Mykono,
You are doing exactly what LC told mommies to do to boost supply on your own! You really should join us and become a BM counsellor to share your experience. Many of the 30+ BM counsellors in Singapore are FTWM, they volunteer 2 hours per week helping BM mommies.
Mykono & Pat
I really would like to invite you and mommies who had breastfed their babies for 6 months to become BM counsellors to help other mommies. If you are interested, pls let me know, I will pass along the info to you.
Hi Sheena,
I used to take fernugreek too previousely, but after the counselling course, I've stopped because the LC trainer told us that newer research found that it may have adverse effect.
According to breastfeeding guru, Dr Jack Newman, you can try taking Molitium (Domperidone), Molitium is a brand name and domperidone is the durg name. Just like Panadol is the brand name for paracetamol. It does have properties to increase breastmilk supply, and you don't need prescription from doctor to buy from Guardian. However I would still suggest you to get some advice from your gynae or PD before making any purchase. Any drug or supplement should only be the last resort to increase milk flow.
The most important issue is to latch on correctly, then you would minimise sore nipple in the first place and once baby latch on properly, he gets more milk, hence stimulate your supply better. Just as Mykono said, if you prefer to feed your baby expressed breast milk, that's fine, but remember to pump regularly every 1-2 hour to stimulate supply. Differed from Mykono, I would advice against supplementing with FM, from experience and resources in the BMSG, supplementing FM (especially midnight feeds) is one of the main reason reducing supply of breast milk. Statistics show that FM feed at night does not necessary enable baby to sleep over night. Before they are 3 month old, you have to wake them to feed every 2 hours, and before 6 months old, you still need to let them have their mid night feed. If You choose to supplement FM, you still have to pump every 2 hours initially to maintain and stimulate your supply.
It is hard the first few months, but after 3 to 6 months, it gets easier. Plus think of no waking up at night to fix milk, no sterilisation to do, and when you boy needs comfort(ie crying, fallen from bed), you just need to give him the breast, and he will calm down in seconds.
The new WHO children growth standards had just came out and it is now using exclusively breastfed babies as the norm for children growth. It shows that FM fed babies are usually 20-30% overweight than BM fed babies.
some useful link:
www.breastfeedingonline.com/newman.shtml
http://www.asklenore.info/breastfeeding/induced_lactation/domfaq/intro.html
http://www.who.int/childgrowth/standards/en/
http://www.breastfeeding.org.sg
sometimes this lousy mummy really dunno how to answer him
