Okay ladies, my baby is 8 weeks old today and I've I struggled with oversupply for about 6 weeks now. I began trying block feeding a couple of weeks ago. I started slowly, and did 2 consecutive days of 4 hour blocks. It worked! Then, when I went back to offering one breast per feeding, later that day my supply was crazy high again! So, I then did a day of 6 hour blocks, followed by 2 days of 4 hour blocks, followed by 1 day of 3 hour blocks. Worked like a charm. However, as soon as I tried offering one breast per feeding again, 12 hours later my breasts are busting at the seams ready to feed quadruplets!! What gives?! Should I just do an even longer duration of blocked feedings? How long is too long.. I'd HATE to decrease supply too much. Lastly, has anyone done the method of using a pump to "empty" both breasts, then commence a normal feeding schedule afterwards to "re-train" your supply? Curious if it worked?
Thank you!
Hi dukes.mom! I see it's been a while since you posted this... How has it been going since then?
It can take a while for your supply to get in sync with your baby's needs, so it may still even out a bit going forward. How has your baby's weight gain been? Has he been gaining around 4-7 oz per week? Or has it been more than that?
I'm not sure what you mean about using a pump... It's not actually possible to empty your breasts -- the more milk that's removed, the more your breasts are stimulated to make. Any pumping in addition to nursing (unless the pumping session is actually replacing a nursing session) can increase supply.
I found that beating oversupply was a "2 steps forward, 1 step back" process. I would think I had the oversupply beat, and then it would come roaring back for what seemed like no reason at all. The best thing I could do was to resume block feeding when the oversupply came back. Every time I repeated the block feeding process, I found that the oversupply was a little less severe when it returned. So, patience and persistence- that's the way to go!