces 1-1.5 oz of milk and is visibly smaller than my left, which produces twice the milk. Is there any way to even this out? I look lopsided. I'll probably not force my son to BF more than he does now, but I'd like some help weaning him of the 2-4 oz of formula he's getting currently. I've tried a bunch of home remedies and haven't been able to increase my supply much. I pretty much exclusively pump now. My son is doing really well, he only fusses a bit when he's pooping.

Re: Lactation appt today, need advice getting some help

  • We had a similar issue in that baby wasn't latching well on one side and so supply on that side dropped. He wasn't gaining the weight they wanted and so the LC had me BF and pump.

    Basically for every single feed I would:
    1) BF off both sides as much as LO would take.
    2) Then feed him a bottle of previously pumped milk
    3) Pump off both sides.

    Initially he drank quite a lot of the bottled milk, which meant that he was getting what he needed and quickly got bigger and stronger. Which meant that when he BF he was drinking more and more milk off me as my supply increased.

    Over time he drank more off me and less and less out of the bottle.

    In less that two weeks I was able to ditch the pump and bottle altogether, and have had no issues since.

    So by BF and pumping I was able to increase and equalise my supply on both sides, and LO was still on the breast so didn't lose the ability to latch. We started this at around 2 weeks. He's now 5 mths old and still EBF.
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    Elizabeth 5yrs old Jane 3yrs old
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