It depends what you want to do really. A cold compress will help with the engorgement feeling, but I found going into a hot shower would help me express without it hurting ITMS. Maybe you need to feed once a day for a few days, then once a day for every second day for a while just so you don't get so engorged? That's what I did. HTH
You have to move some of that milk, or you are at serious risk of mastitis. The quickest way to move some milk is to put your baby back to the breast. After you feed, put an icepack on your breasts - and take some pain relief - panadol or neurofen.
If you don't want to feed, you need to express some milk (breastfeeding will be more effective) At this point, anything will hurt. Feeding will hurt. But not feeding will hurt more. Your body was at the height of breastfeeding mode. Although you cut down feeds fairly gradually, it was a little too quick for your body.
Barb, I had just been expressing a little into a towel or in the shower, but have now just used the pump to do it, and it does feel better... I dont want to confuse poor DS by offering the breast, so expressing is the way it has to be. I had been checking for redness and if a duct was feeling tender I made sure to express a little from it...
So, how do I work this then? If I need to express to reduce the risk of mastitis, wont that just tell my body to keep making milk? How do I cut this down, and how regularly should I express, and how much? I did not do much expressing this time, but I know what I pumped this time was only just the surface of what was there...
I should have know that dropping the 3am feed as the last one was a silly idea... I know that is when the milky hormones are at the best, but it the the worst time of day (night) to prepare a bottle, and the feed I held onto... Oh well... weaning like this is so dang hard....
Rufalina, now that the engorgement is gone, you might find it helpful to express enough for comfort whenever you need to. As long as you are not emptying the breasts all the way, your supply will continue to drop. It is hard to know how often you will need to express, just when you feel you need to. As your supply reduces, the amount of times you need to express will reduce. Unfortunately weaning at this point is not an overnight thing, it will take some time to reduce your supply safely. With an older baby or toddler it can usually be done more quickly, as they are not having as much breastmilk by then.
Hrm, trying to think back to how I did it ... I think I dropped entire feeds so I was still getting empty each time, just not as often ... morning and evening were the last to go.
It took AGES for the supply to dry up though, even without expressing or anything. So this weird lumpy feeling persisted for weeeeeeks.
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I hope things get better for you soon.
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