u/mom_eng

I’m 8w postpartum and have been pumping exclusively. My supply is very low at 16oz/day and it’s increasing very slowly at a rate of 1oz week over week. I’m doing everything I can — pump 8x a day, power pump, hydration, increased calorie intake, breast massage prior to pumping, breast compression / massage during pumping, 2 motn sessions, supplements, etc. but nothing seems to make a difference. It’s frustrating to see just ~2oz each session which grows very very slowly. I was at <1oz in the initial weeks. I am now trying to latch few times a day to see if that helps. I’m unable to latch my baby when he’s hungry because he’s very used to bottle and he gets very frustrated when the flow is very slow. So I try to latch him after his feed so he is content and gets how much ever he wants. I’ve done weighted transfer with LC in the past and he transferred only about 0.5oz. It’s probably because my supply is low and he has to work harder to get more. In the initial weeks I was asked to do triple feeding but it affected my mental health a lot so I chose to exclusively pump to maintain mental sanity. However I’m trying to latch now a few times in a day to see if it makes any difference. Need some tips / recommendations on what I can do so he can improve his latch and suck / swallow skills, any advice on the timing of latching him, anything else that can help build my supply. Would love to hear success stories of people who were able to increase their supply by trying to latch a bit later in their postpartum journey like me.

I’m 7w postpartum and a low supplier. I tried to breastfeed my baby in the initial days but I guess I hardly had any colostrum and the latch was also not good so every feeding session ended up with both me and the baby crying. He lost a lot of weight in a couple of days and we were recommended to supplement with formula. I was asked to do triple feeding as well since I wanted to breastfeed him in the long term. However after just one day of trying it, I gave up as it wasn’t for me. I can simply not function without a good sleep and I had already gone more than a week either barely any sleep. I decided to to exclusively pump but soon realized I’m a low supplier and my supply didn’t really increase fast enough.

I now get about 15oz/day with 8 pump sessions/day (I use spectra s1). I was at 5-6oz in the initial weeks and my supply has now been increasing at a rate of 1oz week over week. As you can see, this is super slow. I’ve tried power pumping, frequent removal with 8 sessions a day, flange fit is good, tried medela symphony, tweaked a lot of suction settings on my spectra, breast compression during pumping, hand expression post pumping, whole bunch of supplements I found online, oats, etc. I now try to get a 4hr stretch of sleep at night and I do two pump sessions in the day within 2.5hrs and the rest 3 hrs apart. For whatever reason, my supply increase is very very slow. I have a history of PCOS and I suspect it’s got something to do with this condition. Also my breasts didn’t see much growth during pregnancy but there was growth postpartum. If this continues, I probably will reach full supply in month 3-4. I’m not sure if it will really reach full supply. Anyone with a similar low supply issues and managed to reach full supply eventually? Anything else did you try to accelerate the increase? Some of my friends had similar experience but they also saw a sudden increase around 2+ months. Looking for suggestions / tips if any. Thanks!