Searching for breastfeeding advice!

Hi Ladies,

I'm looking for some advice on breastfeeding and milk production. This is my third baby and I've never been successful at breastfeeding before. What I'm most concerned about is that my milk has never come in and I've given up due to frustration on both myself and my baby's part before it did.

Is there something that I can do to help encourage the milk to come in? My other concern is that I don't have a really great diet to start with. I most certainly don't get in all the food groups that I should each and every day and I eat my fair share and then some of junk as well. I'm currently almost 29 weeks along and tend to deliver early, so I figured if I need to do something before delivery, I should probably get a start on it now!

Can you point me in the right direction or give me some advice that has worked for ya'll?

I had asked a similar question a few weeks ago and one of the ladies recommended "a lactation cookie" for after delivery. Here is the recipe. If you are a dumper you can sub malitol (or splenda for the sugars and sugar free chips)

1 cup butter, softened
1 cup sugar
1 cup brown sugar
4 TBSP water
4 TBSP flaxseed meal
2 large eggs
1 tsp. vanilla
1 cup all purpose flour
1 cup almond meal
1 tsp baking soda
1 tsp salt
3 cups oatmeal, thick cut or old fashioned (no instant)
1 cup or more chocolate chips
4 TBSP brewers yeast (be generous)
 
Preheat over to 375 degrees, mix flaxseed and water, let sit 5 minutes.
Cream sugars and butter.  Add eggs 1 at a time and mix well.  Add flaxseed mixture and vanilla.  Beat until blended.  In a seperate bowl add all dry ingredients except oats and chips.  Slowly blend into batter.  Stir in Oatmeal, stir in chips.  Scoop or drop onto cookie sheet or stone.  Bake 8 to 12 minutes.
 

Thankyou for the recipe tip! I'm saving this! I don't tend to dump and I'm afraid I eat way more than my fair share of sugar, so I think this will be fine!

With Nick, I found a lot of help in the hospital with a lactation consultant. She recommended I take fenugreek....I did and it didn't help... I smelled like maple syrup though. And then she recommended motillium - which is typically used for stomach upset but has a side effect of lactating. I used it for 6 months after birth and saw a big increase in production within a couple of days of taking. I also pumped round the clock. Nick had a hard time latching due to me having inverted nipples so I used a nipple shield to help with that issue. It was aggravating and awkward, but I did it anyways. I would attempt to breastfeed him for 15 min. on each side and then pump immediately after for 15 - 20 minutes. I had a dual pump so that helped...but by the time I fed, got Nick back to sleep, pumped, stored milk, and cleaned up my pump parts, it was time for Nick to eat again. I really got zero sleep doing this and I lasted for about a month and a half and eventually just went to exclusively pumping and feeding it to him in a bottle. I was so upset and cried a lot because of it, but in hindsight, now... I know I truly did my best and pray that I will have a better experience with our little girl and know not to stress if it just doesn't work out.

I don't really know what I should do to prepare prior to delivery though. www.kellymom.com is a great site for breastfeeding advice and I learned a lot with Nick... I have since forgotten a lot too...so I will be surfing over there for advice myself within the next couple of weeks.

Thank you for your advice! My son also had a hard time latching because I also have inverted nipples. Sometimes I can mannually manipulate them and they come out, but it always seems like when they were out he wasn't ready, and when he was ready, they weren't coming out! It was beyond frustrating and a big reason why I gave up on breast feeding after about 2 1/2 weeks.

I was already supplementing with so much formula and the process of trying to get my own breast to work and to pump was taking so long that I mentally could not take it anymore. I purchase a breast pump but was never able to get anything substantial to be pumped out with it. I seriously don't think my milk had ever come in enough.

Since having my son, I've had a breast lift and I'm hoping that's going to help a bit in the physicalities of breast feeding. It was so uncomfortable the last time both because of my inverted nipples and the fact that I had boobs I could basically throw over my shoulder, I could never get them to where they needed to be when my baby wanted them LoL Now that they are standing at attention, I sure hope that will make it easier and more comfortable for both baby and I. I'd really like to give it a good go this time around!

I was unable to breastfeed my daughter as well and would really like to with this baby. My milk just never really came in, but I had an incision infection so I'm not sure if that had anything to do with it or not. I'm going to ask my doctor about it, but there is a website which talks about a certain type of breasts that can't produce milk like they should and I'm thinking I may be one of those people. If you want you can check it out, it's kinda graphic with pictures of breasts though, just to warn you.

http://www.007b.com/breast_size_breastfeeding.php

That was some interesting reading, thank you for sharing! I don't think I fall into that category, but it was eye opening too look into!

I do know I'm capable of producing milk, it's just the amount I struggled with and the basic physicalities of being able to get my son to latch on properly. Even now at 28 1/2 weeks pregnant, my boobs are leaking, so much so that when I manipulate them, the right one can even "shoot" fluid across the room! LoL I remember that was something it would do when I was trying to breast feed my son 18 months ago too.

Gosh, the things you can discuss with people you don't really know on the internet LoL. My mother would die if she heard me talking about this stuff! hahaha But I thank you all so much for listening

I barely produced anything at all and I'm not sure if it's because I don't have milk glands or my infection, which was pretty serious so that could have been it. But my boobs haven't grown much in size like they always say they will and it was that way in my first pregnancy too. They told me I had inverted nipples as well, even though it doesn't look like it, I wore the nipple shields too. But this time my boobs seem a little fuller, not much, but a little. They also have been sore, they were never sore the first time, so we'll see. Good luck to you breastfeeding, I hope it goes well this time.