Breastfeeding/feeding advice

Hey... Be kind to yourself your doing everything you can right now. I was told not to pump but they meant electric pump but they did say I could use a manual pump at a slow rate. I'm 3 weeks into this and have only just got into a rhythm with my body and baby. Don't worry about the weight babies are allowed to lose weight and your midwife of health visitor can advise on this. This is a hard journey so make sure you continue to fuel your body and mind as positively as you can. You just made a human and now wanting to feed it from your own body that is incredible and you should thank yourself for doing such an amazing job.

I sometimes use a Hakka on my other boob as some gentle suction and you can always use that to top up after a feed if you think baby is still hungry or didn't get enough. My midwife said anything from 8 mins to 40mins is normal as sometimes they want a snack and other times a 3 course meal so just be patient with yourself and the journey. Instinctively baby and body know what to do. 💜💜💜

First that’s a lie about not pumping to lessen supply. If you have a routine schedule for pumping daily then it’ll increase. That’s what it done for me.

Second, it’s normal to feel like your child isn’t having enough breast milk and you’d want to give formula.

My baby is currently 5 weeks old and when she was around 2-3 weeks I felt like my supply was low and was scared she wasn’t getting enough. For me I was giving formula and bf. But give formula once every occasion. Once or twice a day. But I always make sure to breastfeed as that’ll help increase. Even just having some contact with your child can help increase yet everyone is different.

If you want to give formula but also bf then it’s okay to do so as long as you don’t stop breastfeeding them. I think that’s what they meant if you stop bf and only give formula then your supply will stop.

Hopefully that helped

i had the same problem, my baby lost lots of weight and we were readmitted back into hospital.
My baby can latch but chooses not to so i have to express - i use an electric pump every 3 hours and then bottle feed her using that milk, it’s exhausting but i want her to have my breast milk. I didn’t start expressing for at least 7/8 days post partum though (properly) obviously they make you in hospital lol
it was disheartening that she wouldn’t latch on me, and i’m sure there is always time. The best part about my expressing is that my partner can feed her and we can measure how much milk she gets xx