my milk has gone away!

[@llli*lllmeg]

i agree with mommal. milk production does not just grind to a halt due to a few hours or even several of not nursing. If you were ever able to make enough milk, you can again, and moms are typically able to make enough unless they have a specific hormonal or physical issue that prevents adequate milk production. However just fyi, one thing that will likely hurt production is most hormone based birth control methods-see http://kellymom.com/bf/can-i-breastf.../birthcontrol/

I am worried because a few things are jumping out at me from your last two posts. first, the poor latch and pain. if baby is unable to transfer milk well due to latch issues, that will harm supply over time, (as well as possibly prevent baby from getting enough) as will continuing long stretches of not nursing either due to scheduling feeds, just general busy-ness so you basically forget to nurse (yes it happens esp. for busy moms with undemanding babies!) long sleep stretches, or separations & supplementing-yes you were supplementing with your own milk which is great but even so that means supplementing and pumping for part of the time rather than nursing, and that is another potential supply harming thing.

All these things taken together may indeed begin to harm milk production. So yes as mommal suggests, it may be time to take a 'nursing vacation' as much as is possible and nurse as much as you can. I also suggest that if latch is still an issue you may want to think about seeing someone about that. An IBCLC maybe...
in some places moms can get professional breastfeeding assistance free or low cost. for example, where I live the county WIC program offers lactation assistance-even for moms who are not on WIC in some cases.

here are ideas for gently encouraging baby to nurse. http://kellymom.com/bf/concerns/child/back-to-breast/

[@llli*momaplus5]

thank you. you all are so wonderful. okay so here is what is happening now. she goes quite a while without pooing but i think i read somewhere that can be normal? her wet diapers seem ok. i mean every time i change her they are pretty good and wet. i just cant help but still feel like shes not getting satisfied. shes on the left breast for no more than a minute. it pretty much stops comin out the way she likes anyways, and she just fights and cries if i try to keep her on it. right breast last maybe 5 minutes sometimes a little more. then shes starts jerkin her head and fussing and eventually i have to take her off give her her binky and try and calm her. her belly used to get round and look full. it never does anymore, it always looks thin and squishy. it just so hard to think everything is ok when you constantly have to see your daughter cry and fight for her milk. i just look at her and i dont think she has that ahh im full and satisfied look to her like she used to. sometimes i cant get her to even last a couple hours and if i try to feed her theres like almost nothin for her to drink. i feel her feedings should last longer than 5-7 minutes total. and m left breast, well its just getting on my last nerve! i dont understand why this cant be easy for us. its supposed to be natural and natural should be easy. this is how i feel. i try to tell myself everything will be fine. as does my hubby. its just so incredibly hard. i feel helpless. and i do everything i know how, the fenugreek milk herb pills, the tea, oatmeal, water. i know my daughter should be more content after a feeding. well i feel she should. im going to try to go into town and see a lactation cons next week.

[@llli*mommal]

After 6 weeks, it's normal for an exclusively breastfed baby to go as long as a week, sometimes more, without pooping. This is because breastmilk digests very completely, leaving little waste behind. So if a six week-old baby is producing plenty of pee diapers but her poop frequency has slowed way down, there's no immediate cause for concern!

It's very normal for babies to go through a fussy period when mom's supply adjusts and the milk doesn't flow quite as easily as it used to. This is when many moms start supplementing or trying to pump their milk volume back up int overdrive, trying to spare their babies that frustration. But what they should be doing is letting the baby nurse. Up until now, baby had it pretty easy: milk was overabundant and required little effort to obtain. But now baby has to learn a new skill. She has to learn to be an efficient, effective nurser, who can get maximum milk out of a relatively less full breast.

There's no "should" when it comes to feeding length. Babies are very individual when it comes to how long it takes them to nurse. My first kid nursed for 30-60 minutes at a time until around 5 months. My second fed in just 5-10 minutes from around her second day of life.

Just keep persisting, mama! And remember that just because something is natural does not mean it's easy. Childbirth is natural, but that doesn't make it easy!

[@llli*auderey]

sometimes i cant get her to even last a couple hours and if i try to feed her theres like almost nothin for her to drink.

i agree with all the advice yo u've been given here, just wanted to chime in on this: you really SHOULDN"T be "trying to get her to last". remember boobs are not bottles; they continually fill, and the way to get them to fill more is by emptying them more. getting babies to wait between feeds so there's more milk when they eat DOES NOT WORK, in fact, tells your body to make LESS milk. so just keep putting her to the breast, switching sides, nurse whenever she seems to want it or is unhappy for ANY reason, even if it's been just 5 mins since she last nursed.

i'm so glad to see you're still hanging in there with this, and i would be $20 that, when you turn the corner on learning how to do this - for lots of people it gets way easier around 8-9 weeks, and then again around 3-4 months - you are going to be SO THANKFUL you're nursing instead of doing bottles/formula, because it's just so much easier. and that'll free you up to hang with your other children. it is so worth it to be persistent now!