Always engorged

[ameliare]

I'm 6 weeks PP about starting a few days ago my breasts are engored all the time. It use to only happen in the middle of the night. Now they hurt all the time and my son can't latch on unless I express some milk out. I get 2oz out just by squeezing my breast for a couple minutes. Even when he finishes they are still full but not hard and painful.

His eating habits haven't changed, I record when he eats and its stayed the same.

Is this normal? I thought it'd get better around 6 weeks not worse.

 

[luz]

Sounds like you have a little bit of an over supply problem. Unfortunately, the only way to make it better is to leave it alone. When you express out the 2 oz before he eats that is telling your body to continue to make a certain amount of milk.

What i've done to help regulate my own supply is to try to feed the baby before i get engorged and to use block feeding. Eventually you will regulate and things will get better. With my first i just went with it for a while and pumped all the excess out after feeding to build up my freezer stash, you could always keep doing that until you have a nice little supply.

 

[noon_child]

In the early days of bf some of the engorgement is actually swelling not milk and can be relieved by reverse pressure softening. It isn't usual to still have a large amount of swelling present as late as 6weeks however it might be worth trying reverse pressure softening as (like pp said) pumping or expressing will make oversupply worse. If your baby is gaining weight well and you know you are making more milk than he needs then block feeding is a good solution.

 

[irish_cob]

Block feeding (feeding off one side only for 3-4 hours, so each feed you put the baby on the same side) worked for me and my oversupply. It will settle down though - you're at the end of the hormonal bit of bfing (6 weeks) and after that it's all done on supply and demand.