Hi Firefly, it is very nice of you to want to continue providing baby with breastmilk for as long as you can.
I am currently doing that for my second child, a two-week old infant. My eldest was on breastmilk for over two years. I don't know how long exactly I can adequately provide breastmilk for, but I just take each day as it comes; sometimes, to
set a deadline like "oh, my eldest had only BM and not a drop of FM, so I must make sure I do that for this baby also so I must hit twpo years plus", I find that too daunting and it gives me unnecessary stress, thus wld think its a good idea to take one day at a time.
Over these few years, I found there are some things that work for me to maintain or up my supply.
For me, bullfrog (and for my tastebuds, kong po tin gai!!! Yum!) seriously ups my supply, quantity and quality. If you're interested, maybe glance at my other posts on this and favourite stall. One good serving can up my supply by abt 30 percent.
Other foods that work for me include threadfin and baby kailan. Sashimi is also good stuff, good for my happiness (esp with Asahi), good for milk (can taste and see the salmon oil floating in the milk, i eat loads you see)
Sleep and hydration is also key for me. Lots of water and at least four hours of sleep per night.
Crying and stress makes my supply plunge. Not that this compels husband to keep my happiness quotient tip top, nay,, didnt work... Kekeke
Papaya soup does nothing for me. I did not try fenugreek and the teas and stuff. Explored a little before, but did not. I think there are some veteran breastfeeding moms here that did and found them useful.
The other thing that is impt is good lactation massage techniques. Proper drainage of breastmilk is very impt. My LC taught me well and fast. One session 3.5 yrs ago and I remember till now everything. She is wonderful. And painful too. Hahaha. She is a dear. We keep in close touch til now. Just met her boss the other day. She "kneaded" me twice within a few hours that day and was a good refresher. I nearly flew off my chair. Clear ducts are very impt,
Domperidone also helped me, esp when we were in London and Paris when eldest was one plus. Negative two degree temperatures, stress and no home support can really threaten bm supply. Domperidone was really useful, coz didnt have bullfrog there. Did rabbit daily though, as our apartment was right beside Harrods and rabbit was cheaper than pork.
Btw, the stuff I wrote on above helped me have more than enough supply for two year plus, i'm not talking abt the first few weeks or mths post birth when hormones are raging. We are very aware of what helped and what didnt as we kept very concise records of ml per breast per pump. I did charting, stats and at one point, even tried calculating speed of flow per minute. Had KPIs too. Haha, that time only one kid, so quite "eng" to run it like a breastmilk enterprise. My highest yield daily was 1.8 litres (prob only for 2mths of that ) while i think the average for most mths after settling down was 1 litre. At two years, I was yielding a daily of 900 + ml, two pumps daily. Btw, i was an "A" cupper pre birth, so it is not true that bigger breasts yield more milk and I'd diss anyone who claims that.
For right now, i am keeping far away from frog, wldnt wanna walk around with salad on my tits again. I had to do that for a few days after this birth and my eldest was laughing away as i pretended to eat cabbage out of my bra! Kekeke
