Not feeling it!

I have a 7 week old little girl who is the most beautiful thing, but when it comes to feeding im just not feeling it.

I have had to go to half and half feedings due to her losing weight on and off over the last few weeks. I have been expressing bmilk and bottle feeding it to her so we know how much she is drinking. I have also been using formula on the feeds when I dont have enough expressed.

Last night I spent a twelve hour stint to see if I could put her back onto breastfeeding but she was unsettled all night until this morning when I gave her a supplement bottle of 60ml formula, then she settled.

The reason I think she was losing weight all the time was because she was falling asleep at the breast and not emptying them properly, now I feel my milk is no good for her and that I cant make enough. I am trying to increase my milk supply but I just dont know if it will even help keep her weight on if I go back to breastfeeding.

Does anyone have any ideas I can try and maybe a schedule I can use, she is feeding anywhere from 1hour - 3 hourly and I have no routine what so ever due to this mess. I cant even think straight at the moment and I feel im falling into a hole.

My little darling is about 4kg and is drinking anywhere from 600ml-880ml, but I cant even produce that much bmilk for her. Can usually only express about 60ml every 2-3 hours. Very upsetting. I would love to take her off formula all together but have no hope if my bmilk doesnt flow.

Any help:cry:

Oh hun *hugs*

Your breastmilk is fine, and you can make enough. Stress is a big problem with supply and so you need to relax about this. That's much easier said than done, I know. But take some time every day to pamper yourself, have a lovely bath, a big bowl of ice-cream, watch some TV you love, etc etc. Look after yourself first, please.

Secondly - protein for breakfast. Eggs and bacon every day, that's an order! :lol: Porridge is also great, if you can't stomach eggs and bacon. Drink lots of water, twice as much as you think you should. Eat heaps of great food throughout the day. Bake (or have a friend/relative bake for you) some Lactation Cookies and eat a few every day. Go to a health store and find some galactagogue tea, there are a few different kinds but just tell the store person that you need something to boost your milk supply.

Thirdly - lots of skin-to-skin contact with bubby, lots of cuddles and feeding and smooching. Spend a day in bed with her doing nothing but feeding and sleeping together. Get those love hormones flowing! If you let her suck as much as she wants, she will tell your body how much milk to make. Forget about expressing, unless you want to pump while she's asleep - it's the removal of milk from your body that prompts it to make more milk. Doesn't matter how much you get when pumping - a lot of women cannot express a drop but are able to feed their baby perfectly.

Fourthly - Call the ABA and get some excellent advice 1800 MUM 2 MUM. Call your maternity hospital and find out if they do a breastfeeding day clinic, or if they have Lactation Consultants who can visit you or who you can make an appointment with.


I know this is stressful but the most important thing to know is that your precious baby is getting some breastmilk and with great help and advice you can get rid of the formula altogether, you really can. Only the toughest of us are put in the tricky situations - you are strong enough to get through this and you will get through this. Please call the ABA and have a chat to someone, debriefing can really help with stress levels. Big hugs to you and good luck with it all :)

GREAT advice from Mrs S.....do all of that!

I tried to express a few times so i could leave DD with DP and couldnt get enough for half a feed let alone a full one! The best way to get the milk out is her little mouth!

Its so easy to doubt your supply and ability and quality of milk....you cant see it so how do you know! Trust your body and your baby!

BIG BIG HUGS TO YOU!!!! and definatly follow Mrs S's advice!!!

All of Mrs S's advice is fantastic - but I reckon I'd put the ABA up at number 1!

It is something positive you can do, right now. Call - NOW - and speak with a trained counsellor.

Get them to find a local lactation consultant who can come around and spend some time with you and make sure everything is right - attachment, positioning, etc.

It'll be amazing just to talk to someone, IRL, who understand.

Please please please do not give up. Persist - as long as you can. It sounds like you are getting there, it is just getting frustrating.

Don't put her on a schedule just yet, just feed her whenever she wants it - you'll find, like Mrs S said, that the more she demands, the more you will produce.

Stop expressing, maybe for a week or two? And just demand feed. I could never get as much expressing as my DD needed for a feed - so this is NOT a realistic representation of how much she is getting when she breast feeds.

I love the idea of spending a whole day in bed. Just enjoy being together, stare at her beautiful face, look into her gorgeous eyes, think about your pregnancy and birth... the more loved up you feel, the more good hormones you will produce and whoooo your milk supply should start increasing!

Also - the water thing - drink lots and lots of water! I found if I had a big 750mL bottle everywhere around the house where I fed, I could grab it and guzzle - I'd empty a bottle while I was feeding. Water and hydration makes a big difference.

Something else to think about - don't get too hung up on the numbers and weight gain. I know the the maternal and child health nurses can get really stressed about weight gains and losses, but try not to think about it. Think about all your good, healthy mumma's milk flowing into your little DD's body and helping her grow.

You are producing exactly what she needs (content of the milk I mean), whereas the formula is just formula.

Try and be confident in your body... "I can do this, I can do this".

Big hugs. :hug: Let us know how its going!!!

Just to clarify, stress won't affect your supply (it might affect your let-down, so yes, it's great to relax, but how do you think mothers manage to bf through war, grief, hardship? Our bbs still keep going!).

