Slow Let Down

[MrsMomma]

My daughter is 3.5 months old and EBF. I've been back at work for 3.5 weeks now and the transition has been going great until this week. She gets 2 sometimes 3 bottles a day, no issues. However, a few days ago, I started having an issue getting my milk to let down when nursing her. While pumping at work I never had any issues but once I got home from work and was trying to nurse, she would latch on, take a few sucks then start screaming because she wasn't getting what she wanted.

I'm assuming part of the issue here is that she's gotten too used to the bottle, but I'm not sure. I'm trying everything I can to up my supply because I know I haven't been eating or drinking as much as I should.

I've been crying for the last couple hours because I just can't let go of this yet. However, my poor girl is just miserable half the day and I hate seeing her like that. The only way I've been able to get her to eat is if I massage my breasts before nursing to start my let down. Is our breastfeeding journey over, or is this just a phase? I'm so upset.

Any tips would be greatly appreciated...

 

[noon_child]

Doesn't sound like your let down is slow...just maybe slower than she wants. I don't think bf is over for you, although it might be a bit more of a hassle with the massaging to do before hand.

Perhaps she's also going through a growth spurt? My LO could never be bothered to wait during growth spurts and I had to massage my breasts and do breast compressing to jeep her on the boob! So if it is that, maybe it will get better in a week or so.

Is the person who is giving her bottles doing paced feeding (or something similar) where she has to work a bit to get her milk?

 

[RaquelDee]

I went through a similar thing with my bub at around the same age. She wasn't bottle fed at all, so that had nothing to do with it in our case, it was a phase. She just didn't have the patience to wait for let-down with evening feeds when she was tired. It happened on and off for around a month between 3.5 and 4.5 months, and then she just got over it. It was really stressful at the time, which of course compounded the problem because I'd get tense when she started fussing, and that would make my let-down slower.

Our solution was for me to hand her over to my partner once she started crying, and then pump to get a let-down going, and then put her back on. A few times we actually had to get her to have a catnap and then I'd feed her once she woke up but was too drowsy to fuss. After a while of this it just stopped being a problem, she became less impatient, I was less stressed, and feeding went back to normal. So I think there's definitely hope for you.

 

[minties]

The exact same thing happened with us when Sophie was 3.5 months old and I wasn't working and she never had any bottles. The more upset or nervous about it I felt, the longer it took for the letdown to occur, and then she got more upset and my letdown wouldn't happen at all. It seemed to be some sort of phase and it did pass.