BF question ⁉️
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I moved from expressing and bottle feeding to breastfeeding when my little boy was 1 week old - he’d been formula fed in hospital, then a combo of formula and expressed. I’m a week on now and have stopped pumping entirely. For me, it was a balance between avoiding clogged ducts and mastitis and causing an oversupply - I tried to feed him from one boob each feed to begin with so one was emptied more, snd hand expressed the other if I was uncomfy, it did take a day or so for my supply to regulate. Where possible, I would reduce using your pump as for me, this kept my supply too high compared to my little one’s needs. It really doesn’t take long for your body to work out what it needs to be producing though! I contacted the breastfeeding network through their Instagram direct message chat for support - I highly recommend them as they were really lovely and helpful!
@Laura this is exactly what I've done and I've felt soooo much better 24 hours later. I've been recommended to pump for 2-3 minutes before each feed to stimulate/soften the nipple as I found it was so hard that baby was having a hard time latching. Thanks for your help 🩷
Are you directly breastfeeding now or still combi? Do you need to pump for baby or is the question that you were and now you don’t need to but boobs still feel full? Basically if you are now ok with feeding direct and not needing to pump after feeds but boobs still feel full, you could just hand express to relieve comfort. Keep brining baby to the breast often as supply only establishes after 6-8 weeks. So you wouldn’t want to reduce too much but hand expressing would help relieve but also not overstimulate as not as powerful as a pump. Hope that helps