I would just keep pumping, at the moment you have heaps for her needs but as she gets bigger and hungrier you will be wanting to have a good production of BM and then when she can finally starting BFing she will then stablise your supply to her needs Better to have too much and have a good supply than trying to restict your supply now and then trying to get it back up when you need too.
Hi,
You are getting just what you need to get. Why do you think you should get less milk? I hope this isn't bad news, but there won't be a time when you don't need to pump three hourly (until your baby is breastfeeding and then you will be feeding her every three hours or so.
Right now your milk supply is driven by hormones. Later on it will be driven by the amount of milk the baby takes. You need to work with your hormones to set your milk supply on *high* and keep it there. Your body needs to know it needs to feed the bouncing 5kg baby she will soon be. At no point do you want your body to know it only needs to supply the 45mls she is probably taking every 3 hours. It is easy to down-regulate your milk supply, and it is very, very hard to build it up again later. So, you need to express both breasts every 3 hours day and night. fill your freezer, but don't spin it out longer, you won't believe how quickly she will be taking 80mls or more per feed.
Did you have serious oversupply problems with DD1? I think that as Barb says you are better generating a typical month-old-baby supply now if you can (i.e. working towards 1 litre ish a day). If you end up with a huge excess then you can try pumping less often (I mostly expressed for my DS when he was a little baby and got over a litre in 4 pumps a day - but I had a monster of a supply). Oversupply per se doesn't make problems as long as you are not getting engorged - it's just messy. Undersupply on the other hand is much more of an issue.
Yep, had a huge over supply with DD1. But things are stalling here, last 4 pumps (both sides, 3 hours apart) were only 70 mls each. Is that right? So confusing.
This is the problem that mums have when they are pumping for their prem babies - keeping up supply in the long term. Make sure you are using a hospital grade pump - a medela symphony, hopefully with a premmie card. Personal use pumps won't cut the mustard. If you are at home you can hire one from ABA. Make sure you express every three hours day and night. You could pump 2 hoursly at some times of the day.
When you are at the hospital get as much skin to skin time with your baby as you can. She's more than 35 weeks so she will be happy to "have a go" (even though you wouldn't necessarily expect her to transfer much milk at this stage. Many mums find that they express more while they are holding/just after they have held their baby.
It won't be long (only a week or two) before she is breastfeeding. 70mls is probably more than she needs right now anyway and it should be pretty easy to build up your supply
Hi Barb, yes they have a medela pump I use at the hospital (it's awesome!) and I have an electric medela at home. I tend to get about 20 mls more at the hospital. I've expressed in the SCU so many times that the sound of the warning bells in the SCU triggers my let down. Anyway, I will do my best to keep going 3 hourly. I think the healthy baby quota on day 4 for her weight is about 37 mls per feed, 3 hourly.
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Better to have too much and have a good supply than trying to restict your supply now and then trying to get it back up when you need too.
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