Did you know that many of us will notice a supply drop right before our period is going to start and lasts through the period? This is caused by hormone shifts in your body. During this time, as supply dips, the milk flow slows and the milk can taste saltier than normal. Some babies become frustrated with this change. They may grab the nipple with their mouth and shake their head back and forth. Pop on and off the breast. Knead or beat the breast with their hands or become extra fussy at the breast. They may even cluster feed and act as if they’re still hungry. They’re trying all the strategies to get your milk to flow how they prefer. This is a temporary dip but can be surprising the first time it happens. Remember: this dip can happen once or twice before you actually have a period as your hormones are shifting back into baby making mode. If your baby is older than 6 months and eating lots of solids, you may not notice a difference. The strongest behaviors are seen under 6 months when babies need an exclusive milk diet. You may also notice the dip if you’re a pumper.
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What can you do about it? Knowing it can happen is the first step. Stay well hydrated and eat quality nutrition. Many find adding in a calcium/magnesium supplement (1000mg of calcium/500mg magnesium per day split into 3-4 “doses”) can help combat the drop. Others find adding in lactation specific herbs or supportive foods help. Iron rich foods like dark leafy greens and red meat and milk making foods like oatmeal, almonds and fennel can really help. Keep offering the breast or pumping frequently. It will get better and your supply will come back up as soon as your hormones shift again after your period. It usually only lasts a few days.
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When did your period come back? Did you notice a supply dip?

Did you know that many of us will notice a supply drop right before our period is going to start and lasts through the period? This is caused by hormone shifts in your body. During this time, as supply dips, the milk flow slows and the milk can taste saltier than normal. Some babies become frustrated with this change. They may grab the nipple with their mouth and shake their head back and forth. Pop on and off the breast. Knead or beat the breast with their hands or become extra fussy at the breast. They may even cluster feed and act as if they’re still hungry. They’re trying all the strategies to get your milk to flow how they prefer. This is a temporary dip but can be surprising the first time it happens. Remember: this dip can happen once or twice before you actually have a period as your hormones are shifting back into baby making mode. If your baby is older than 6 months and eating lots of solids, you may not notice a difference. The strongest behaviors are seen under 6 months when babies need an exclusive milk diet. You may also notice the dip if you’re a pumper.
.
.
What can you do about it? Knowing it can happen is the first step. Stay well hydrated and eat quality nutrition. Many find adding in a calcium/magnesium supplement (1000mg of calcium/500mg magnesium per day split into 3-4 “doses”) can help combat the drop. Others find adding in lactation specific herbs or supportive foods help. Iron rich foods like dark leafy greens and red meat and milk making foods like oatmeal, almonds and fennel can really help. Keep offering the breast or pumping frequently. It will get better and your supply will come back up as soon as your hormones shift again after your period. It usually only lasts a few days.
.
.
When did your period come back? Did you notice a supply dip?

Did you know that many of us will notice a supply drop right before our period is going to start and lasts through the period? This is caused by hormone shifts in your body. During this time, as supply dips, the milk flow slows and the milk can taste saltier than normal. Some babies become frustrated with this change. They may grab the nipple with their mouth and shake their head back and forth. Pop on and off the breast. Knead or beat the breast with their hands or become extra fussy at the breast. They may even cluster feed and act as if they’re still hungry. They’re trying all the strategies to get your milk to flow how they prefer. This is a temporary dip but can be surprising the first time it happens. Remember: this dip can happen once or twice before you actually have a period as your hormones are shifting back into baby making mode. If your baby is older than 6 months and eating lots of solids, you may not notice a difference. The strongest behaviors are seen under 6 months when babies need an exclusive milk diet. You may also notice the dip if you’re a pumper.
.
.
What can you do about it? Knowing it can happen is the first step. Stay well hydrated and eat quality nutrition. Many find adding in a calcium/magnesium supplement (1000mg of calcium/500mg magnesium per day split into 3-4 “doses”) can help combat the drop. Others find adding in lactation specific herbs or supportive foods help. Iron rich foods like dark leafy greens and red meat and milk making foods like oatmeal, almonds and fennel can really help. Keep offering the breast or pumping frequently. It will get better and your supply will come back up as soon as your hormones shift again after your period. It usually only lasts a few days.
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When did your period come back? Did you notice a supply dip?

The Haakaa and similar manual pumps are extremely popular. I used one for the first few months after Peach was born. They typically suction on the opposite breast while feeding to collect “leaking” milk. It’s not an actual pump, but it does create a vacuum that removes milk from the breast. Like any product, it can be a wonderful tool or inadvertently cause problems.

