Trying to insure success for baby number three. Supply and pump questions.

[sarbare0704]

My biggest fear this pregnancy is that I will have breastfeeding issues again. With my daughter We had super painful nursing for at least 4 months complete with cracks and bleeding. She continued to breastfeed for 15 mos but by the time she was 6 mos we were having issues with her size and her not gaining. We pressed on and just tried to do what we thought was best. The only supplementing she had was one bottle after my c-section when I was put under. and we started some solids at 6 mos with her.

With my son our issues were much worse. He had an undiagnosed tongue tie for a week and lost over a pound which led to pumping and supplementing with goats milk for another week until he could get it clipped. After that we went back and forth between EBF and pumping and eventually after a stay at children's hospital and failure to thrive we were forced to exclusively pump and supplement with formula. I have a Medela double electric which I never could seem to get to work well for me. It would take over an hour to get much milk and I was spending my life on the pump and stressing rather then enjoying my baby. At 6 mos we went back to the breast his suck was stronger and he was eating solids so we could at least cut out the formula and pumping. He ended up weaning at about 11 mos I think my supply was just never enough for him. I felt that I tried a lot of things we did a round or Reglan, alfalfa, omegas and a whole lot of lactation cookies. 

I am hoping I can get some help with ideas of what I can do to make things more successful this time. I am also hoping to be able to get a different pump this time. hopefully a closed system one that might possibly be better for me and milk output. We are planning our second home birth so my goal is to be ready and waiting I plan to get that baby nursing as much as possible and ready with a pump from the beginning Incase of problems and to keep supply booming!!! Any help will be greatly appreciated!! Thanks!!! 

[JudiAU]

What kind of support did you have in the past? Did you have those problems while also having good LC/LLC support or did you have those problems with inadequate support. Might be worth considering as you plan your "attack."

I'd probably plan on a hospital grade rental for the first month, just to give yourself peace of mind that you have it available if latch is difficult in the beginning. And I'd make sure I had really good support in place, either the people who helped you continue to nurse, even with difficulty, or if you think you had poor support, a new person/people.

[elevena true]

       i have also had some major supply issues with breastfeeding. i have found a lot of help in the book, "making more milk," which goes through all sort of trouble shooting and offers a lot of advice in so far as how to increase supply. i could quote from it, but truly would rather encourage you to have your own read- there are a lot of possibilities as to why you had trouble with your supply. this book wipes out a lot of them.

     i do have to ask, though, what on earth are lactation cookies?? i imagine oats and.....? do tell.