As a first-time mom, I remember getting ready to nurse my daughter one time and just watching milk spray from my breast – not leak, literally spray like a tiny fountain. I had no idea this was an overactive letdown at that time. Now, after two more babies, and overactive letdowns with all three, I am well-versed in breastfeeding with an overactive letdown!
It IS possible to have a very successful breastfeeding journey with an overactive letdown, but in my experience, it has taken some tweaking on my end, especially in the early weeks of breastfeeding.
There are also more signs of an overactive letdown than just seeing milk spray from your breast. So let’s talk about how to figure out if you have an overactive letdown and how to work around it!
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What is an Overactive Letdown?
Let’s take a step back and talk about just a normal letdown – what is that? “Letdown” just means that once your baby starts nursing, the sucking motion signals to your brain to release milk from your breast through a rush of hormones called prolactin and oxytocin. Prolactin produces the milk, and oxytocin gets the milk flowing to and out of the nipple.
When you have an overactive letdown it’s literally just milk being ejected at a much faster pace. By that I mean, so fast your baby probably can’t handle it, especially in the early weeks of breastfeeding when your baby is still learning how to latch and remove milk.
Imagine if you thought you were going to be drinking water through a straw but instead had to try to drink from a garden hose at full force. You probably wouldn’t be able to do that, right?!
That leads us to some signs of an overactive letdown.
Signs That You Might Have an Overactive Letdown
Signs of an overactive letdown are usually more apparent in your baby. Picture the garden hose example above. If that were you, you’d probably be pulling your mouth away from that immediately because there’s no way you could keep up. That’s what your baby is doing with your overactive letdown.
Signs of an overactive letdown in your baby:
- Fussiness at the breast (turning head away, crying, squirming)
- Getting choked up
- Frequent unlatching
- Poor latch (they’ll try a more shallow latch to get less milk or clamp down to try to stop the flow of milk)
- Gas
- Why does an overactive letdown produce a gassy baby?? An overactive letdown means your baby is getting a lot of foremilk and probably not enough hindmilk. This means your baby is getting lactose overload and not enough hindmilk (fatty milk) to help break down this overload of lactose, which leads to gas and belly aches.
My overactive letdown caused the most problems and was the most apparent with my third baby. He was gassy and cranky all the time, and even though he picked up breastfeeding like a pro before we ever left the hospital, he always gave me a shallow latch and eventually started fussing at the breast. He would squirm and jerk his head around to the point where we had a hard time getting in an actual feed.
With this being my third baby I pretty much assumed an overactive letdown was the culprit. Signs of an overactive letdown in yourself might be:
- Painful letdown
- Leaky breasts
- Milk spraying from breasts during a letdown if your baby hasn’t latched yet
- Oversupply
My letdowns were always painful (I don’t want to scare a first-time mom here – think more “intense” than “painful”), and I would always leak milk from the breast I wasn’t feeding on. I was also an oversupplier with my second and third babies.
Causes of an Overactive Letdown
So now you’ve figured out that you probably have an overactive letdown, but why do you have an overactive letdown?
The main culprit of an overactive letdown is an oversupply (an oversupply sounds great to moms that want to build a freezer stash, but from experience, I can assure you it is not). An oversupply is when your body truly makes more milk than your baby needs. If you are unsure if you qualify as an oversupplier, a lactation consultant could confirm this.
The other extremely common reason (for both first-time moms and veteran moms) is that in the early weeks of breastfeeding your body is trying to establish its milk supply and figure out how much to make for your baby.
Especially as a first-time breastfeeding mom, you will probably feel and look engorged in the beginning because your body just knows it needs to make milk. How often you feed and how much you empty your breasts during those feeds will teach your body how much milk to make.
A lot of times, after your breastmilk supply is established your engorgement will go away and your milk will be ejected at a normal pace again. So just because you might have an overactive letdown in the first few weeks does not mean it will stick around. It is more likely to stick around longer if you have an actual oversupply.
Be on the lookout for an upcoming post about how I overcame my oversupply during my second and third breastfeeding journies!
How to Work Around an Overactive Letdown
If you do have an overactive letdown it can make breastfeeding difficult and frustrating for both you and your baby. Don’t fret! There are simple things you can do to work around your overactive letdown and have an extremely successful breastfeeding journey.
