Mother breastfeeding her baby
When I was breastfeeding my son he had difficulty latching on properly and as a result my milk supply dropped significantly before I realized there was a problem. I had to work really hard to get my supply back up and here are some of the ways that I did that.
Firstly I got a hospital grade electric breast pump from my midwife. This allowed me to drain nearly all of the milk out of my breasts each time I expressed, which prompted my body to produce more. I had to make sure I expressed every 2 hours during the day and every 4 hours at night to try to boost my supply. In between this, I put my baby to the breast as often as possible, for trying to help. I found out later that if I hand expressed after using the breast pump to get out those last drops of milk, this would also help, as you can more effectively remove the end of the milk yourself, so I started doing this too. There was never that much milk, but it was a very concentrated type of milk which I think helped my babies to gain weight.
I found that co-sleeping with my baby, cuddling him as much as possible and putting him in a sling whenever I was out is helpful. This helped me bond with him and also made my body respond better to his needs and I was told it would help my supply, although I can’t prove this is the case. I would still recommend this to anyone with a baby as it certainly seemed to make him more confident and he is now a secure and happy little boy.
I read online that changing your diet could be beneficial. Apparently bananas and oats can help with increasing milk supply, so I made sure that I had porridge every morning and at least one banana a day. I also made sure I ate regular healthy meals and didn’t try to restrict my food intake, as dieting can reduce your milk supply. I also had one square of dark chocolate a day, because I read that chocolate can help too, although I wasn’t sure if this was true, so I just ate a sensible amount of this. I also made sure I had plenty to drink and tried not to get to the point of feeling thirsty before I drank. I kept a glass or bottle of water at hand at all times, so that I could always have fluids when I needed them.Although drinking a lot doesn’t help with your supply, you need to make sure that you have enough fluids, since otherwise you will produce less milk.
Fortunately my supply increased within a few weeks when I used these methods, but if this doesn’t work there are medications you can take to help. They don’t help everyone and there can be side effects so you will need to discuss this with your midwife or medical practitioner first. There are also herbal remedies that can help. I didn’t try these, but they are said to be very good (particularly fenugreek) and it could be worth doing further research on these.
