Am I doing something wrong?

[JayleighAnn]

I'm sat here trying to pump so OH can have a go at giving Halen a feed and milk comes out of my left breast but nothing out of my right and it's just giving me tiny little love bite marks all over the right nipple?

I expressed 1oz last night no probs, milk came out of both sides and I'm doing it no different to how I did then, it took an hour but then am I right in thinking it takes a while to be able to pump more?

BTW its a manual pump, is there any specific technique to pump?

 

[DizzyMoo]

Is your right breast sore at all? Red or does halen feed from it ok?

When i breastfed my son he breastfed ok but i could never manually express & found it more upsetting/stressful & painful to keep trying.

This time i'm going for a leccy one see if that makes a difference .

Try rubbing the breast in a downward motion or downward circle motion to try release the milk & then try pumping, Sometimes you have to pump for a few mins to get the let down then milk comes.

 

[JayleighAnn]

Is your right breast sore at all? Red or does halen feed from it ok?

When i breastfed my son he breastfed ok but i could never manually express & found it more upsetting/stressful & painful to keep trying.

This time i'm going for a leccy one see if that makes a difference .

Try rubbing the breast in a downward motion or downward circle motion to try release the milk & then try pumping, Sometimes you have to pump for a few mins to get the let down then milk comes.

He's a bit funny with the right breast he will latch on n off quite a bit where as the left he's stuck on the whole time, but he gets milk from the right breast as well cause it ends up all over his face lol

I will try massaging my breast see if that helps, thanks for that, also you can use warm flannels can't you?
TBH after starting my preg with OH adament he wanted to feed LO with EBM and me not really wanting to, he changed his mind after LO was born and decided he didn't see the need in EBM if he was fine on the breast so I don't really know why I'm expressing, I just wanted to try it really lol

If it's gunna be a faff I'm not gunna bother, but I was just worried that I was doing something wrong

 

[DizzyMoo]

Yep use a warm flannel or maybe try after a bath, if he isn't getting a proper flow from the right so he latches on & off maybe the ducts are a little blocked? The massaging & continual pumping is meant to help unblock but can make it really sore.

If he isn't bothered about feeding then just give your feeding routine a little longer then try expressing again, If you can express it gives you the option to have a break sometimes even if its simply having a bath or just sitting there one night & being able to completely relax, or going a friends for an hour. Or maybe on your 1st night out. It is handy for you but if you really feel its causing more hassle then just stop, & try again in a week or 2. You are better off trying to express in the middle of feeds, so say you're currently feeding every 4 hrs... then try expressing after 2 hrs. This will make your body produce more, It could be your body is producing enough for baby but hasn't got into the routine to produce more yet, You would have to do this on a regular basis not every other day etc. Some people find it very easy but i found it quite hard & frustrating x

 

[JayleighAnn]

Yep use a warm flannel or maybe try after a bath, if he isn't getting a proper flow from the right so he latches on & off maybe the ducts are a little blocked? The massaging & continual pumping is meant to help unblock but can make it really sore.

If he isn't bothered about feeding then just give your feeding routine a little longer then try expressing again, If you can express it gives you the option to have a break sometimes even if its simply having a bath or just sitting there one night & being able to completely relax, or going a friends for an hour. Or maybe on your 1st night out. It is handy for you but if you really feel its causing more hassle then just stop, & try again in a week or 2. You are better off trying to express in the middle of feeds, so say you're currently feeding every 4 hrs... then try expressing after 2 hrs. This will make your body produce more, It could be your body is producing enough for baby but hasn't got into the routine to produce more yet, You would have to do this on a regular basis not every other day etc. Some people find it very easy but i found it quite hard & frustrating x

Yeah the idea was for me to pump for him to feed him, then when he decided he didn't want to it was incase we have a babysitter or I feel I need a break

I'll leave it for a while and try again as we still don't have a set routine of x amount of time, he can go anywhere from 1-5 hours inbetween feeds and I found yesterday that when I expressed that evening, there wasn't much left for him so he was feeding every hour last night and I felt guilt for sucking it all out

 

[SazMum]

I had the same problem, I was trying to express in the middle of the night (my milk would leak all over otherwise) and I successfully expressed from the left breast to no success! Not even a drop, my breast was full, sore and engorged but not a drop came out.

I was so stressed out about it I returned to bed with frustrated tears.

Im now trying to relacte..and the best bit of advice I can give you is to try expressing with your hand, it takes a bit of getting used to, but once you have the hang its much easier. If I express with the pump I get nothing but a sore nipple.With my hand it just keeps going, doesnt hurt and there is minimum hastle.

I found some tips in videos on u tube.

Best of luck

 

[beancounter]

I have an electric, which works better for me, but even then, i sometimes have to wait quite a while for let down, once I was sitting therefor 10 mins getting not much- then all of a sudden- milky jets and a whole bottle full in a couple of mins. I think looking at your baby is a good Idea, or pictures, once finn cried while I was expressing and that worked brilliantly. I express at the same time every day, 7.30 am and pm, it gets like an extra feed so your body gets used to it and you get more milk expressing.

 

[Lucy_lu_84]

i've only expressed a couple of times...and i found I was getting nothing and i was like what am I doing wrong. But then i tried to do it at the same time as I fed. So I had Joshua on one breast and the pump on the other and it made the milk flow out nicely. Although it is a mission to hold LO, and use a manual pump lol!
I think I need to start doing it every day now that we have a new bigger freezer, so I can build up a little stash

 

[JayleighAnn]

I tried again today, sat on my bed whilst LO was asleep in his moses next to me and I got some brilliant let down coming out, it was squirting loads!

I did manuall express a bit into the bottle first so I dunno if this got things going a bit before the pump so it was easier?

Got about 1/5 oz out in 10mins rather than 1oz in 1 hour lol