Pump Off a Small Amount at the Beginning
For my third baby I bought a hand pump and would pump off anywhere from 10-15 hard sprays of milk before latching my baby. The Lansinoh hand pump was my favorite. It was super easy to use and put together after washing.
This served two purposes for me personally:
- It would get rid of that initial overactive letdown – the sprays that would have absolutely drowned my baby. By the time I would latch him the flow would slow down enough that he could handle it.
- Since I truly had an oversupply, that meant my baby was getting lactose overload. He would be full before ever getting enough fatty milk, which led to gas and a belly ache, which led to a crying baby, which led to me wanting to let him nurse for comfort, which led to another belly ache, and the vicious cycle would continue – until I figured out what was going on biologically. This leads me to my next tip.
Block Feeding
If you truly have an oversupply then nursing on demand might not be your best option. The more often you nurse, the more you signal to your body to produce more milk which is the opposite of what you want at that point.
Block feeding is only feeding on one side during one nursing session. You don’t offer the second breast when block feeding, and you typically wait three hours between feeds.
I didn’t even know there was a term for this when I started doing this with my third baby. I just knew that every time I offered the second breast he would throw up and my gut was telling me he was getting too much, so I just stopped offering the second breast.
I didn’t know I had an oversupply with my third baby until I met with a lactation consultant to get all of the kinks worked out. We did a weighted feed and figured out my baby was taking in 3 ounces in just 5 minutes from only one side. He was a very efficient little guy! So obviously, offering the second breast to him was just too much for him to handle.
Block feeding also helped reduce lactose overload in my baby, therefore reducing his gas and discomfort.
This is another great reason to have a hand pump, because if you only nurse on one side then your other breast will still be full and you might start to feel uncomfortable. Use your hand pump to only pump off enough milk to get rid of the discomfort until your next nursing session.
If you want to know more about the ins and outs of block feeding, then stay tuned for that upcoming post! I eventually was able to stop block feeding and would love to share that journey with you!
Nurse in a Reclined Position
I’ve always loved the cross-cradle position when starting off breastfeeding, but with an overactive letdown, I was just blasting my baby with milk.
One of the best positions you can nurse in with an overactive letdown is in a reclined position where your baby is basically lying on top of you belly to belly. Once you get the hang of this position it is actually really relaxing and I would often close my eyes and rest once my baby started going!
I did find it rather difficult to latch my baby when I was already reclined back and when my baby had no head control yet. I thought it was much easier to sit up and latch baby in a typical cradle position then recline back and reposition his legs.
This means that when your milk is coming out gravity is working against it, and your baby won’t get choked up. This is a very natural position for your baby as well and provides an opportunity for skin-to-skin.
Use Nursing Pads
A lot of times an overactive letdown means leaky breasts – especially if you implement block feeding. Until your supply regulates you will probably want to have nursing pads in your bra. I prefer reusable nursing pads because they are softer and the disposable ones irritate my nipples.
Most of my leaking would occur during nursing on the side my baby wasn’t feeding on. Some women leak so much that they can attach a Haaka to their breast or put a milk catcher in their bra and collect these small amounts to create a small freezer stash.
I never leaked that much, but enough that I needed it soaked up, so nursing pads were a must.
Pump Sparingly
Remember, the main culprit of an overactive letdown is an oversupply. If we are nursing our babies and then pumping on top of that to try to build a freezer stash then we are signaling to our bodies to create more milk.
Creating more milk when you already have too much can cause clogged milk ducts which can be very painful and can even lead to mastitis. This is why if you are block feeding you only use your hand pump on the other breast to relieve pressure and discomfort, not to completely empty the breast.
If you want to build a freezer stash without creating an even worse oversupply then read this post (coming soon)! I was able to freeze 400 ounces of milk during my maternity leave all while getting my oversupply under control!
I implemented all five of these tactics and got my overactive letdown under control to the point that I felt like I finally had a “normal” breastfeeding journey. It’s important to note that you won’t always have to do these things. When your supply is established (mine has always taken about three months) you will probably be able to slowly wean off most or all of these tactics.
I also attribute all of my knowledge to lactation consultants. They are invaluable. I have seen a lactation consultant for one reason or another with all three of my babies and have learned so much. It helped me feel confident in trusting my natural instincts. If you ever have any doubts, get in touch with a lactation consultant. With my third baby, I had a lactation consultant come to my home and it was so much better than having to drive somewhere!
You CAN successfully breastfeed with an overactive letdown!