Hi everyone, I have been bf'ing my 3 month old daughter exclusively since she was born, and it has been going great. However, this past week she has been sick with RSV so her appetite was much smaller than it usually is. She was eating every 4 hours during the day instead of every 2, and each feeding session was much shorter than when she was healthy. I was pumping as much as I could but taking care of a sick baby was pretty demanding, so I was not able to pump as much as she would normally eat. Plus, I only have a manual pump that takes forever to express any milk. Now that she is starting to feel better and her appetite is back, it's pretty clear that my milk supply has dwindled considerably. She is at my breast constantly, but she is not having as many wet diapers as she used to and she still seems hungry after each feeding. She's not sleeping for longer than 2 hours, even at night (she was sleeping 5-6 hours before she got sick). Please help us...what do I do? I have some EBM frozen but she has never been good about taking a bottle.

TIA,
lydia

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Lydia
mama to Annabelle Faith 11/22/07

There are a few things you can do, Lydia, don't worry!

First of all, just nurse as much as you can, the more stimulation the more milk your boobs will make. That is probably the best thing you can do to get your supply up. A lot of people will take a "nursing vacation" and stay with baby to nurse. Get your DH or somebody else to take care of the house and whatnot and just nurse as much as you can. Second, oatmeal every day helped me. Also you can try Mother's Milk tea, or other herbal supplements. Fenugreek is supposed to help but you have to take enough that you start smelling like maple syrup.

One thing to consider, she is now 3mos old and it is very likely that she is going through a growth spurt and it's not a supply issue at all. Well, it is *sorta* a supply issue, but a natural one. She may be a little dehydrated from the RSV still, so is taking in all the moisture she can. She won't sleep for as long because she needs more nutrients for that growth spurt, but overall her sleeping hours per day may go up.

Don't forget, the baby is always better than the pump at getting milk, so don't judge your supply on what you can pump. Some women can't pump anything out at all but never have a supply problem at all. One trick you can use while pumping is to get a picture of Annabelle and look at it and imagine her nursing while you're pumping. It is all very psychological

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I agree. Your supply is most likely fine. Nurse nurse nurse and it will be ok!

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***Sara***
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ditto to everything kara said, howeever. *if* she is not having adequate wet sipes, you *might* consider using some of the froaen milk to supplement her, either with an sns to further encourage your supply building or with a cup (see kellymom's great section on alternate feeding methods for more info- i don;t have time to grab you a link right this minute, but i will if i cna make it back on again later).

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