praying for a positive bf experieince this time

[AJandElijahsmommy]

with ds1 the hospital gave him a bottle and it took 4 month to get him on the breast, I got pg again when he was 8 months and lost my supply. so only got to bf for 4 months. With ds 2, a UC homebirth, he bf right away but I had surgery when he was 3 months and lost my supply. with ds 3, another uc hombirth, i was horriblly engorged, bf for for 3 months and decreased supply when i started block feeding which led to supplementing which led to nipple confusion which led to total loss of supply! I am now pg with #4 and want to bf for at least a full year. how can i make sure this happens! i always start out with oversupply overactive letdown and horribly painfully engorged and it levels out around 3 months. What can I do?

[LilMomma83]

I had that with my oldest two, not sure about my youngest - she isn't 3 months yet. My youngest had a posterior tongue tie and upper lip ties and both my other kids have upper lip ties and in retrospect I think they have posterior tongue ties too. My guess is that I naturally have oversupply (my mom did also) but because of tongue ties my babies didn't remove milk well so when the supply naturally levels off (which I think is around 3 months) they just couldn't maintain it on their own. Like I said, I don't know since I didn't know about this until my current baby who isn't 3 months yet, but, I am hoping and thinking that was the issue with my older kids.

Another thing, My IBCLC said that an overactive letdown and oversupply do not always go hand in hand...so is it possible you never had oversupply and just had an overactive letdown?

You can also take herbs like fenugreek and a bunch of others, or even domperidone...this time I knew I would probably have low supply so I made sure to have a 3 week supply of domperidone on hand (so if my supply dropped I got start the dom and immiediatly order more) and that was a lfiesaver to me at around 3-4 weeks when I first realized my DD had not been removing more than about 2oz a day of my milk and my supply was almost gone..I started dom 3 pills 3 X day and fenugreek (4 pills, 4 times per day) and pumped after every single feeding and was able to get my supply back...it was hard, but, it worked!

I think if you can figure out whatever the cause is that will help too...but, it probably won't hurt to be ready to pump and at least take some herbals regardless :-)

Good luck mama, I know how it feels to want it so desperately to work better each time! Another thing I did this time was redefine my goals and expectations and what "successful" breastfeedign meant to me. Before  was even born I already was expecting she would need formula at least a little bit, when we were struggling (struggled the most with her because she wasn't gaining) I just kept setting mini goals for myself...sometimes it was jut, "I'll keep putting her to my breast and pumping for one more day" the next thing I knew we had figured out the cause of her issues (and that also showed the cause of my low supply) and we able to correct both...and I feel pretty certain we will have a long breastfeeding relationship at this point; but, even if we don't...at 12 weeks we have made it further than I had dared hope and I am so proud of us! :-)