Hi all,

Well, DD is 4 weeks old now and we've given breastfeeding a good crack but despite lots of midwife help, attending a full day lactation clinic and expressing and then bottle feeding breast milk around the clock every three hours we've decided to move onto formula as breastfeeding really isn't working and organising life in three hour chunks is breaking me. It will be physically impossible once my DH goes back to work and even the lactation consultant agreed how we're doing things is not sustainable (which surprised me). I feel like we've given it a good run and I'm at peace with the decision to move onto formula, so I ask that no-one replies to ask me to re-consider stopping breastfeeding.

I have a huge supply of stored frozen breast milk we're going to give DD but in the meantime I'm cutting back on the expressing with the aim of completely stopping. I felt like I was losing my supply last week - it dropped off and my breasts went very soft but a day at the lactation clinic and trying her on the breast constantly kicked it off again. Now we've decided that this isn't sustainable I need to stop my supply so on lots of advice I have been pumping only when I really need to and only enough to make myself comfortable as I had gotten to the point I wasn't managing a set, regular routine anyway (which I think is why my supply was dropping off the first time around).

The thing is my breasts are now VERY sore and lumpy. I actually have to hold DD away from me when I pick her up and in one side I have huge lumps. Sometimes when I was expressing regularly I would feel like I was growing grapes in there but that has nothing on the size the lumpiness I can feel now. I knew I was in for pain and a bit of lumpiness and I was prepared to just deal with it but these lumps are huge.

Do I express and try to massage these out or go to the doctor? I don't want to further stimulate my milk supply but I also don't want to end up with an infection and I really don't know what the best thing is to do!

Thanks!