help for online pal

see her message: can you give us advice? I will post it back to her.
"I visited the breastfeeding and lactation board here at ivillage because I
am having supply problems for what I thought was due to Brayden's ever
changing feeding schedule. But they are telling me that I am overfeeding
him. Well, me or the sitter. I feel terrible and more confused now. I wanted
to know how to increase my supply and what to do about him eating in the
evenings sometimes and sometimes not at all. I told them he eats 6 oz at 12
and at 3pm while I am at work but that I am only able to pump 8oz at
work-which isn't enough. I thought I would get some sympathy and suggestions
like I do from you ladies but instead they are talking about average
feedings and a baby should only consume 25oz a day and 6oz is way too much
and he doesn't need solids yet he just wants to bond not eat. What? I
thought they were supposed to help. How much does your babies eat? How
often? If my son is big doesn't he need a little more than the
average--these charts say that children don't need to increase intake with
age or weight."

Child wrote:

see her message: can you give us advice? I will post it back to her.
"I visited the breastfeeding and lactation board here at ivillage because I
am having supply problems for what I thought was due to Brayden's ever
changing feeding schedule. But they are telling me that I am overfeeding
him. Well, me or the sitter. I feel terrible and more confused now. I wanted
to know how to increase my supply and what to do about him eating in the
evenings sometimes and sometimes not at all. I told them he eats 6 oz at 12
and at 3pm while I am at work but that I am only able to pump 8oz at
work-which isn't enough. I thought I would get some sympathy and suggestions
like I do from you ladies but instead they are talking about average
feedings and a baby should only consume 25oz a day and 6oz is way too much
and he doesn't need solids yet he just wants to bond not eat. What? I
thought they were supposed to help. How much does your babies eat? How
often? If my son is big doesn't he need a little more than the
average--these charts say that children don't need to increase intake with
age or weight."


Sometimes (often?) a caregiver will use the bottle as a first
attempt at comfort for a baby, when in fact, a baby may not be
hungry and may be tired, bored, whatever. So she may want to suggest
that the caregiver give only 4 ounces and try other comfort measures,
but if baby is still hungry, go ahead and give a couple more ounces.

That's one option. The other option is to try to increase her pump
output. The ways to do that are herbal supplements (which I think
you've used, Beth), and to pump more. A good extra pump to add in
is in the morning before baby wakes up (if you can stand to do it).
Also pumping on weekends.

Lastly, in the situation where mom is working and pumping and just
not meeting the baby needs, well, I would give myself permission
to supplement with formula. Its just not worth the stress. That
said, she needs to keep pumping to keep her supply up for when
she is with the baby. And she needs to nurse him only, when she
is with him. Cosleeping would be fabulous so he could nurse during
the night, but some women don't want to open that can of worms.

Oh, and one more thing - my girls were always off the chart when
they were exclusively breastfed but never took more than 4 ounces
from the bottle and never more than 12-14 ounces max, when I was
away from them (usually more like 6 ounces). Really size doesn't
have much to do with it. Some babies like bottles and take alot.
Some don't.

Oh, and one more thing again! She may find his bottle intake
decreases when she does start solids. DD2 was completely off
the bottle at 10 months- she just lost interest in it, prefering
solids at daycare and nursing at home.

Good luck to your friend. And good for her for pumping!

Mary W.

Sometimes (often?) a caregiver will use the bottle as a first
attempt at comfort for a baby, when in fact, a baby may not be
hungry and may be tired, bored, whatever. So she may want to suggest
that the caregiver give only 4 ounces and try other comfort measures,
but if baby is still hungry, go ahead and give a couple more ounces.

this is true, but not necessarily intentional on the part of the caregiver,
they just don't know your baby, a brief conversation letting them know that
they aren't usually consuming that much when they are with you at the same
time of day and that perhaps they have other needs can easily resolve this.
It certainly worked for us, though I always provided a 2nd bottle just in
case he really did need it.

That's one option. The other option is to try to increase her pump
output. The ways to do that are herbal supplements (which I think
you've used, Beth), and to pump more. A good extra pump to add in
is in the morning before baby wakes up (if you can stand to do it).
Also pumping on weekends.

Absolutely, I'd be taking both lines of attack, for me pumping straight
after the morning feed was a very effective way of getting more milk out.
Also, twiddling my nipples every time I went to the loo seemed to help (I
know this sounds bizarre, but it's easy to fit in and I'd more often than
not stimulate a let down).

How old is the baby? I know in the month before DS started solids was when
we had similar problems, often taking 2 6oz bottles in 4hrs, within a month
he was down to 1 4oz bottle.

Anne