Help with pumping

Hello ladies!

My son has reflux and breast feeding to date has been an absolute nightmare. He pulls off, stiffens up, screams, tugs painfully at my nipples etc and I can rarely get him feeding for more than 5 minutes each side.

Because of this, I've started giving him expressed milk for two of his feeds each day which he gulps down quite desperately. I figure it's because he's upright when I give him his bottle so he refluxes less.

Only problem is now I'm constantly pumping. I'm typing with one hand currently! I have the Medela Swing but it just takes forever. I do half hour sessions about 6 times a day. I'm worried about my milk supply as my breasts don't look big, never feel full, never leak etc.

The Medela manual says to use the pump at your maximum comfort level however when I google pumping, it says to use to pump at its lowest and slowest level as increasing the level can reduce your milk supply. The idea being that baby's suckling isn't that strong and the pump needs to imitate baby as much as possible.

I've tried using the pump on its lowest level for 2 days now and not only does my milk supply appear to be remain the same, it's now taking me even longer to get enough for the 2 bottles I need.

So do I set the pump at my maximum comfort level or keep trying it at its lowest level?

Huh, I hadn't heard that advice before - interesting.  I pumped for 12 weeks, and for the first 3-4 weeks had really sore nipples and could only tolerate the pump on the lowest settings.  Once they finally healed I ended up using the maximum settings for the whole pumping session, which produced the same amount of/more milk in a quicker amount of time.  I got a script for Domperidone to keep up my milk supply - it definitely helped me, but I've heard it doesn't help everyone.  Oh, and I had a double electric pump ... if you plan to pump a lot I'd definitely recommend getting one as they're a huge time saver.

Just wondering too ... have you tried holding bubs in a more upright position while BFing, to help with the reflux?  I remember the lactation consultant telling me about women who BFed with their baby sitting on their hip, or with bubs bottom right down in their lap and legs dangling lower (hard to explain, hope you get what i mean?).

kakapo wrote: Just wondering too ... have you tried holding bubs in a more upright position while BFing, to help with the reflux?  I remember the lactation consultant telling me about women who BFed with their baby sitting on their hip, or with bubs bottom right down in their lap and legs dangling lower (hard to explain, hope you get what i mean?).

 

Also try having bubs sitting straddling your leg and facing you so he can fitting sitting up (does that make sense?).

Other thing that I found when DS reflux was at its worst was to nurse while walking around, the movement seemed to calm him and for about 3 weeks that was the only way he would nurse. Hard work, but at least he was getting decent feeds from me.
Good luck!!!