Breast Milk Reduced

I have a 2 months old baby girl. At the beginning of breast feeding,that means during first and second weeks, i had enough milk to feed her. but at that time she had a problem of sucking,si i had to use BREAST PUMP to take remaining milk.. but on the course it became ok. now the problem is i dont have enough milk to feed her.it became insufficient for her from last week of first moth.so i started depending on supporting formulas to feed her. i gave her once in 4 hrs my milk at that time.. now it has become once in 6-7 hrs.. can the reason for this much decrease in my milk,due to the use of breast pump..?? is there any way to increase my breast milk to normal..?? Please help me..

[Super_sally888]

Are you breastfeeding directly, or only pumping?

Breastfeeding is a supply and demand thing.  If you stimulate your breasts less (and best way is with the baby's sucking) then there'll be less milk.

If possible stop supplementing with formula and put baby to your breast to suck directly every time she's hungry.  If your milk really is less baby will drink more frequently until the supply is built up again, and by doing so your milk supply will also increase.  To further stimulate you could also pump after baby has finished feeding directly.

But baby should always drink directly.

[grannienannie]

Hello..are you drinking soda.?that will dry your milk out...2 hours before you feed her drink warm milk,or tea,..that will start your milk flowing...or drink lot of juice...NO SODA!...what you eat it goes to your milk...so drink a lot of milk too when your going to bed... thats great your breast feeding...it cures a lot of rashes on babies too...and its all natural.

[Chreey]

I agree with the above posts. Also there are herbs out there that can help increse your milk. They makes teas as well to help with milk supply issues.

[nola0805]

I first wanted to ask you why you think you were not making enough milk in the first place. Are you pumping only or pumping and breastfeeding?  I was only breastfeeding and I know there were days when my baby was around 4 weeks that I worried about the same thing - especially at night becasue he would constantly breastfeed and never seemed satisfied.  What I learned though was that this was a growth spurt and is very normal in newborns - they feed constnatly to stimulate you to make more milk - a common thing that can happen is that owrry about milk supply and then start supplementing, which in turn can lower your milk supply because the baby is not simtulationg the breasts.  Also, if you ar eonly pumping it can be hrader to eastbalish a good milk supply (but not impossilbe) in the first 40 days because the baby is more effective at drainign the breast than a pump.  

My advice is to try only breastfeeding for a little bit and feed your baby on demand, as often as she will eat - you can gauge whether she is getting enough by wet diapers and weight gain.  Also make sure that you are eating well and drinking plenty of fluids, especially water.  If you really are worried about your supply, there are some herbal supplements that help boost supply - I took Fenugreek (3 capsules, 3 times a day) and Blessed Thistle (but then only Fenugreek) and I think it helped.  Also, eat oatmeal every morning (this helped me a ton). The real oatmeal - not the instant kind.  

Good luck - I now how stressful this can be - trust me-, it does get easier, I promise - hand in there.

[Clysta]

Do you know for sure your supply is actually low? Many women suspect and think theirs is and it's actually not. Ways to tell if you have low supply is based on babies output (dirty/wet diapers) and how they act after eating. Babies will also naturally cluster feed and this could happen every hour or so. It helps to get your supply up. In terms of dropping supply, supplementing will definitely do that. If you're wanting to boost it, you need to NOT supplement at all and put the baby to the breast as often as possible. Breast milk/feeding is all about supply and demand and the less it's demanded the less that is supplied. As mentioned above, there are also things you can take that can help boost supply, such as Fenugreek, Blessed Thistle, Oatmeal (the real kind, not instant) non-alcoholic beer, and having baby nurse frequently. Avoid supplementing as often as you can or cut it out completely.

[bigmommylove]

I am exclusively pumping. It got down to where I could only pump 1/2 ounce per pumping. I was pumping every 2 to 3 hours with an electric hospital grade dual pump. I finally switched lactation consultants and was told that this is not uncommon in exclusively pumping moms. The LC told me to try out a product called Breastea (you order it online and it's cheap), and she said to keep up the pumping every 2 to 3 hours. So now I drink Breastea daily and I pump between 4 to 5 ounces per pumping. So definitely look into it. It has worked great for me.

[allmymarbles]

Our grandmothers swore by Guinness Stout to increase breast milk. I didn't like stout, so I drank beer. It worked like a charm. Here is another trick. Make sure you take in enough liquid. To remind myself, every time my baby cried to be fed I drank a glass of water. I had plenty of milk with all my children, but only had to resort to beer for one of them. Oddly enough I don't like beer, but it didn't bother me when I took it for breastfeeding. After weaning my dislike of beer returned.