Hi Lovely ladies,
I've managed to exclusively bf for 8 months (evidently, with solids for the last couple). My lo is due to start nursery in a month, she will be doing three full days and spending one day with her daddy, and the other three with me around. We are currently on three feeds a day, one when she wakes up, one in the afternoon and one at bedtime (occasionally she grabs a sneaky extra one mid morning). I know that there is nothing wrong with formula at all, but I had hoped I could express out enough milk for her afternoon feed on the four days I'm not there, and then bf as usual. I wanted to do that till 1, when I could just move her straight onto cows milk.

Up until a week or so ago, I was expressing out about 4+ ozs every evening (which I'd put in her breakfast or freeze). But we went on holiday, and I was a bit lazy about expressing (I missed two nights in a row) and now I only seem to get 2ozs out when I express in the evening!!!

Is there anything I can do to get my supply back :(

And, if I am not bf midafternoon four days a week, is it going to destroy my supply? I'm wondering if I will have to try and express at work, although I have no idea how that will work.

Have any of you done that? How did you manage to keep the milk fresh???

Help!

Thanks,

Ally

I don't know if it is in my head - but I find that if I don't drink water my supply dwindles a bit - so drinking water seems to 'top' it up a bit ...

xxx

Not sure how much help I can be. My LO is 9 months old and I have to give her formula during the day now (still give breakfast and bedtime bf) as my supply dropped once I went back to work. I am still able to give her the odd breast feed in the day but don't think she gets much milk, more of a comfort feed. I would have loved her to just have breast milk for a year.
I would imagine that if you are working 4 days in a row then it might be difficult for you to feed her on the 5th, 6th, 7th so you might need to express in work.
Hope you work something out.

Now she is eating other foods could you just feed her in the morning and evenings when you get home? Its a law that your work must provide you with a room to express and somewhere to store it - maybe take a cold bag for journeys to and from work, so if you can express and still want her to take milk in the day that could be an option. Maybe try feeding more frequently (with baby or breast pump) to stimulate your breasts to produce more milk?
Hope that helps
xxx

hi

to increse your supply try getting up once a night for a week and express as it will really boost your supply as you release prolactin at night which stimulates supply, or i find if i express and then keep going for another 10mins after the milk has stopped 2 or 3 days later my milk increases.

regards work as someone else said your work has to provide a private place for you to express and i believe its in addition to your normal breaks so id say go for it.

def keep up the fluids as well

xxDBxx

Thanks so much for your replies!

The water thing I think is probably part of my problem. I don't drink enough. When I was on holiday, and drinking tons of water, I was getting out 8ozs a night!!! So, I'm trying to drink more. I also have given Freya a sneaky feed for two nights - she was refluxy (another story) and the milk is an antacid (sp). I also had some asparagus...and last night when I expressed I did get out 3.5ozs, so getting a bit better!

I'm going to investigate the expressing in work. If I can keep it cold, then that would certainly help, and since it is just a couple of months before she turns 1 (by which point she may have dropped the afternoon feed I think), hopefully I will be okay...!

Thanks for all yoru tips!

xxx