⭐️Caution: milk collected in a tool like this tends to be “drip milk”, meaning high water content and low fat. It can be good to relieve engorgment or pull off milk if baby is sleeping longer, but you’ll want to mix it with other pumped milk to ensure a good fat content.
🌀Use hand compression while it collects or hand express after to help pull fat into that milk.

⭐️Caution: more so than breast shells or milk collectors that passively sit in the bra, the suction adds extra stimulation and can increase milk supply, to the point of an oversupply. The extra milk pulled off during feeding tells the body that baby is REALLY hungry and eating all the milk that is actually feeding the freezer. The body makes more and more milk. This can result in an overactive let down which causes baby to cough, choke, and pull off the breast while you spray milk in their face.

⭐️For some the focus shifts from what the baby is doing to what the other breast is/isn’t doing. Instead of enjoying baby, you’re obsessed with the silicone bobble dangling from your boob. And an active baby may kick it off and make a mess.

⭐️Those who don’t drip a lot it may wrongly believe there is something wrong with milk supply and have unnecessary concern. This is especially true if you were used to high yield in the first weeks after birth and once your supply regulates you only see drops collected. Many panic at this drop when that’s actually normal.
🌀Accounting for every drop may make you feel like you’re failing at feeding. Even if baby is getting plenty of milk and feeding fine.

⭐️For those with a true low supply, the Haakaa may be taking milk from the other breast that baby actually needs to grow. Sometimes baby needs that milk and not the freezer.

On the flip side, the Haakaa and other silicone pumps can be a wonderful tool. They can be a huge relief to reduce engorgment. Did you know you can suction two of them on while you’re in the shower to reduce engorgment and help keep milk moving? Or collect last minute milk before you leave for work? I’ve found they help pull out colostrum while baby is feeding better than an electric pump. they’re super handy for getting rid of a plugged duct or nipple blebs. For someone with a low milk supply, this tool could be the difference between supplementing your own milk vs formula. It can mean freedom from an electric pump while creating a stash for going back to work. Some see this as their way of giving back through milk donation. It is a fabulous tool to use for hand expression. It’s just the right shape and size for hand expressing milk when you don’t have an electric pump or don’t want to drag a pump with you. It’s easy for traveling, with no extra parts to lose or clean.

Understanding the tool is the most important thing. If you have an overactive let down and choking baby, consider reducing your Haakaa use. If you’re struggling with an oversupply, know that the Haakaa may be your problem. If you’re 4-6 months into your journey you may not collect as much as you used to when baby was 2 or 3 months old.

Breastfeeding babies tend to move through 3 sucking stages:

• Stimulation: A quick, light suck often done at the beginning of a feeding to stimulate a let down. The tongue cups the breast and baby’s lower jaw moves up and down while the tongue moves quickly. Breastfeeding hormones are released when nerves close to the nipple are triggered, and milk will usually begin to flow within 1-2 minutes. This may be mimicked by the “massage” or “stimulation” mode on your pump.

• Active feeding. Once the milk lets down (milk ejection reflex), baby should swallow every 1-3 sucks. This is active feeding. The lower jaw moves up and down rhythmically and drops just a little lower when the swallow actually happens. You might hear the swallow sound like a “puh” or “kuh”. Baby may take occasional breaks during active feeding to catch their breath. This is the “expression” or slower mode on the pump

• Flutter sucking. Towards the end of the feed, sucking slows down, jaw movements get less pronounced, there are fewer swallows, and baby may fall asleep or unlatch. Some call the fluttery sucking movements at the end of the feed “flutter sucking”. It’s a form of comfort nursing to help baby transition to sleep. Minimal milk is being transferred at this time and it’s ok to unlatch your baby is you are no longer hearing baby swallow.

Babies may alternate between these sucking phases several times during a single feeding. By changing the settings in your pump several times during a feeding session, you can get the pump to mimic how a baby would feel at the breast, triggering your body to let down and make more milk for the pump. If newborn baby is always using a stimualtion or flutter suck and you’re not hearing many swallows, work with an IBCLC to help figure out why and get baby feeding efficiently at the breast.

Pregnancy affects levels of estrogen and progesterone in your body. These hormones get the breasts ready for lactation and are responsible the breast changes you may experience. Estrogen stimulates growth of the breast duct cells and generates the secretion of prolactin, the milk making hormone. Prolactin stimulates breast enlargement and milk production. Progesterone supports the formation and growth of milk-producing cells within the glands of the breasts. In the 2nd trimester, estrogen levels continue to rise. Milk ducts continue to develop, making the breasts feel heavy or full. Some need to purchase a larger bra at this time as you can increase one cup size or several. A few days after birth when milk transitions from colostrum to mature milk, breasts can engorge and grow even more. For several weeks, breasts will feel full between feedings and soft after feeding. Eventually they will feel soft all the time and start to shrink back to pre-pregnancy size. Some breasts will stay large and some will shrink back significantly. Sometimes one can reduce in size and the other stay large.

