> She is... feeding 15 minutes each breast every 2 1/2
>hours during the day and 1 (4) hour stretch at night to equal 9 feeds or
>4 1/2 hours breast stimulation. Should she pump in addition to all that
>stimulation? when? what else should we do?
First of all, I get more like 2 1/2 hours of nursing.
I'd urge her to nurse *at least* twice as often - really putting baby to
breast every time he squeaks, even if just for a minute, but supplementing
on pretty much her current schedule. That is, not supplementing every time
he goes to breast. It's the old La Leche League technique of going to bed
with the baby, a pitcher of juice or water, and a stack of books or
magazines, and nurse-nurse-nursing, supplementing as needed. Any time a mom
w/ a low supply can put a number on the frequency of nursing, I get nervous.
Can we name every single time we ate/drank yesterday, even though we
weren't trying to gain weight? (Thank you, Coach Smith.)
If her supply is really unsatisfying to the baby, perhaps it makes more
sense to start by relying on the pump, and nursing "for recreation" because
they both enjoy it but not with an expectation that it will feed him. In 15
minutes with a pump, she can have *constant* sucking (suck, suck, suck,
suck, suck, suck) stimulation to *both breasts*. In 30 minutes at both
breasts, the baby is likely to be going suck, chew, suck, pause, nap, suck,
chew, pause, nap... and may still not have gotten anything like a meal. So
my feeling with a really low supply is to use the pump to pull the supply up
closer to normal, then start to back off and let the baby take over, once
there's more reward and thus more vigorous and sustained sucking.
We've probably all seen mothers doggedly keeping their baby at breast for
hours and hours with very little swallowing - and thus, of course, very
little chance for an increase in supply. It seems to me much more logical
to pump, be done with it, get the baby fed, truly *enjoy* nursing, and have
energy left over on the part of both mother and baby for just hanging out
together. I have a sticker on all my pumps that says "Milk supply depends
on frequent and effective removal of milk." Or as someone (on lactnet?)
said, "You can fall asleep with your face in your plate. But that's not the
same as eating."
Diane Wiessinger, MS, IBCLC who ate at least 4 cookies worth of chocolate
chip cookie dough between meals yesterday in Ithaca, NY and who is *not*
trying to gain weight...
***********************************************
The LACTNET mailing list is powered by L-Soft's renowned
LISTSERV(R) list management software together with L-Soft's LSMTP(TM)
mailer for lightning fast mail delivery. For more information, go to:
http://www.lsoft.com/LISTSERV-powered.html
|
