How long did it take for your milk to come in?

[Menelly]

I had my little guy on Tuesday, planned csec at 37 weeks due to a prior vertical csec scar. He ended up in the NICU with breathing problems and now jaundice. (sigh) And here it is Friday night and I'm still getting only drops! I've tried nursing him a few times in NICU, but his respiration rate jumps way up and they get afraid of aspiration pneumonia, so we haven't had much chance. :/ How long did it take for milk to come in for you ladies? What can I do to actually get some milk out? I'm frustrated and kind of freaking, I had to leave the hospital tonight without him and I'm afraid I'm gonna lose it.

Thanks.

 

[Twinmum87]

.have you tried expressing? If he isn't really feeding from you you need to stimulate the milk flow. Express at the hospital right after holding him and trying him at the breast. Look at pictures and video recordings, especially ones where he is making noises when at home. Take a blanket in from home and have him wrapped in that and swap it over after 2 days and his scent on it will help.

My twins were born by emergency section at 34+1 weeks just after 7 pm on a Thursday. They were transfered to another hospital several hours later once stable and i followed once i was stable. They were 16 hours old when I first saw them properly besides the quick 30 second hold i got when they brought them down to recovers for me to quickly see before they were transferred. I tried expressing after and got a very tiny amount but kept trying every 4 hours and the next morning I woke up with very engorged breast and leaking.

 

[Menelly]

I've been pumping every 3 hours, and still getting very little, if anything. It's extremely discouraging.

 

[Twinmum87]

I have no clue what things are like over in the US but try looking to see if there are any breast feeding support groups in your are. Also i haven friend who is a midwife and she told me UNICEF have great breastfeeding advice. There may also be information on stimulating ir increasing milk flow too. I wish I had known sooner as with mine even thou i produced loads at first the milk reduced dramatically after 2 weeks and completely stopped at 5 weeks and I was only informed by any health professional when they were 5 months old that there are things out there you can take to help. There are some completely natural things you can take to help increase supply so might be worth doing an online search or asking someone at a breast feeding support group, midwife or doctor etc.

 

[Twinmum87]

I know it can be easy to forget to look after yourself when you are worried about your baby and running back and forth to the hospital, make sure you are drinking plenty of fluids and eating well

 

[Ferry]

I'm sure this won't happen to you... but mine never did.

LO was born at 35 weeks. He couldn't really suck but we tried skin to skin, hand expressing, using the horrible hospital-grade pump which left me with horrible bruises...

Nothing worked and I drew the line at medication as the midwife said it was unlicensed and listed some pretty nasty side effects. LO is now 5 weeks and is an Aptamil baby - and doing great.

It was awful at the time - I felt like a complete failure - but formula milk really has come on, so if the worst happens (which I'm sure it won't!!!) don't worry that your baby isn't getting what he/she needs xxx

 

[Menelly]

Yeah, he's taking formula at the hospital now (they save the donated milk for the preemies who truly need it) and he's tolerating it totally fine. I just ordered an SNS from Amazon, and if nothing else I'll feed him formula while attached to the breast, see if that stimulates a bit. If not, we literally tried everything. I will try my best not to blame myself. And be grateful he's alive, I heard that a huge number of placental infections can end up in stillbirth, so I'm counting myself lucky! Battling over boob v bottle when I could have lost him isn't worth it.

 

[misspriss]

Mine came in around 4-5 days a little, was in full force by 7-10 days. I was pumping exclusively until about 13 days.

My DS was on IV fluid only until the 4th day or so? Due to the magnesium sulfate they gave me in labor. Then they only gave him tiny amounts the first day or two.

 

[Menelly]

OK, that makes me feel a bit better, Misspriss! I'm on day 5, and it's turning white, but I'm not engorged at all and not getting much when pumping (like 10-15 drops per side, seriously) but the idea that it could change to milk BEFORE fully coming in hadn't occurred to me. I'll keep trying.

 

[GI_Jane]

Honestly mine did not come in fully until he was out of Hospital, the morning after he came home I was leaking! I think the stress of the situation stopped it from really coming in until then so he was topped up on formula after every tube feed of hardly any breast milk.

 

[Menelly]

I'm kind of hoping that happens. He came home today (yay!) so I'm going to hook up an SNS tomorrow once it arrives and see if that works. Otherwise, formula it is. I haven't gotten anything pumping. At all. :/

 

[kanga]

I took an iron supplement after my second and milk came in much sooner. If you lose a lot of blood in labour it can delay milk coming in. Don't worry , it will come x

 

[Kiwiberry]

For my milk to start to come in it took 3 days. For the milk to actually be more than a couple ml a pump took a couple of weeks. It takes awhile before I started producing a lot. It was good though because it did not take long before I produced more milk than my baby needed.

 

[Menelly]

Update to this thread: We're fairly sure one of my meds is what caused the problem in the first place, so we're exclusively formula feeding now. I can't risk my wanting to breastfeed to making him more ill. I'm kind of glad the decision was made for me though!

 

[kirstybumx3]

My milk never came in we tried real hard but all I ever got was a drop or two. X

 

[Menelly]

My milk never came in we tried real hard but all I ever got was a drop or two. X

That sounds like me. :/

 

[Kiwiberry]

Glad you figured out the issue .