I usually recommend not purchasing a bunch of bras while pregnant. You don’t know what size you’ll end up being and may waste money on expensive bras you won’t wear. Bralettes, nursing tanks with built in shelf bras, or soft wireless bras that have a lot of stretch can be helpful while your body is constantly changing. Once you’re several months into nursing, breasts may stabilize in size until you completely wean. Now it’s time to be re-measured for the support your girls deserve.

The composition and nutrients in your milk can be influenced by how you store and reheat your milk. Any containers that contact your milk should be clean and sterile. Avoid cross contamination with other foods when storing your milk in the fridge. It is acceptable to store breast milk for up to 4 days in the fridge (preferably the back, not the door, to prevent warming from the door opening). If you are going to freeze your milk try to freeze it within 24 hours of pumping it as the beneficial enzymes begin to change at approximately 25 hours. This doesn’t have to be a determining factor in the how quickly you freeze your refrigerated milk, but it’s worth it to store as soon as possible. If not used within 4 days, fresh breast milk should be transferred to the freezer in a clean, freezer-safe container and dated with the original pump time. It is acceptable to store breast milk in a freezer with an attached refrigerator for up to 6 months and in a deep freezer for up to 9-12 months, but the sooner it’s used the better. Nutrients in frozen breast milk are mostly preserved for 1 month, but after 3 months in the freezer, there is a noteworthy decline in concentrations of fats, calories and other macronutrients. Freezing kills some of the live antibodies found in your milk, so rather than freezing all of your pumped milk, feed as much fresh or refrigerated milk as possible.

• Breast milk stored in the refrigerator maintains most if it’s immune properties with break down starting after 25 hours.

• Heating breast milk at high temperatures (especially in the microwave—which is not recommended), can destroy the antibodies and other immune factors in your breast milk.

• Frozen breast milk loses some of its healthy immune factors, but not all.

The goal is not to put gas in a tank to see how far it can go between top ups. It’s to teach a tiny human to listen to their body and it’s needs from an early age to help them grow and develop.

This is FEEDING. How you feed is different than how I feed. How your family feeds is unique and not how my family feeds. From what we eat, to how often we eat, to when we eat it’s such an individual process!! Some adults are grazers. They like to snack on small meals all day. They sip water throughout the day and always have a water bottle handy. Some babies are like this, too. Some adults are bingers. They eat really big meals less often. They only drink water in big glasses around meal times. Some babies are like this, too. And there’s everything in between. The goal is not to reach some magic number of ounces in a limited number of feedings because an internet blog said baby needed x number or ounces in 4 feedings a day. That can cause undo stress. The goal is to learn your unique baby’s feeding habits and help them foster those habits within your family context as they grow and develop into a bigger and bigger human.

All mammals have nipples as they feed their live young milk from their bodies. Marsupials and eutherian mammals typically have an even number of nipples arranged in pairs on both sides of their bodies, from as few as two to as many as 19 pairs. Some 5,600-6,000 species of mammals feed their young milk, and thus have mammary glands, but not all mammals have breasts (or nipples!!). In humans, areola surrounds the nipple in a round shape and comes in varying sizes, on average 3 to 6 centimeters. It has sebaceous (oil) glands that make projections on its surface (those little bumps that form in pregnancy). Those little bumps secrete an oil that smells like amniotic fluid to help baby use smell to find the nipple to latch to. In the center of the areola is the nipple, again in a wide variety of sizes shapes and lengths, and can be 10 to 27 millimeters (mm) wide by 1 to 10 mm in height. Its skin is similar to the areola, but has no oil glands. It has 4 to 20 pores where milk can come out. The skin of the nipple rests on a thin layer of smooth muscle, called areolar muscle fibers which are distributed in two directions: radial and circular. The muscle of Sappey responsible for circular fibers and the muscle of Meyerholz, formed by the radial fibers. Contraction of these muscles is responsible for the erecting of the nipples during stimulation and breastfeeding as well as the ejection of milk from the breast.

Our bodies are not symmetrical. Most people make more milk on the right and have a slightly larger left breast. Did you know even your nipples can be different sizes, shapes, and lengths? They may be positioned in slightly different places on your breast. This can sometimes make latching on one side more difficult than the other. You may also need to pump with different size or brand pump flanges to maximize pump comfort and output. Each breast can have a different flow, volume and TASTE of milk even in the same feeding or pump session. We also have hand preferences and can find it easier to latch on one side versus the other. Some times trying different positions or angles of bringing baby to breast can be helpful when practicing.