The best thing to improve your supply is to feed, feed, feed. What you did last night is exactly right, but you might need to do it for longer than 12 hrs. 60 mls is not very much for her to take, so she must have had a fair bit from you during the night. Try doing exactly as you did over the night, but for an entire weekend. Do it when your partner is home so that he can support you, bring you drinks and food. It can take a few days for your supply to catch up to the extra demand, but you will get there with this kind of persistence.

GL! I really admire your perseverance. And can I just say, 60 mL expressing every 2-3 hours is great for someone who hasn't been expressing for that long and who also bfs in between!

For what it's worth, I've heard of many people who had great supply, but couldn't express much milk. It seems babies are the best milk-extracting tool!

It is so hard when you can't see how much bub is getting from the breast isn't it! I guess you just have to feed them when they're hungry, and trust that when they're done (I used to say 'are you sure' and re-offer), that means they're full.

As the others have said, the best way to get your supply up is to feed bub as often as you can so that your body knows it needs to make more milk. And the weekend is the best way to do that, if a partner/friend can support by making sure you're getting enough to drink, maybe bring bub in to you at night so you can stay in bed to feed. xo

Hi ladies,

I have been feeding my little one breast for a day and a half and giving her 2x 70ml bottles through the day of breast milk. My little one still seems hungry if I only give her my breasts. Do you think it will just take a few days for my milk supply to build up to suit her? I dont want to starve her so thats why I have been giving her the bottles. But im now out of bmilk in storage and I have to give her top up formula. I can only express 10ml after a feed, which makes me think she is emptying me a fair bit.

She is also now fussing at the breast once they seem empty. Pulls away and cries. She has been on bottles for a week, so im hoping that she will stop the fussing after a little while. Also the reason I had to put her on the bottles was because she was losing weight and falling asleep on the breast. I had seen a lactation consultant to hep with that but I still had trouble keeping her awake. So I went to my doctor and he recommended putting her on the bottle until she was about 2 months. Which she is almost that now. After putting her back to the breast she still falls asleep. I need to keep her awake and I have tried everything. Tickling feet, wet washer on cheeks, rocking, pulling slightly off breast, skin on skin etc.

Can I get some ideas on what they recommend and whether you had the same problems and when it stopped? Any help other ideas on the first question is greatly appreciated.


Also Mrs S great ideas, I tried the skin on skin to spend some time with my little girl and it made me feel so close to her. It was such a nice feeling. :lol:

Thanks
Jess

When DD was young, she always fell asleep too, nothing worked, she just slept, so I fed her every single hour of the day. No exaggerate. She also did the fussing at boob, probably coz there wasn't enough and she was impatient to wait for them to refill. I just endured, cuddled her when she fussed, tried to distract her till they refilled, and just kept it all up and then suddenly (I think it was 8 weeks) everytihng fell into place and it was a breeze.
It all sounds normal what you're going through, just know it all falls into place sooner or later, and just keep breastfeeding all the time, and call ABA everytime you freak out!
Best of luck!!

Jessii, you are doing really well hun. The first few weeks with a new baby are very confusing :hug:

As the other posters have mentioned, breastfeeding works on supply and demand - the more often your breast is emptied, the more milk you make. Also, milk is made more quickly when your breasts are empty. Frequent feeding is the key to increasing your supply. If she doesn't seem to have had enough during a feed, another option is to top her up by putting her back to the breast about 20 minutes after a feed - you will have made more milk by then. Then if she still seems hungry you could try the bottle after that.

Your concerns about whether your little girl is getting enough milk without top ups are very common - this is the most common thing that mums worry about. So it can help to know the signs that your baby is getting enough milk. The easiest way to tell if she is getting enough milk is to look at what is coming out the other end. A baby who is getting enough milk will have 5 heavily wet disposables in 24 hours (or 6 - 8 pale wet cloth nappies), and at that age, 2 or more runny or soft poos are normal. Weight gain is another sign, but weight gains can vary a lot from week to week, so often it is better to look at this over a 3 - 4 week period. Hopefully knowing these signs will give you some confidence to experiment with easing or stopping the bottles, as you will be able to tell from the nappies if she is getting enough.

Sometimes mums with sleepy babies find it easier to take the baby's clothes off (except the nappy) to feed. They offer one side, tickling toes, using a damp face-washer, or blowing on their face to wake them during the feed in necessary. Once the baby seems to have stopped drinking, you can take her off, change her nappy to wake her up, and offer the other side. If none of these techniques work, you can try lying her on her legs, then lifting her up into a sitting position, then lying her down again etc to see if that opens her eyes. Also, babies are able to feed during the light sleep cycle, so feeding while she is asleep might also be an option for you. Another trick is to feed in the bath.

The other thing that might be happening is that her attachment mightn't be quite right, so she is not getting much milk out during a feed. When she feeds at the breast, does she get into a rythmic "suck, swallow" pattern? This is a good sign as it means that you have had a let down and she is drinking your milk. If this isn't happening then it might be an idea to see a Lactation Consultant for some help with attachment.

I also agree with the suggestion to call 1800 mum 2 mum (1800 686 2 686). The ABA counsellors are very reassuring and helpful and it's a toll-free, 24 hour helpline, so you can call anytime. Sometimes just talking to someone who understands can make a big difference.

Best of luck with it all hun.