Home Forums Induced Lactation aka Adoptive Breastfeeding Medical Interventions to Induce Lactation/Increase Milk Supply Milk supply during accelerated protocol

Has anybody started out with the more "natural protocol" (dom, herbs), begun nursing your baby and THEN switched to the
accelerated protocol to try to get more milk?

I am wondering what happens to your milk supply during the protocol. Do you dry up? I am nursing my adopted baby (2.5 months old) and toddler. My baby might not notice the difference since my milk supply is so low and we are doing the formula + Lact-Aid, but toddler would, and a dry up would essentially mean weaning... I think.

I don't pump but I hand express four times a day and get about 1/2 oz each time. My baby gets the hand expressed milk in the Lact-Aid and I'm not sure she's getting much else since when I express after she feeds there's still milk left.

I have asked Lenore some questions about this and am waiting for her reply but any experience to share meanwhile would be most welcome.

Lisa
Mother to Agave and Aloe.

unfortunately yes... your supply will dry up on the protocol.

Is there a reason you aren't pumping right now? I would think pumping after feeds would increase your supply.

Thanks for the responses.
I just started Goat's Rue a week or so ago and Lenore advised to just see how that goes before thinking about the accelerated protocol. I think my supply has gone up, maybe by 1/4 so far.

About pumping: I find it difficult to pump after my baby nurses. There isn't anybody consistently around to take her and she doesn't always fall asleep (or stay asleep if I put her down). Besides, there's my toddler to attend to too. So, I'm finding it impractical to pump but I know others do it under difficult circumstances, so maybe I have no excuse not to. I don't get much milk pumping--I get much more hand expressing and that's a lot easier since I don't have to bring in all of the equipment.

Do you think that pumping, even if it yields less than hand expressing, is still worth it to increase supply? If I just did it 2 times per day and hand expressed the rest would it make a difference (that's about all I think I could do...)? When my parents were visiting a few weeks ago I pumped after each feed for one week hoping to see a significant increase in my supply and didn't see any difference. I felt disconnected from my kids since I was handing them off to my parents so much to pump, clean pump, make up Lactaid supplementers, etc. So, I stopped.

I was really hoping that my baby nursing would increase my supply (which I had at her birth because of my toddler) but it hasn't much so far. We had a big emotional shock around her adoption (a yes, no, yes situation after a previous traumatic failed placement) and I think I may have actually dried up then and have been slowly coming back since.

Thanks much for any advice to help with my pumping decision. I have a Pump in Style, a Limerick and I rented a Medela Symphony that I was planning on returning this coming week. Limerick is OK but didn't do better than others and I found the sensation of the flexible plastic breast things on me with milk squeezing in and out kind of bizarre. maybe i haven't given it enough of a chance...

I would think that if you hand expressed after every feed; you could collect some milk for the supplementer plus build your supply. Really emptying the breast does encourage the breast to make more milk.

If expressing is more possible than pumping; give it a try for a few weeks and see if you see a difference.

I think it's important to start with what you think you CAN do versus feeling overwhelmed with what seems impossible. Maybe hand expression after most nursings with pumping a few times a day for extra stimulation.

Patience