Increasing Milk Supply

Breastfeeding is one of the most difficult task of motherhood. I always thought it would just come to you. Clearly no. 

If you followed my earlier posts, you would have read that I had issues with breastfeeding - I don't exactly know even till now what the problem was, but I suspected it could be the size or B being a very impatient baby and refused to latch if the let down is slow. That affected the milk supply. As afterall, milk production is based off demand and supply. The more your baby nurses, the more milk your breast will make.

After the decision to exclusively pump and bottle feed B, I went through a long journey to increase my supply as he was drinking fast and furious. I even had to supplement fm for a few feeds just to build up the BM base.

When I first started to pump, I could only manage to pump 50-70ml. Then for the longest time, it was 60-70ml and he was already drinking 90ml by then. With my 2 hourly pump, it increased to 100ml and stayed that way for awhile. Gradually it increased to 120ml, stayed that amount for awhile... Continued the process and now the average pump yield at every 4 hours is between 160-230ml. If I drag a session to about 5 hours, it goes up to 260-270. I have to say I'm very happy with where I am now, and both my home fridge and my mum's fridge has bags of BM.

Truth be told, I took so many things that were supposedly helpful in increasing the supply therefore can't quite pinpoint what exactly worked. Perhaps a combination of everything. Here's what I did:

- Took Motherlove More Milk Plus. A fenugreek supplement 3x a day

- My gynae prescribed Domperidone which has a side effect of increasing BM

- Drank ALOT of water. And I mean alot, I have a water bottle with me all the time. It doesn't have to be plain water, it can take the form of juices or soup. For me, it was water or hot milo.

- Eat more. Just like when one is pregnant, take more smaller meals. Snack on healthy snacks like biscuits, energy bars.

- Oatmeals. I had at least one serving of oatmeal a day, either for breakfast or as a drink during the day

- Organic mothers milk tea. Read that this worked for many and I ordered it online. Personally I feel this was what worked for me and my ss increased the day after I started drinking this.

- Pumped every 2-3 hours and then 4 hours when supply is established. Drink while pumping.

Above all, rest is most important but practically impossible with a newborn. I guess my body has learned to cope with it but I have more time to nap now, esp when B is napping.

There is another method of increasing milk supply and that us to power pump, ie pump for 10min, rest for 10. Continue for an hour, once a day. Results can be seen in a few days. I was rather keen to try it this weekend, but maybe next time. Oversupply is not a good thing either and I don't want to freeze the BM.

I shall do an update if I do power pump and see if it works